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

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT 85
small, the fact only that one perceptive private reader after
another discovers at his convenience that the book is rare. The
addition of the perceptive private readers is no quick affair,
and would doubtless be a vain one did they not-while plenty
of other much more remarkable books come and go-accumulate and count. They count by their quality and continuity of
attention; so they have gathered for " Madame Bovary," and so
they are held. That is really once more the great circumstance.
It is always in order for us to feel yet again what it is we are
held by. Such is my reason, definitely, for speaking of Flaubert
as the novelist's novelist. Are we not moreover-and let it pass
this time as a happy hope!-pretty well all novelists now e