ndless miracles of delicate observation and
countless felicities of delicate phrasing.

Like many another distinguished painter, Mr. Henry James has at least
three manners, following one another in the order of time; and there is
no certainty at which stage of his career he might be tempted to the
telling of this tale. Early in his evolution as a novelist, he might
have seized upon it as the promising foundation for an international
complication, altho even then he would have attenuated the more violent
crudities of the original story. Later, he might have been lured into
essaying the analysis of Juliet's sentiments, as she was swayed by her
growing attachment for Romeo, and as she was restrained by her
indurated fidelity to the family tradition. More recently still, Mr.
James might have perceived the possibility of puzzling us by letting us
only dimly surmise what had past behind the closed doors that shut in
the ill-fated lovers, and of leaving us in a maze of uncertainty and a
mist of doubt, peering pitifully, and groping blindly for a clew to
tangled and broken motives.

Perhaps it is idle thus to wonder how any one of a dozen novelists of
distinctive talent would have treated this alluring theme had he taken
it for his own. But of this we may be certain, that any novelist of
individuality who had chosen it would have made it his own, and would
have sent it forth stamped with his own image and superscription.
Indeed, the same tale told by Richardson and by Sterne, altho they were
contemporary sentimentalists, would have had so little in common that
the careless reader might fail to see any similarity whatsoever; and
probably even the pettiest of criticasters would feel no call to bring
an accusation of plagiarism against either of them.

(1905.)

INVENTION AND IMAGINATION

Probably not a few readers of Prof. Barrett Wendell's suggestive
lectures on the 'Temper of the Seventeenth Century in English
Literature' were surprized to be told that a chief peculiarity of the
greatest of dramatic poets "was a somewhat sluggish avoidance of
needless invention. When anyone else had done a popular thing, Shakspere
was pretty sure to imitate him and to do it better. But he hardly ever
did anything first." In other words, Shakspere was seeking, above all
else, to please the contemporary playgoers; and he was prompt to
undertake any special type of piece they had shown a liking for; so we
can see him borrowing, o