he common-place. Henry James alone confronts the
universe with only one passion, with only one purpose, with only
one obsession--the passion and the purpose of satisfying his
insatiable curiosity upon the procession of human motives and the
stream of human psychological reactions, which pass him by in their
eternal flux.

This cold, calm, detached intellectual curiosity, free from any moral
alloy, renders him an extraordinary and unique figure; a figure that
would be almost inhuman, if it were not that the fury of his research
is softened and mitigated by a deep and tender pity for every sort
and condition of frail human creature subjected to his unwearied
scrutiny.

This is one of the basic contradictions of Mr. James' fascinating
personality, that he is able to retain the clear and Olympian
detachment of his purely aesthetic curiosity and yet to betray a
tenderness--why should one not say, in the best meaning of that
excellent word, a goodness of heart?--in his relations with his
characters, and with us, his unknown readers, who so easily might
be his characters.

It is one of the profoundest secrets of art itself, this contradiction,
and it reveals the fact that however carefully a great spirit may
divest itself of philosophy and system there is a residuum of
personal character left behind--of personal predilection and
taste--which all the artistic objectivity in the world cannot overcome.

I am myself inclined to think that it is this very tenderness and
friendliness in Henry James, this natural amiability of disposition
which all his detachment and curiosity cannot kill, that makes him
so much more attractive a figure than the sombre Flaubert whose
passion for literary objectivism is touched by no such charm.

It is a matter of great interest to watch the little tricks and devices of
a genius of this kind preparing the ground, as one might put it, for
the peculiar harvest of impressions.

What Henry James aims at is a clear field for the psychological
emotions of people who have, so to speak, time and leisure to
indulge themselves in all the secondary reactions and subtle
ramifications of their peculiar feelings.

The crude and intrusive details of any business or profession, the
energy-absorbing toil of manual or otherwise exhausting labour,
prevent, quite naturally, any constant preoccupation with one's
emotional experiences. A Maxim Gorky or a Thomas Hardy will
turn the technical labours of his emotion