say, from the beginning of the last five years of the Nineteenth to
the end of the first five years of the Twentieth century.

As a matter of fact, "The Golden Bowl," one of his most elaborate
and exhaustive masterpieces, was published in November, 1904; and
"The Sacred Fount," perhaps the most difficult as it is certainly one
of the most characteristic of all his stories, appeared very much
earlier. But taking his works as a whole, that epoch--from 1895 to
1905--may be regarded as his apogee, as his "Great Noon."

"The Awkward Age," for instance, the book of all others for which
initiated admirers have an insistent devotion, appeared in 1899,
while the collection of stories entitled "The Better Sort," which
includes that masterpiece of tenderhearted malice "The Beldonald
Holbein," came out in 1903.

As I have hinted, the whole question of selecting the period of a
great artist's manner which contains his most significant work is
largely a matter of taste; and the thing--as we have seen--is
complicated by all sorts of overlappings, reversions, anticipations;
but if I were myself pressed to suggest a brief list of books, which
might be found to contain the quintessential qualities both of Henry
James' attitude and his method, I should certainly include "The
Tragic Muse," "The Spoils of Poynton," "What Maisie Knew," "The
Ambassadors," "The Private Life" and "The Soft Side," whatever
else it were difficult to omit.

Putting everything he wrote together, and letting these
many-coloured opals and amethysts of intellectual imagination slide
through our passionate fingers, I would perhaps select "The Great
Good Place" as the best of all his short stories, and "The Tragic
Muse" as the best of all his longer ones.

One sometimes, at unfortunately rare intervals, comes across a
person who has really "collected" Henry James from the very
beginning. Such persons are greatly to be envied. I think perhaps,
they are the only bibliophiles for whom I have a tenderness; for they
prove themselves so much more than bibliophiles; they prove
themselves wise and prudent anticipators of the verdict of posterity.

It is impossible to enjoy the reprinted editions, in their tiresome
monotony of luxurious bindings, as delicately as one enjoyed these
first flowers of the author's genius, dewy with his authentic blessing.
I am myself proud to recall the fact that, before the nineteenth
century closed, I had secured a whole shelf of these sib