New-York tribune., 1920-04-11
By Edna Kenton
TINE lives and letters of eminent
instances" are fearsome things
with which to deal. Tn tho

'iE lives and letters of eminent
instances" are fearsome things
with which to deal. To the
very depths of his inward life
Henry James always was interested in
the strange attempts of mankind st
biography and autobiography. Twice.
before he began his. three volumes of
personal impressions, he undertook the
biographer's task, and his "William
Wetmore Story and His Friends" in
especial should make every wary biog-
rapher-to-be pause to take counsel from
that high example of the material of life
, dedicated to an aesthetic ideal. He
wrought in full ronic wisdom when he
began at last, with "a Small Boy" peer
ing exquisitely from behind "Others"
and the born and dedicated artist youth
Ymasked by the "Notes" of an indirect
son and Brother to employ the au-
Topographic form. That 'The Middle
Years. was left unfinished always
will be the artists tragedy, in the
gNmmering light of the just published
Letters OF Henry James," letters Of
the middle years
Letter to Mrs. Story
For among them is letter to Mrs.
Waldo Story which treats genially of
the matter Of Lives" He tells her
ever SO gently that her material was
mot material for biography pure and
simple. The subject didn't lend itself
to that and had to make out.
for myself, what my material did lend
itself TO. / have looked at the
picture, as it were. given me by all your
material, as a picture-the image or
evocation, charming, heterogeneous and
little ghostly-of great cluster Of
people, society practically extinct,
with Mr.. and Mrs. Story, naturally,
all along, the center, the prctext, so
to speak, and the point dappui. This
course was the only one open TO me
it was imposed with absolute logic.
The book was not makable at all un-
lcxs l used the letters of other people,
and the letters Of other people were
usable with effect only so far as l
could more or less evoke and present
other people
This evocation Of causes behind the
Life" made the volumes on William
Wetmore Story unique in the serried
rows of biography. The same sort Of
evocation makes ga Small Boy and
Others" and "Notes OF Son and
Brother" unlike any other autobiog-
raphy known to the reading world, and
these Letters" taken up where "The
Middle Years" dropped, emphasize the
greatest flaw in the frame that its au-
thor purposed to set about the art life
of his age.
Mt. Percy Lubbock, editor of these
two beautiful volumes of letters, pub
ished in two volumes by Scribner's,
frankly disclaims, in his appreciative
Introduction. any attempt at evocation
of the unfinished "Middle Years" save
as its images and ghosts peer through
the genial letters themselves They
are linked together by the quietcst OF
predatory data on the surface life of
the "periods' in which they are divid-
ed, and by the briefest of explanatory
notes attached now and then to in
dividual letters. This is the deferen-
tial method used by John ". Cross in
his Life of George Eliot" a life of
which Henry James was, for many rea-
sons. particularly fond, and Mr.. Lub-
books choice OF simple presentation is
one Of sincere taste
Touched with Sympathy
But whereas George Eliot's linked
letters do tell us so completely, so odd
ly at times, her life, which, despite her
obvious yearning and even more OBJ
vious obsession, was quite other than
the aesthetic life, Henry James's letters,
exquisite, amused and amusing, brush