CYNTHIA OllCK
"It
Takes a Great Deal of History to
Produce a Little Literature"
What did Henry J ames kn ow ? H . G . W ells o nce acc used him o f knowing
practically nothing. In the J amesian no vel , W ells charged , " Yo u will find
no people with defin ed po liti ca l o pinio ns, no people with religio us opin–
ions, none with clea r partisa nships o r with lusts o r whims, no ne d efinitely
up to any spec ifi c impersonal thing." W ells concluded , " It is levi athan re–
trieving pebbles."
James was desperatel y wounded . He w as at th e close o f his grea t span
of illuminati o n - it w as less th an a yea r befo re hi s death - and he was be–
ing set as ide as use less, "a church lit but with o ut a co ngrega tion ."
Replying to W ells, he d efended himself o n the qu esti o n o f the utility of
art. Literatu re, he asse rted , is " fo r usc" : " I rega rd it as rel evant in a degree
that leaves everything else behind. " T here fo ll owed the fa mo usly charac–
teristic Jamesian credo, by now lo ng fa mili ar to us. " It is art ," he wrote,
"that
I/lakes
li fe, makes interest, makes impo rtance . . . I know o f no sub–
stitute whateve r fo r the fo rce and beauty of its process." And th o ugh he
was spea king expli citly o f th e no vel's purpose as " th e extensio n of life,
which is the nove l's grea t gift ," th e re is evidence eno ugh that he would
not have excluded the literary essay , o f w hi ch he w as equal master, from
art's force and beauty. Thus, w hat H enry James knew.
To whi ch W ell s reto rted: " I had rath e r be a j o urnalist , that is the
essence of it."
In the qu arrel betwe en Wells and J ames, J ames's view has been ove r–
taken by times and habits fa r less elevated in th eir literary motives (and
motifs) than his own , and by radi ca l changes in th e aims o f educa tion and
in the impulses th at drive the commo n culture . What J ames knew was the
nobility of art - if, fo r him , th e no vel and the lite rary essay w e re not
splendors just sho rt o f di vin e, the n they w e re, anyhow , di vining rods ,
with th e ca pac ity to qui ve r ove r th e sprin gs o f di scove red life. What
Wells knew was somethin g else - th e future; us; w hat we are now . H e
welcomed the germinating ho ur o f techno logy's fecundi ty, and flouri shed
in it. James, we reca ll , switched from pen and ink to th e typewrite r, not
because he was attracted to mac hin es - he was no t - but because he suf–
fered from writer's cramp. H e neve r learn ed to type himse lf; instead, he
