A Writers Recollections, vol 2 | Page 5

and in 1888 we appointed as Taylorian Scholar a man to whom for years I confidently looked for the history of Spain--combining both the Spanish and Arabic sources--so admirable had his work been in the examination. But, alack! that great book has still to be written. For Mr. Butler Clarke died prematurely in 1904, and the hope died with him.
For the Times I wrote a good many long, separate articles before 1884, on "Spanish Novels," "American Novels," and so forth; the "leader" on the death of Anthony Trollope; and various elaborate reviews of books on Christian origins, a subject on which I was perpetually reading, always with the same vision before me, growing in clearness as the years passed.
But my first steps toward its realization were to begin with the short story of _Miss Bretherton_, published in 1884, and then the translation of Amiel's _Journal Intime_, which appeared in 1885. Miss Bretherton was suggested to me by the brilliant success in 1883 of Mary Anderson, and by the controversy with regard to her acting--as distinct from her delightful beauty and her attractive personality--which arose between the fastidious few and the enchanted many. I maintained then, and am quite sure now, that Isabel Bretherton was in no sense a portrait of Miss Anderson. She was to me a being so distinct from the living actress that I offered her to the world with an entire good faith, which seems to myself now, perhaps thirty years later, hardly less surprising than it did to the readers of the time. For undoubtedly the situation in the novel was developed out of the current dramatic debate. But it became to me just a situation--a problem. It was really not far removed from Diderot's problem in the _Paradoxe sur le Comédien_. What is the relation of the actor to the part represented? One actress is plain--Rachel; another actress is beautiful, and more than beautiful, delightful--Miss Anderson. But all the time, is there or is there not a region in which all these considerations count for nothing in comparison with certain others? Is there a dramatic _art_--exacting, difficult, supreme--or is there not? The choice of the subject, at that time, was, it may be confessed, a piece of na?veté, and the book itself was young and na?ve throughout. But something in it has kept it in circulation all this while; and for me it marks with a white stone the year in which it appeared. For it brought me my first critical letter from Henry James; it was the first landmark in our long friendship.
Beloved Henry James! It seems to me that my original meeting with him was at the Andrew Langs' in 1882. He was then forty-two, in the prime of his working life, and young enough to be still "Henry James, Junior," to many. I cannot remember anything else of the Langs' dinner-party except that we were also invited to meet the author of _Vice Versa_, "which Mr. Lang thinks"--as I wrote to my mother--"the best thing of its kind since Dickens." But shortly after that, Mr. James came to see us in Russell Square and a little incident happened which stamped itself for good on a still plastic memory. It was a very hot day; the western sun was beating on the drawing-room windows, though the room within was comparatively dark and cool. The children were languid with the heat, and the youngest, Janet, then five, stole into the drawing-room and stood looking at Mr. James. He put out a half-conscious hand to her; she came nearer, while we talked on. Presently she climbed on his knee. I suppose I made a maternal protest. He took no notice, and folded his arm round her. We talked on; and presently the abnormal stillness of Janet recalled her to me and made me look closely through the dark of the room. She was fast asleep, her pale little face on the young man's shoulder, her long hair streaming over his arm. Now Janet was a most independent and critical mortal, no indiscriminate "climber up of knees"; far from it. Nor was Mr. James an indiscriminate lover of children; he was not normally much at home with them, though always good to them. But the childish instinct had in fact divined the profound tenderness and chivalry which were the very root of his nature; and he was touched and pleased, as one is pleased when a robin perches on one's hand.
From that time, as the precious bundle of his letters shows, he became the friend of all of us--myself, my husband, and the children; though with an increased intimacy from the 'nineties onward. In a subsequent chapter I will try and summarize the general mark left on me by his fruitful and stainless life. His letter