DOI article:
Milman, Lena: A few notes upon Mr. James
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27806#0083
By Lena Milman 79
cannot be maintained, except by that transition from grave to gay,
from gay to grave, which is the whole art of the story-teller as of
the dramatist.
The peculiar humour whose sparks are struck by the clash of
nationalities in European hotels and pensions has surely never been
so deftly distilled as in the “ Bundle of Letters.” Miss Miranda
Hope, of Bangor, Maine, “ decorated all over with beads and
bracelets and embroidered dandelions,” whose travelling “ for
general culture” obliges her to go to a Paris theatre unattended,
and who there sees “plenty of other ladies alone (mostly French);”
the aesthetic youth from Boston, who talks of a real “Corot Day,”
and who paints “ for the knowledge that leaves a trace—that
leaves strange scars and stains and reveries behind it;” the English
girl who describes the landlady as “ exceedingly foreign ; ” the land-
lady’s cousin, who enjoys free board and lodging so long as he
keeps “an eye on the. grammatical eccentricities of the pension-
nairesf are all equally typical, and yet none of them lack that
touch which makes them human as well as humorous.
To sustain humour as long as he is in the mood, without once
lapsing into caricature—this is what Mr. James has essayed to do,
and has done admirably,
IV
There is another side to Mr. James’s genius—a side of whose
existence they never reck who are content to know him merely as
the social satirist of “ Daisy Miller ” and “A Bundle of Letters”
—a side which links him with his great compatriots Poe and
Hawthorne—a way, namely, of setting his characters in an atmo-
sphere of the supernatural with so admirable a skill as never by
over-statement to impel the reader to scepticism. The little
story,
cannot be maintained, except by that transition from grave to gay,
from gay to grave, which is the whole art of the story-teller as of
the dramatist.
The peculiar humour whose sparks are struck by the clash of
nationalities in European hotels and pensions has surely never been
so deftly distilled as in the “ Bundle of Letters.” Miss Miranda
Hope, of Bangor, Maine, “ decorated all over with beads and
bracelets and embroidered dandelions,” whose travelling “ for
general culture” obliges her to go to a Paris theatre unattended,
and who there sees “plenty of other ladies alone (mostly French);”
the aesthetic youth from Boston, who talks of a real “Corot Day,”
and who paints “ for the knowledge that leaves a trace—that
leaves strange scars and stains and reveries behind it;” the English
girl who describes the landlady as “ exceedingly foreign ; ” the land-
lady’s cousin, who enjoys free board and lodging so long as he
keeps “an eye on the. grammatical eccentricities of the pension-
nairesf are all equally typical, and yet none of them lack that
touch which makes them human as well as humorous.
To sustain humour as long as he is in the mood, without once
lapsing into caricature—this is what Mr. James has essayed to do,
and has done admirably,
IV
There is another side to Mr. James’s genius—a side of whose
existence they never reck who are content to know him merely as
the social satirist of “ Daisy Miller ” and “A Bundle of Letters”
—a side which links him with his great compatriots Poe and
Hawthorne—a way, namely, of setting his characters in an atmo-
sphere of the supernatural with so admirable a skill as never by
over-statement to impel the reader to scepticism. The little
story,