Volume VII - Modernist Magazines Project

By Lena Milman 75He is the least self-conscious of writers, but surely when, in"The Middle Years," he describes Buncombe as "a passionatecorrector, a fingerer of style," he lets slip an autobiographical detail;and, indeed, supposing all other sources of information to beclosed to us, we might construct a tolerably correct biography ofMr. James from the evidence of his works. We might detect,for instance, his American birth and education in his idiom, hisCeltic blood in his satire, his sympathy with English conventionin his dainty morality, his intimate knowledge of French in hislapses of Gallicism.With provincial France, indeed, where the poplars twinklebeside the white ways, he is as familiar as are but two of ourEnglish writers, Miss Thackeray and Mr. Wedmore ; and withParis too he is acquainted, not only in those her obvious aspectswhich opulent but illiterate youth can learn superficially in a weekor so, but also as the Paris beyond Seine that lounges in the shadeof the Luxembourg chestnut-trees, that saunters through the booklinedarcades of the Odeon, that hides its dignity in the bastionlikepalaces of the Faubourg Saint Germain ; the Paris that displaysits wealth in the Pare Monceaux, that flaunts its poverty onthe Buttes Chaumont.Occasionally Mr. James's unremitting warfare against theObvious, whether of epithet or of incident, has misled him intoartificiality. He should remember that whereas the Obvious inlife is always the most easily attainable, in art, convention has sofenced it round as to place it almost out of reach, and that sometimesstartling effect is best produced by perfect simplicity ofphrase. We cannot recall any passage in Mr James's stories aspoignant as poor wandering Clifford's cry in the " House of theSeven Gables " :" I want my happiness ! Many, many years have I waited forit!