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

194

NOTES ON NOVELISTS

GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO
I902
THE great feast-days of all, for the restless critic, are those
much interspaced occasions of his really meeting a " case," as
he soon enough learns to call, for his convenience and assistance, any supremely contributive or determinant party to the
critical question. These are recognitions that make up for many
dull hours and dry contacts, many a thankless, a disconcerted
gaze into faces that have proved expressionless. Always looking,
always hoping for his happiest chance, the inquirer into the
reasons of things-by which I mean especially into the reasons
of books-so often misses it, so often wastes his steps and withdraws his confidence, that he inevitably works out for himself,
sooner or later, some handy principle of recognition. It may be
a rough thing, a mere home-made tool of his trade, but it serves
his purpose if it keeps him from beginning with mistakes. He
becomes able to note in its light the signs and marks of the
possible precious identity, able to weigh with some exactitude
the appearances that make for its reality. He ends, through
much expenditure of patience, by seeing when, how, why, the
44 case " announces and presents itself, and he perhaps even
feels that failure and felicity have worked together to produce
in him a sense for it that may at last be trusted as an instinct.
He thus arrives at a view of all the candidates, frequently interesting enough, who fall short of the effective title, because he
has at need, perhaps even from afar, scented along the wind the
strongest member of the herd. He may perhaps not always be
able to give us the grounds of his certainty, but he is at least
never without knowing it in presence of one of the full-blown
products that are the joy of the analyst. He recognises as well
how the state of being full-blown comes above all from the