Notes on novelists, with some other notes, by Henry James.

io NOTES ON NOVELISTS
inimitable-of all of which a just notion can be given only by
abundant citation. And yet citation itself is embarrassed, with
nothing to guide it but his perpetual spirits, perpetual acuteness
and felicity, restlessness of fancy and of judgment. These things
make him jump from pole to pole and fairly hum, at times,
among the objects and subjects that filled his air, like a charged
bee among flowers.
He is never more delightful than when he is most egotistic,
most consciously charmed with something he has done.
And the papers are some of them up to dick, and no mistake. I agree with
you, the lights seem a little turned down.
When we learn that the articles alluded to are those collected in
" Across the Plains " we quite assent to this impression made
by them after a troubled interval, and envy the author who, in
a far Pacific isle, could see " The Lantern Bearers," " A Letter
to a Young Gentleman " and " Pulvis et Umbra " float back to
him as a guarantee of his faculty and between covers constituting the book that is to live. Stevenson's masculine wisdom
moreover, his remarkable final sanity, is always-and it was not
what made least in him for happy intercourse-close to his
comedy and next door to his slang.
And however low the lights are, the stuff is true, and I believe the more effective; after all, what I wish to fight is the best fought by a rather cheerless presentation of the truth. The world must return some day to the word " duty,"
and be done with the word "reward." There are no rewards, and plenty
duties. And the sooner a man sees that and acts upon it, like a gentleman or
a fine old barbarian, the better for himself.
It would perhaps be difficult to quote a single paragraph
giving more than that of the whole of him. But there is
abundance of him in this too:
How do journalists fetch up their drivel e... It has taken me two months
to write 45,500 words; and, be damned to my wicked prowess, I am proud of
the exploit!.. A respectable little five-bob volume, to bloom unread in shop
windows. After that I'll have a spank at fiction. And rest e I shall rest in
the grave, or when I come to Italy. If only the public will continue to support
me! I lost my chance not dying; there seems blooming little fear of it now.
I worked close on five hours this morning; the day before, close on nine; and
unless I finish myself off with this letter I'll have another hour and a half, or
aiblins twa, before dinner. Poor man, how you must envy me as you hear of