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208 J A M E S [ 1905 ]second book, Provincials. 36Early in the autumn he settled on a plan forDubliners. In the essay 'A Portrait of the Artist' and in Stephen Hero hehad emphasized the necessity of representing the self in its childish beginningsas well as in its completion. In Dubliners he saw the city itselfas a person, with four stages of life to be represented, the first by itschildren, the last by its settled figures:The order of the stories is as follows. The Sisters, An Encounter andanother story [Araby] which are stories of my childhood: The Hoarding-House, After the Race and Eveline, which are stories of adolescence: TheClay, Counterparts, and A Painful Case which are stories of mature life:Ivy Day in the Committee Room, A Mother and the last story of the book[Grace] which are stories of public life in Dublin. When you rememberthat Dublin has been a capital for thousands of years, that it is the 'second'city of the British Empire, that it is nearly three times as big as Venice itseems strange that no artist has given it to the world.* 37An ambiguity of motive creeps into his discussion of his book and city,is it not possible,' he asks Stanislaus on September 1, 1905, 'for a fewpersons of character and culture to make Dublin a capital such as Christianiahas become?' 39His old intention of excoriating the city was mixednow with a new one of creating a helpful guide to its improvement. Twoof the most savage of the stories, 'The Boarding-House' and 'Counterparts,'left him 'uncommonly well pleased' 40at first,but a week later, onJuly 19, he blamed their mercilessness on the Triestine heat: 'Many ofthe frigidities of The Boarding-House and Counterparts were written whilethe sweat streamed down my face on to the handkerchief which protectedmy collar.' The reading of Goldsmith made him uneasy, too, about hisportrait of modern society:The preface of The Vicar of Wakefield which I read yesterday [he wroteStanislaus on July 19] gave me a moment of doubt as to the excellence ofmy literary manners. It seems so improbable that Hardy, for example, willbe spoken of in two hundred years. And yet when I arrived at page two ofthe narrative I saw the extreme putridity of the social system out of whichGoldsmith had reared his flower, t Is it possible that, after all, men ofletters are no more than entertainers? These discouraging reflections ariseperhaps frommy surroundings. The stories in Dubliners seem to be indisputablywell done but, after all, perhaps many people could do them aswell. I am not rewarded by any feeling of having overcome difficulties.* In a letter of October 15, 1905, to Grant Richards, he emphasized the same intention:'I do not think that any writer has yet presented Dublin to the world. It has been a capitalof Europe for thousands of years, it is supposed to be the second city of the British Empireand it is nearly three times as big as Venice. Moreover, on account of many circumstanceswhich I cannot detail here, the expression "Dubliner" seems to me to have somemeaning and I doubt whether the same can be said for such words as "Londoner" and"Parisian" both of which have been used by writers as titles.' 38t A reference to the arrangement of marriages with a sharp eye to the fortunes of brideand groom.