We desire to join most heartily in the congratulations that
have been offered this week to Mr. Henry James on his seventieth birthday. Mr. Henry James has not only proved himself a great personal and intellectual force in fiction, but he has no doubt profoundly affected a very large number of his contemporaries. This is not the place to criticise either the work or the man, but we do desire to express our unbounded admiration for the temper and good breeding which he has shown in his long literary life. We can remember no example in which he has exhibited the spite, the smallness, the irritation, or the self-consciousness which too often mark literary controversies. No man has bad his work more severely criticised, but Mr. James has always taken his punishment like a man. He has never been bitter and has never complained of want of recognition. In these qualities he offers a notable example to all who follow the trade of letters.
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