THE LAST PHASE OF HENRY JAMES
as, in our time, the Russians have been-to present the world with a
newhumanity, set free from the caste-barriers and poverties of Europe,
which should return to the mother-country only to plunder her for
elements of culture which might contribute to the movement at home;
and how, with the triumph of the industrial system, the persons who
were occupied with art and thought became gradually ashamed of
the United States and tended to take refuge in Europe. Henry James
belonged to this second phase, but he had a good deal of the idealism
of the first one. It appears in the name of the hero of
The American:
Newman, and in his phrase about Lincoln's "mold-smashing mask";
and, after a period of partial abeyance, when he had been writing
largely about Europeans, it cropped up again, as I have shown, and
took the field.
But Henry James is a report~r, not a prophet. With less political
philosophy even than FIaubert, he can only chronicle the world as it
passes, and in his picture the elements are mixed. In the Americans
of Henry James's later novels-the Milly Theales, tpe Lambert Streth-
ers, the Maggie Ververs, as well as the Newmans and the Isabel
Archers-he shows us all that was magnanimous, reviving and human
in the Americans at the beginning of the new century along with all
that was frustrated, sterile, excessively refined, depressing-all
that
they had in common with the Frederic Moreaus and with the daugh-
ters of poor English parsons. There they are with their ideals and their
blights. Milly Theale, for example-quite real at the core of the
cloudy integument with which James has swathed her about-is one
of the best portraits of a rich New Yorker in fiction. It is the great
period of the heyday of Sargent; but compare these figures of Henry
James's with Sargent's and see with what profounder insight as well
as with what superior delicacy James has caught the rich Americans
of this race.
And between the first and the second blooming something tragic
has happened to these Americans. What has become of Christopher
Newman? He is Lambert Strether now: he has been worn down by
the factories of Woollett. And these Americans of the later novels,
who still bring Europe the American sincerity-what
has happened
to them to make them so wan? Well, for one thing, they have become
very rich, and being rich is a terrible burden: in the process of getting
rich, they have starved themselves spiritually at home; and now that
they are trying to get something for their money, they find that they
have put themselves at the mercy of all the schemers and adventurers
of Europe. It seems to me foolish to reproach Henry James for having
neglected the industrial background. Like sex, we never get very
closeto it, but its effects are a part of his picture. James's tone is more
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