The Letters of Henry James : (Vol. I): Complete

WHEN Henry James wrote the reminiscences of his youth he shewed conclusively, what indeedcould be doubtful to none who knew him, that it would be impossible for anyone else to write hislife.

His life was no mere succession of facts, such as could be compiled and recorded by anotherhand; it was a densely knit cluster of emotions and memories, each one steeped in lights and coloursthrown out by the rest, the whole making up a picture that no one but himself could dream ofundertaking to paint.

Strictly speaking this may be true of every human being; but in most livesexperience is taken as it comes and left to rest in the memory where it happens to fall.

Henry Jamesnever took anything as it came; the thing that happened to him was merely the point of departurefor a deliberate, and as time went on a more and more masterly, creative energy, which could neverleave a sight or sound of any kind until it had been looked at and listened to with absorbedattention, pondered in thought, linked with its associations, and which did not spend itself until theremembrance had been crystallised in expression, so that it could then be appropriated like atangible object.

To recall his habit of talk is to become aware that he never ceased creating his life inthis way as it was lived; he was always engaged in the poetic fashioning of experience, turning hisshare of impressions into rounded and lasting images.

From the beginning this had been his onlymethod of dealing with existence, and in later years it even meant a tax upon his strength with whichhe had consciously to reckon.

Not long before his death he confessed that at last he found himselftoo much exhausted for the 'wear and tear of discrimination'; and the phrase indicates the strainupon him of the mere act of living.

Looked at from without his life was uneventful enough, the evencareer of a man of letters, singularly fortunate in all his circumstances.

Within, it was a cycle of vividand incessant adventure, known only to himself except in so far as he himself put it into words.

Somuch of it as he left unexpressed is lost, therefore, like a novel that he might have written, but ofwhich there can now be no question, since its only possible writer is gone.