446
PARTISAN REVIEW
stormy days that follow he accepts the challenge of the girl who, some–
what like Elizabeth Crowe
in
the case of John Ford, had been
his
childhood playmate and a dependent of
his
family. To prove
his
courage, he allows her to lock him for the night
in
a haunted cham–
ber where his great-great-grandfather had mysteriously died after
having accidentally caused the death of his own young son by an angry
blow. Like his ancestor, Owen
wins
his
grave
in that room. "He
looked like a young soldier on a battle field" (9, p. 220). In this ins–
tance the relationship of the hero to the paternal figure, rather than
the maternal one-as in "Sir Edmund Orme"-is portrayed and,
similarly, the emphasis is laid upon aggression (or war) rather than
upon love. The other aspect of John Ford's problem seems thus to be
bared-the role of the father figure as an inhibitor of aggression. The
integrity of the hero is in the end established even
if,
like his sire be–
fore him, he has to yield his life to the ghost of an accidental violence.
As
a presentation of James's personal problem at the outbreak of the
Civil War, including even the relation of his injury to that of
his
fa–
ther, this tale is. once more clearly autobiographical.
As
in "Sir Ed–
mund Orme," the vindicating theme is again dominant. For the ghosts
which haunted their author from the undying past (as a return of the
repressed) could only be exorcised by the achievement of some solu–
tion.
After a series of such tales had for over ten years proclaimed
his
deep preoccupation with the past, James began to plan eagerly for an
American visit of six or eight months. His supernatural fantasies had
foretold
t~is
revisit even as "The Story of a Year" had previously
forecast the departure for Europe. The counterpart to the defensive
escape was to be a compulsive return. The need he felt was strong.
His brother William tried to dissuade him, in order doubtless to spare
him the pain which the exposure would inflict upon his sensitive
nature. But Henry insisted that he actually needed "shocks." How he
experienced these in 1904-1905 is vividly recorded in
The American
Scene
(
2), which he wrote on his return to England.
The itinerary of his American trip as reflected
in
the chapters
of this book is in itself instructive. The "repatriated absentee" or "rest–
less analyst," as he variously styles himself, went first to New England.
He then saw New York, Newport, Boston, Concord, and Salem;
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and the South-Richmond,
Charleston, and Florida. He traveled also to the Far West, but
his
book concludes with Florida. The sequel he planned was never writ-
