personage impossible in America. At the North he would be excluded from every decent household; at the South he would be "shot on sight." And yet this marquis is not only possible in nature and consistent with himself, but a natural, although an extremely rare, product of the society of which he forms a part, and from which he yet holds himself as much aloof as possible. This Mr. Trollope makes apparent without saying it, and without condemning the system of that society; for he writes as an artist, portraying men and women as he sees them, and not as a dissector of morbid social anatomy, nor even as a satirist, except when he turns his eyes upon anything American.

From the long-practiced British novelist let us turn to a young American, Mr. Henry James, Jr., who, although he is the author of several books, including now four novels, is, compared with Mr. Trollope, almost a tyro. But, although one of the younger writers of the day, Mr. James is no timid experimenter, doubtful of his powers, ignorant of the field upon which he has entered, and uncertain of his aims. We do not know a living writer, except Matthew Arnold, who produces upon his readers a greater impression of self-knowledge, of self-restraint, or of perpetual self-consciousness, nor one whose work shows more evidence of fastidious taste, cautious proceeding, and careful elaboration. Indeed, in his mental traits and literary workmanship, Mr. James does not belong to the English school (English and American being in literature but one), but rather to the French. His cast of thought is French; he has the French nicety of taste, the French reserve of manner, dexterity of hand, and fineness of finish; what wit he has is French, and he is French in the paleness and paucity of his humor. He seems to have Balzac before him as his model; and the best thing he has yet produced is "Madame de Maulves," a sketch which appeared in the "Galaxy " magazine, and which Balzac himself need not have been ashamed to own.

Mr. James's latest work in fiction of any importance is "The Europeans," which is intended, of course, as a companion piece to "The American." The author of "The Europeans" styles it upon his title-page a sketch, probably recognizing himself, by that word, its absence of plot, and confessing that in writing it he did not propose to himself to interest his readers strongly in the fate of his personages. And indeed the sayings and doings of these shadowy people are not such as to trouble us much as to what becomes of them. Their sayings are many and their doings few. The Euro

peans are two European-born Americans of very Bohemian type and tendency: a youngish woman, Eugenia Young, who as the morganatic wife of a German prince has received the title of Baroness Munster, and her brother, a clever draughtsman, half amateur, half professional, who is engaged in furnishing sketches to an illustrated journal in Europe. To put the matter plainly, the Baroness Munster is an adventuress, nothing more nor less. As an adventuress she became a morganatic wife of the brother of a petty German grand duke (it was thirty years ago), and now as an adventuress she comes to America to try her fortune in finding some rich American to take her in some fashion-as a wife preferable of course-off her German prince's hands. In the first place it is difficult to see why these people are called "the Europeans." They are in a certain sense indeed the product of the conditions of society upon the continent of Europe, as the Marquis of Brotherton and Dean Lovelace are the product of the conditions of society in England. But they are not, like the Marquis and the Dean, indigenous products of that society, integral parts of it; they are waifs and strays-Europeanized Americans of a not very admirable sort. It was a little fretting to see Mr. Newman set forth as "the American" by Mr. James; that personage being hardly, we think, what Mr. James himself would like to have accepted as a fair representative of the social product of his country. But Mr. James's Europeans have really no claim whatever to the style and title which he bestows upon them; being simply cosmopolite Bohemians of European origin; folk which the real people of no country would acknowledge as being of themselves, not to say take pride in owning.

These adventurers find their New England kinsfolk living in one of the suburbs of Boston, and are kindly received by them and placed in a pretty cottage near their own house. There the Baroness and her brother remain week after week, month after month, visiting the big house, doing nothing, suffering nothing, getting into no trouble and therefore getting out of none, making no material for a story even of the slightest kind, but revealing their own characters and drawing out those of their cousins, young and old. These cousins are a father, Mr. Wentworth, and two daughters, Charlotte and Gertrude, who seem to be presented as types of New England people of their condition. And what character they have, it may be acknowledged, is New-England-ish. Their common trait seems to be a pale, intellectual asceticism; but besides this they have very little character at all. Their coldly moral view of life is

admirably described by Mr. James. As he makes Felix say to Gertrude, who is falling in love with him, she and her family "take a painful view of life." This is also indicated reflexively by Gertrude, who, going from the bare neatness and respectability of New England to the Baroness's drawing-room in the little cottage, which the latter has decked and softened with curtains and colored drapery (some of it rather dingy), looks at it, and then "What is life, indeed, without curtains?' she secretly asked herself; and she appeared to herself to have been leading hitherto an existence singularly garish, and totally devoid of festoons." These Yankee girls have none of the conventional reserves to which Felix has been accustomed; and the effect upon him is thus delicately suggested: "He had known fortunately many virtuous gentlewomen, but it now appeared to him that in his relations with them (especially when they were unmarried) he had been looking at pictures under a glass. He perceived at present what a nuisance the glass had been-how it perverted and interfered, how it caught the reflection of other objects and kept you walking from side to side." These traits of character and others like them, on both sides, are touched by Mr. James with a dainty and skillful hand.

Although Mr. James's Wentworths may be recognized as possible New England people, they can not be accepted as fair representatives, mentally or physically, of their class. His description of the young ladies personally is puzzling. Gertrude, whose slumbering love for the vanities of the world is aroused by the Baroness's festoons, and who finally captivates Felix, is described as being "tall and pale, thin and a little awkward; her hair was fair and perfectly straight; her eyes were dark, and they had the singularity of seeming at once dull and restless-differing herein, as you see, fatally from the ideal fine eyes, which we always imagine to be both brilliant and tranquil." Her sister Charlotte " was also thin and pale; but she was older than the other; she was shorter, and she had dark smooth hair." And yet these most unattractive young ladies are afterward referred to more than once as beautiful. The truth seems to be that Mr. James, clever literary artist as he is, is not strong in imagination. His personages do not exist, even for himself, as living, independent, "self-contained" human beings. They act and speak only as he wishes them to act and speak from time to time. He has no personal respect for them. How could it be otherwise? How could he treat them with any deference when they plainly have no existence for him out of the range of his own

consciousness? He calls "The Europeans" a sketch; and indeed its effect is very sketch-like as well as very French. It brings to mind some of those very clever things of which so many are done by French painters: a mere outline, with a dot or a line suggestive of light and shade set here and there, and then filled with color very faintly washed in; the whole thing indicative of the great skill that comes from careful training, but nevertheless a very shadowy hint of humanity, demonstrative rather of great half-exercised powers on the part of the artist than of the solid and vital personality of the subject. The author seems to be making his sketches, just as Felix did his, to send them to his illustrated paper. Hence it is, probably, that while they are touched off so cleverly they are so unsatisfactory. And yet this lack of individuality and vital force in their personages is the great defect of all Mr. James's novels. His men and women, although they talk exceedingly well, are bloodless, and remind one of the "vox et præterea nihil" of his youth. This shadowy, bloodless effect is not at all the consequence of the particular type of New England personage depicted in "The Europeans"; for, besides that it is manifest in the peopling of all of Mr. James's novels, let the Wentworths, any or all of them, be compared with Madame Launay in Trollope's recent "Lady of Launay," which is a mere sketch no longer than Mr. James's own "Daisy Miller." It consists chiefly of a pair of every-day lovers, and of an old lady who is ready to sacrifice everything and everybody, herself included, upon what she regards as the altar of duty. The lovers have the virtue of constancy; the old lady, Madame Launay, that of inexorable firmness. She is ill, she is almost bed-ridden, she becomes a shadow; but there is more strength, more individuality in this attenuated old woman than in a regiment of Mr. Wentworths. There is one scene in this little sketch in which Philip Launay faces his mother and wins a victory over her, partly by his boldness in assaulting her fortress of will, and partly by the treachery of love within the walls, in which that young man outweighs a ton of such men as are in "The Europeans,” although one of them, Mr. Brand, is an enormous specimen of muscular Christianity, and the other is the sinfully positive and joyous Felix Young. This is the question in regard to Mr. James's ultimate success as a novel-writer-whether he will be able to bring before us living personages in whose fate we take an interest. As to his literary skill there is no question. The impression which Felix, always gay, always a little aggressive in his fullness of animal

spirits, makes upon the shy and shrinking Charlotte, is illustratedwe might say illuminated-with a little flash of wit of which the most brilliant French writer might be proud: "Poor Charlotte could have given no account of the matter that would not have seemed unjust both to herself and to her foreign kinsman; she could only have said-or rather she never would have said it—that she did not like so much gentlemen's society at once."

The moral pedantry and the chilly unemotional life characteristic of a not inconsiderable part of New England society in past generations are delicately exposed all through the book. These might have depressed a much less sybaritic person than the Bohemian Baroness. As the story, if story it must be called, draws to a close, these motives find happy expression in the view taken by Mr. Wentworth of the love affairs of Gertrude, who was with his approval to have been given to Mr. Brand, the big young minister, but who with that gentleman's consent transfers herself to Felix. When the change was made known to him, "Where are our moral grounds?" demanded Mr. Wentworth, who had always thought that Mr. Brand would be "just the thing for a younger daughter with a peculiar temperament." And soon after, when he is urged to consent to the marriage, he again reverts to his cherished view of her case: "I have always thought,' he began slowly, "that Gertrude's character required a special line of development."" This brings to mind Mr. Howells's humorous presentation of the same trait of character in his charming "Lady of the Aroostook," yet incomplete. When the Rev. Mr. Goodlow's advice is asked in regard to the unfortunate circumstance of Lydia Blood's being the only woman on board that vessel, and her making the voyage to "Try-East" in company with five men, exclusive of the crew, he replies, "I think Lydia's influence upon those around her will be beneficial, whatever her situation in life may be."

But, merely remarking that Mr. James commits an error of fact and of time in making people of the position of the Wentworths, living in the suburbs of Boston, so ignorant as they are represented to be in regard to European social life and art and literature only thirty years ago, say 1845, we turn to his "Daisy Miller." This he calls a study; and probably it is, as surely it might have been, a study from nature. Daisy Miller is a beauty, and, without being exactly a fool, is ignorant and devoid of all mental tone or character. She dresses elegantly, has "the tournure of a princess," and is yet irredeemably vulgar in her talk and her conduct. She shocks all