New-York tribune., 1920-04-11
Letters Of I Henry James
Two Volumes of Exquisite, Amused and Anus
ing Epistles on People and Things

things with the lightest, tenderest,
most ironic and most sympathetic of
wings, give only the subtlest hints of
that inward life which he lived alone,
"appreciating" to the end, but, to the
end, unappreciated.
For "the faculty of attention" he OBJ
serves in one OF the letters, "has utter
ly vanished from the Anglo-Saxon
mind This was after "The Figure in
the Carpet" had been written, his plea
for little fine attention to his general
intention.
) Il find our art ell the while" he
wrote William Dean Howells, in 1908,
more difficult Of practice, and want,
with that, to do it in a more and more
difficult way; it being really, at bot
tom, only difficulty that interests me.
Which is most accursed way to be
constituted"
And in another letter:
II am damned critical. for it's the
only thing to be, and all else is damned
humbug'
How James Criticized
For criticism to him meant neither
carping nor ecstatic raving; it meant
attention to the whole of the particular
case which, solved, is appreciation.
One of the most delightful things in
the Letters" is the criticism Of his
friends "creations"; his appreciation.
that is to say, of their intention, of
their failure, and Of way they might
achieve.
But perhaps the most charming quail
isy of the Letters" is the way in which
certain phrases, ideas, scraps of de-
sign, flashes of aesthetic life lean from,
pages dated, some Of them, quarter Of
century before Henry James was Sc.
to work on his definite edition. to be
gathered up so much later and fused
into the great prefaces to the edition.
as the letters approach 1905 and from
then on these reminiscent phrases
pierce more thickly the letters in which
he writes of the art of art; letters
all too few for those readers who
have followed the impressions and
emotions, perceptions and limitations.
TIE aesthetic tinkles' at tie door Of
the Small, sacred consciousness"
painted in "a Small Boy" and "Notes
Of Son and Brother"
In one. letter filled with high aesthetic
hope, in 1908, he describes the COM
pleted prefaces as a sort of plea for
criticism, discrimination, appreciation
on other than infanti.e lines.
They ought he adds, COLLECTED to-
gether, none the less, to form sort
ot comprehensive manual or yada
mecum for aspirants in our general
profession. Still it will be long before
shall want to collect them together
for that purpose and furnish them with
a final preface"
But letter of 1915, the third from
the end of the series, will stand in later
years-if later years ere better wears
asthetically - as a comment of COM
ments on the age from which he was
passing. Edmund Gosse had INQUIRED
the fate of the Defnitive Edition. TWEEN
ty-four volumes Of Novels and Tales. as
seven years had determined it, and
Henry James wrote:
any statement about the
matter can only be, alas, a melancholy.
a blighted confusion n-ac+i-
cally complete failure; vaguely speak
ing, it doesn't sell--that is, my annual
report Of what it does, the whole
iwenty-four volumes. in this country
amounts TO about s25 from the Mac
mllans and the ditto from Scrbner's
in the United States to very little
more. l remain at nv age
which You know and after my long
career utterly. insurmountably un-
salable. And the original preparation
of that collective and selective series
involved really the extremity OF labor