DOI article:
Milman, Lena: A few notes upon Mr. James
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27806#0080
y6 A Few Notes upon Mr. James
it ! It is late ! it is late ! I want my happiness.” And yet
Hawthorne worked within far narrower limits than does the author
of “ Washington Square.”
Mr. James’s descriptive passages are as vividly impressionist as his
characters are subtly analytical, and it is perhaps for this reason that
they best exhibit the charm of his style. It is no mere word-
painting. This cant-phrase but ill expresses the magic of words
able to convey not merely colour but the scent and sound and
movement which, welded together, form one idea. Who that
knows Paris will not testify to the accuracy of observation
displayed in this description of a characteristic scene at the
Comedie Fran^aise?
“ The foyer was not crowded ; only a dozen groups were
scattered over the polished floor, several others having passed out
to the balcony which overhangs the square of the Palais Royal.
The windows were open, the brilliant lights of Paris made the
dull summer evening look like an anniversary or a revolution ; a
murmur of voices seemed to come up from the streets, and even in
the foyer one heard the slow click of the horses and the rumble
of the crookedly-driven fiacres on the hard, smooth asphalt.”
But Mr. James has another manner, of which the following is a
sample. Surely Gautier himself never wrote more gracefully of
travel :
“ In so far as beauty of structure is beauty of line and curve,
balance and harmony of masses and dimensions, I have seldom
relished it as deeply as on the grassy nave of some crumbling
church, before lonely columns and empty windows, where the
wild flowers were a cornice and the sailing clouds a roof. The
arts certainly have a common element. These hoary relics of
Glastonbury reminded me in their broken eloquence of one of the
other great ruins of the world—the Last Supper of Leonardo. A
beautiful
it ! It is late ! it is late ! I want my happiness.” And yet
Hawthorne worked within far narrower limits than does the author
of “ Washington Square.”
Mr. James’s descriptive passages are as vividly impressionist as his
characters are subtly analytical, and it is perhaps for this reason that
they best exhibit the charm of his style. It is no mere word-
painting. This cant-phrase but ill expresses the magic of words
able to convey not merely colour but the scent and sound and
movement which, welded together, form one idea. Who that
knows Paris will not testify to the accuracy of observation
displayed in this description of a characteristic scene at the
Comedie Fran^aise?
“ The foyer was not crowded ; only a dozen groups were
scattered over the polished floor, several others having passed out
to the balcony which overhangs the square of the Palais Royal.
The windows were open, the brilliant lights of Paris made the
dull summer evening look like an anniversary or a revolution ; a
murmur of voices seemed to come up from the streets, and even in
the foyer one heard the slow click of the horses and the rumble
of the crookedly-driven fiacres on the hard, smooth asphalt.”
But Mr. James has another manner, of which the following is a
sample. Surely Gautier himself never wrote more gracefully of
travel :
“ In so far as beauty of structure is beauty of line and curve,
balance and harmony of masses and dimensions, I have seldom
relished it as deeply as on the grassy nave of some crumbling
church, before lonely columns and empty windows, where the
wild flowers were a cornice and the sailing clouds a roof. The
arts certainly have a common element. These hoary relics of
Glastonbury reminded me in their broken eloquence of one of the
other great ruins of the world—the Last Supper of Leonardo. A
beautiful