aust." Doubtless the material of original poetry lies in all of us,
but in proportion as the mind is conventionalized by literature, it is
apt to look about it for models, instead of looking inward for that
native force which makes models, but does not follow them. This rose of
originality which we long for, this bloom of imagination whose perfume
enchants us--we can seldom find it when it is near us, when it is part
of our daily lives.

REVIEWS OF CONTEMPORARIES

HENRY JAMES

JAMES'S TALES AND SKETCHES[1]

[Footnote 1: _A Passionate Pilgrim, and Other Tales_. By Henry James, Jr.
Boston: J.R. Osgood & Co.
_Transatlantic Sketches_. By the same author.]

Whoever takes an interest, whether of mere curiosity or of critical
foreboding, in the product and tendency of our younger literature, must
have had his attention awakened and detained by the writings of Mr.
James. Whatever else they may be, they are not common, and have that air
of good breeding which is the token of whatever is properly called
literature. They are not the overflow of a shallow talent for
improvisation too full of self to be contained, but show everywhere the
marks of intelligent purpose and of the graceful ease that comes only of
conscientious training. Undoubtedly there was a large capital of native
endowment to start from--a mind of singular subtlety and refinement; a
faculty of rapid observation, yet patient of rectifying afterthought;
senses daintily alive to every aesthetic suggestion; and a frank
enthusiasm, kept within due bounds by the double-consciousness of humor.
But it is plain that Mr. James is fortunate enough to possess, or to be
possessed by, that finer sixth sense which we call the artistic, and
which controls, corrects, and discontents. His felicities, therefore,
are not due to a lucky turn of the dice, but to forethought and
afterthought. Accordingly, he is capable of progress, and gives renewed
evidence of it from time to time, while too many of our authors show
premature marks of arrested development. They strike a happy vein of
starting, perhaps, and keep on grubbing at it, with the rude helps of
primitive mining, seemingly unaware that it is daily growing more and
more slender. Even should it wholly vanish, they persist in the vain
hope of recovering it further on, as if in literature two successes of
precisely the same kind were possible Nay, most of them have hit upon no
vein at all, but picked up a nugget ra