HENRY JAMES has created a field for himself as the pioneer of the international

novel, or, more particularly, the novel

dealing with Americans in Europe. The humor and pathos of situations brought about by the clash of different social systems are his peculiar province. The incongruities, perplexities and misunderstandings which result from different standards of conventional manners and morals are his main themes. Like Howells, he steers away from the great passions and devotes himself to phases of life as they appear upon the surface.

Henry James was born in New York City on April 15th, 1843. His father, bearing the same name, was a Swedenborgian minister of some renown. The younger James was educated under his father's supervision in New York, Geneva, Paris, Bonn and Boulogne-sur-Mer. He entered the Harvard Law School in 1862, but soon commenced to contribute sketches to the magazines, especially to the Atlantic Monthly. Some of these were collected in a volume entitled "A Passionate Pilgrim and Other Stories." His first novel, "Roderick Hudson," published in 1876, is less analytical, but has a firmer grasp of elementary passion than any subsequent work. "The American" (1878) is generally regarded as his best work, but "Daisy Miller," which soon followed, won for him his widest popularity, though it was adversely criticised as being un-American in tone. Others of Mr. James's best known works are "An International Episode," "A Bundle of Letters," "The Portrait of a Lady," "The Bostonians," "The Princess Cassamassima." His "Portraits of Places," published in 1884, is a delightful contribution to the literature of travel over beaten paths.

Mr. James has spent most of his life abroad. He has been described by a critic as looking at America with the eyes of a

foreigner, and at Europe with the eyes of an American. The American abroad has been his chief study, but he has almost invariably chosen the crude American, an "innocent abroad," who provokes the laughter of nations. The educated American seems to be rare in Mr. James's collection of characters. The author is at his best in the short story; he is a master in this art, though his art is sometimes too apparent; he has done nothing better than "The Madonna of the Future," "The Passionate Pilgrim," and "The Liar."

MADAME Merle.

(From "The Portrait of a Lady." Copyright, 1881, by Henry James, Jr. Used here by permission of the author and publishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)

WHEN Madame Merle was neither writing, nor painting, nor touching the piano, she was usually employed upon wonderful morsels of picturesque embroidery, cushions, curtains, decorations for the chimney-piece; a sort of work in which her bold, free invention was as remarkable as the agility of her needle. She was never idle, for when she was engaged in none of the ways I have mentioned, she was either reading (she appeared to Isabel to read everything important), or walking out, or playing patience with the cards, or talking with her fellow inmates. And with all this, she always had the social quality; she never was preoccupied, she never pressed too hard. She laid down her pastimes as easily as she took them up; she worked and talked at the same time, and she appeared to attach no importance to anything she did. She gave away her sketches and tapestries; she rose from the piano, or remained there, according to the convenience of her auditors, which she always unerringly divined. She was, in short, a most comfortable, profitable, agreeable person to live with. If for Isabel she had a fault, it was that she was not natural; by which the girl meant, not that she was affected or pretentious; for from these vulgar vices no woman could have been more exempt; but that her nature had been too much overlaid by custom and her angles too much smoothed. She had become too flexible, too supple; she was too finished, too civilized. She was, in a word, too perfectly the social animal that man and woman are supposed to have been intended to be; and she had rid herself of every remnant of that tonic wildness which we may assume to have belonged even to the most amiable persons in the ages before

country-house life was the fashion. Isabel found it difficult to think of Madame Merle as an isolated figure; she existed only in her relations with her fellow-mortals. Isabel often wondered what her relations might be with her own soul. She always ended, however, by feeling that having a charming surface does not necessarily prove that one is superficial; this was an illusion in which, in her youth, she had only just sufficiently escaped being nourished. Madame Merle was not superficial-not she. She was deep; and her nature spoke none the less in her behaviour because it spoke a conventional language. "What is language at all but a convention?" said Isabel. "She has the good taste not to pretend, like some people I have met, to express herself by original signs."

"I am afraid you have suffered much," Isabel once found occasion to say to her, in response to some allusion that she had dropped.

"What makes you think that?" Madame Merle asked, with a picturesque smile. "I hope I have not the pose of a martyr.” "No; but you sometimes say things that I think people who have always been happy would not have found out."

"I have not always been happy," said Madame Merle, smiling still, but with a mock gravity, as if she were telling a child a secret. "What a wonderful thing!"

"A great many people give me the impression of never having felt anything very much," Isabel answered.

"It's very true; there are more iron pots, I think, than porcelain ones. But you depend upon it that every one has something; even the hardest iron pots have a little bruise, a little hole, somewhere. I flatter myself that I am rather stout porcelain; but if I must tell you the truth I have been chipped and cracked! I do very well for service yet, because I have been cleverly mended; and I try to remain in the cupboard-the quiet, dusky cupboard, where there is an odor of stale spices-as much as I can. But when I have to come out, and into a strong light, then, my dear, I am a horror!"

I know not whether it was on this occasion or some other, that when the conversation had taken the turn I have just indicated, sne said to Isabel that some day she would relate her history. Isabel assured her that she should delight to listen to it, and reminded her more than once of this engagement. Madame Merle, however, appeared to desire a postponement, and at last frankly told the young girl that she must wait till they knew each other better.

This would certainly happen; a long friendship lay before them. Isabel assented, but at the same time asked Madame Merle if she could not trust her-if she feared a betrayal of confidence.

"It is not that I am afraid of your repeating what I say," the elder lady answered; "I am afraid, on the contrary, of your taking it too much to yourself. You would judge me too harshly; you are of the cruel age." She preferred for the present to talk to Isabel about Isabel, and exhibited the greatest interest in our heroine's history, her sentiments, opinions, prospects. She made her chatter, and listened to her chatter with inexhaustible sympathy and good nature. In all this there was something flattering to the girl, who knew that Madame Merle knew a great many distinguished people, and had lived, as Mrs. Touchett said, in the best company in Europe. .

"You must not think it strange, her staying in the house at such a time as this, when Mr. Touchett is passing away," Mrs. Touchett remarked to Isabel. "She is incapable of doing anything indiscreet; she is the best-bred woman I know. It's a favor to me that she stays; she is putting off a lot of visits at great houses," said Mrs. Touchett, who never forgot that when she herself was in England her social value sank two or three degrees in the scale. "She has her pick of places; she is not in want of a shelter. But I have asked her to stay because I wish you to know her. I think it will be a good thing for you. Serena Merle has no faults."

"If I didn't already like her very much, that description might alarm me," Isabel said.

"She never does anything wrong. I have brought you out here, and I wish to do the best for you. Your sister Lily told me that she hoped I would give you plenty of opportunities. I give you one in securing Madame Merle. She is one of the most brilliant women in Europe."

"I like her better than I like your description of her," Isabel persisted in saying.

"Do you flatter yourself that you will find a fault in her? I hope you will let me know when you do."

"That will be cruel-to you," said Isabel.

"You needn't mind me. You never will find one.”

"Perhaps not; but I think I shall not miss it."

"She is always up to the mark!" said Mrs. Touchett.

Isabel after this said to Madame Merle that she hoped she

knew Mrs. Touchett believed she had not a fault.

"I am obliged to you, but I am afraid your aunt has no perception of spiritual things," Madame Merle answered.

"Do you mean by that that you have spiritual faults?'' "Ah no; I mean nothing so flat. I mean that having no faults, for your aunt, means that one is never late for dinner-that is, for her dinner. I was not late, by the way, the other day, when you came back from London; the clock was just at eight when I came into the drawing-room; it was the rest of you that were before the time. It means that one answers a letter the day one gets it, and that when one comes to stay with her one doesn't bring too much luggage, and is careful not to be taken ill. For Mrs. Touchett those things constitute virtue; it's a blessing to be able to reduce it to its elements."

But Madame Merle sometimes said things that startled her, made her raise her clear eyebrows at the time, and think of the words afterwards.

"I would give a great deal to be your age again," she broke out once, with a bitterness which, though diluted in her customary smile, was by no means disguised by it. "If I could only begin again-if I could have my life before me!"

"Your life is before you yet," Isabel answered gently, for she was vaguely awe-struck.

"No; the best part is gone, and gone for nothing."

Surely, not for nothing," said Isabel.

"Why not-what have I got? Neither husband, nor child, nor fortune, nor position, nor the traces of a beauty which I never had."

"You have friends, dear lady."

"I am not so sure!" cried Madame Merle.

"Ah, you are wrong. You have memories, talents

Madame Merle interrupted her.

"What have my talents brought me? Nothing but the need of using them still, to get through the hours, the years, to cheat myself with some pretence of action. As for my memories, the less said about them the better. You will be my friend till you find a better use for your friendship."

"It will be for you to see that I don't then," said Isabel. "Yes; I would make an effort to keep you," Madame Merle rejoined, looking at her gravely. "When I say I should like to be your age," she went on, "I mean with your qualities— frank, generous, sincere, like you. In that case I should have made something better of my life."