The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-04-05

readers than that of the former volume
The scene also, for nearly nineteenth.
or the present volume pertains to Amer.
lea, an America already old fashion-C
enough. but by no means SO dim will
distance as the very old New York Of
The hfties and even of the later for
ties, and appealing as within the ker
or their own memories to a proper
tionatcly larger circle. Here as there
the attempt Is an eNocation or revoca
tlon of atmosphere and here as there
the attempt Is often attended with
high success. And upon the whole
this book is not 80 difficult as that
which does not at all mean that 1t is
easy reading.
One most Illuminating piece OF infor-
nation, which really belonged to the
earlier "reminiscences, one IL neverthe-
less grateful to find in the later, and
that Is clearer statement of the sources
OF Subsistence OF the family. Accord
ing to one of Mr.. Kipllng's characters
the most interesting question in the
world Is how the next man gets his
victuals. This question Is more than
usually interesting about the Jameses
because ii Is also question of how
they came to be able. as Lowell has
II. to sacrifice so little life for living
and how they could afford 40 COM
pletely TO please themselves and to fol-
low their own bents. The explanation
~ the obituary notice of the grand
father of the psychologist and the nov
elist, William James of Albany, pub
lished in the New York EreninO Post
OF December 20. 1882. Everywhere
we see his footsteps. turn where we
may, and these are the results OF his
informing mind and his vast wealth.
His plans OF Improvement embraced
the entire city. and there is scarcely a
street or square which does not ex-
hibit some mark OF his hand or some
proof of his opulence. With the ex-
ception of Mr.. Aston, no other business
man has acquired so great a fortune
in this State. To his enormous estate
of three millions of dollars there are
nine surviving heirs. His enterprises
have for the last ten years furnished
constant employment for hundreds Of
our mechanics and laborers."
The present descendant and heir in
sists that the heirs were underesti-
mated, there being a round dozen of
them to share instead of the stated nine,
and intimates that the amount of the
estate was exaggerated. One can
readily understand the tendency OF his
twelfth, whatever the amount may have
been, to shrink In the hands of the
second James, Henry Williamson, so to
say. unless there was some consan-
guineous business adviser" in the back
ground. and indeed one seems to recall
from the predecessor of this volume a
glimpse Of such a counsellor at the time
Of the portentous panic Of 81" when
he elder Henry was positively strait
ened for time. in so much that he re-
sorted tn the ordinary British expe-
dent of moving the family to Boulogne
in order to retrench. But. thanks to
The counsellor or to something or some
body else. there was recovery.
Throughout the period covered in this
later volume the Jameses. in spite of
large and expensive family undergoing
what their parents thought the best
education. seem TO have been in the
French phrase, entirely lat their ease"
This was surely we'll for them all. for
one is quite unable to see the elder
James as earning his living, excepting
possibly In the character of n Sweden
horgian pastor, to which function was
there not some impeachment of speech
which disabled him? That he was a
mastery writer of English was recog-
nized by persons studious of that art
long before his son had published any
thing and indeed long after, for his
striking "reminiscences of Carlyle, who
always. living or dead, operated on him
like a red rag on a bull. appeared In
the Atlantic shortly after the death OF
the splenctic sage. 1t was not the
manner of tns expression which him
dered the general appreciation OF him
az n mastery writer which the copious
specimens of his correspondence here
given so abundantly prove him to have
neen. 1t was the remoteness of his
topics. In the '30s and the early '40s
of the last century one can imagine an
even epidemical success for works en-
titled liberalism and Christianity" and
christianity and the Logic of Creation"
Regulations were won In those earlier
decades by books upon kindred subjects
no better and possibly not so good. But
in the sos. when the books actually
appeared, though they were by no
means so estranged from contempt
raneous human interest" as they would
now be, the chance OF a great vogue
FOR them had passed. The author II
Uhl eNd'tly pourIpn suChleu IN
creed outworn, had overstayed his mar
ket. Thinking people were already
thinking about something else. But the
writing. though very few modern
readers will know anything more about
ii than is preserved here, was unfail-
ingly and admirably good. Here it
gains by being composed Of extracts
from old letters giving quick and rapid
glimpses OF contemporary life rather
than of laborcd maintenanccS of theo-
logical theses. The workmanship Is so
good that IL seems a pity that even
here the interest Of the subject matter
has departed. As the Roman satirst has
justly remarked. time eats things
II really could not he expected that
o writer would appeal to "A very wide
audience to whom Swedenborg appeared
TO he neither difficult nor incredible hut
VINO found him fairly "inspid with ve-
racity.' Holding such views as these, IL
r. not surprising that the elder Henry
should have foregathered sympnthetl-
cally with Emerson, insomuch that at
the house In Washington place. between
the demolished University building In
Washington Square and the demolished
New York Hotel on Broadway. the
house in which the younger Henry was
born, there should have been II cham
ber known in the family as Mr. Finer
eNh's room" why Ralph Waldo should
have won and held 80 much wider an
audience than Henry does not clearly