Aspects of James
SELECTED LETTERS OF HENRY JAMES. Edited and introduced by Leon Edel. (Hart-Davis, 16s,) OUT of James's 7,000 extant letters, a selection of 120 can only in the sketchiest way be called representative. Faced with such an unwieldy quantity of material, the editor has first established categories—aspects or periods of James's life which would cover every side of his correspondence—and has then pigeon-holed the letters firmly into them, preceding each chapter with an introduc- tion. So we have the young traveller, the neophyte on the edge of his great theme, first discovering Europe and his fellow-country- men abroad: impassioned, indefatigable, sickly, writing home intimate but always careful, always polished accounts—notebooks for his own future reference—of day-to-day impressions; then the businessman, the craftsman, acute, efficient, even hard-headed, a solider, more worldly James than is generally remembered; then the dramatist, the theatrical dilettante, informed, perceptive, but always unsuccessful and often angry at his failure. There is James in his familiar role of Master, the critic and literary mentor writing advice to his fellows or disciples, proudly professional and cling- ing, as Dr. Edel puts it, `to all the codes and conventions of his guild'; James writing what he calls 'mere twaddle of graciousness,' spinning thanks, evasion, or chitchat into something either exquisite or top-heavy; and James in the last days of sickness and the war.
One of Dr. Edel's most interesting editorial remarks is that some correspondents withheld James's letters as being too intimate for publication. Alas, he suggests, for their illusions! James shows an almost morbid talent for epistolary intimacy, an odd mixture of loquacity and reserve that leaves one charmed or sated by his affability, yet almost wholly ignorant of him as a person. The rather tentacular cordiality—muscular under the stylistic glitter, tough, even, under the circumlocutions—reaches out with equal force to friend after friend, even the same phrases appearing and reappearing, yet each time with apparent freshness and individu- ality, each correspondent feeling strongly, no doubt, the personal and magnetic moment of his attention. Always the artist, with his peculiar ruthlessness, is predominant : and many must have taken him for the whole man. The editorship is careful, accomplished. and discreet.
ISABEL QUIGLY
Previous page
