In connection with Henry James I had often heard the name of W.D.  Howells.  I bought some three or four of his novels.  I found them pretty, very pretty, but nothing more,—­a sort of Ashby Sterry done into very neat prose.  He is vulgar, is refined as Henry James; he is more domestic; girls with white dresses and virginal looks, languid mammas, mild witticisms, here, there, and everywhere; a couple of young men, one a little cynical, the other a little over-shadowed by his love, a strong, bearded man of fifty in the background; in a word, a Tom Robertson comedy faintly spiced with American.  Henry James went to France and read Tourgueneff.  W.D.  Howells stayed at home and read Henry James.  Henry James’s mind is of a higher cast and temper; I have no doubt at one time of his life Henry James said, I will write the moral history of America, as Tourgueneff wrote the moral history of Russia—­he borrowed at first hand, understanding what he was borrowing.  W.D.  Howells borrowed at second hand, and without understanding what he was borrowing.  Altogether Mr. James’s instincts are more scholarly.  Although his reserve irritates me, and I often regret his concessions to the prudery of the age,—­no, not of the age but of librarians,—­I cannot but feel that his concessions, for I suppose I must call them concessions, are to a certain extent self-imposed, regretfully, perhaps ... somewhat in this fashion—­“True, that I live in an age not very favourable to artistic production, but the art of an age is the spirit of that age; if I violate the prejudices of the age I shall miss its spirit, and an art that is not redolent of the spirit of its age is an artificial flower, perfumeless, or perfumed with the scent of flowers that bloomed three hundred years ago.”  Plausible, ingenious, quite in the spirit of Mr. James’s mind; I can almost hear him reason so; nor does the argument displease me, for it is conceived in a scholarly spirit.  Now my conception of W.D.  Howells is quite different—­I see him the happy father of a numerous family; the sun is shining, the girls and boys are playing on the lawn, they come trooping in to a high tea, and there is dancing in the evening.

My fat landlady lent me a novel by George Meredith,—­“Tragic Comedians”; I was glad to receive it, for my admiration of his poetry, with which I was slightly acquainted, was very genuine indeed.  “Love in a Valley” is a beautiful poem, and the “Nuptials of Attila,” I read it in the New Quarterly Review years ago, is very present in my mind, and it is a pleasure to recall its chanting rhythm, and lordly and sombre refrain—­“Make the bed for Attila.”  I expected, therefore, one of my old passionate delights from his novels.  I was disappointed, painfully disappointed.  But before I say more concerning Mr. Meredith, I will admit at once frankly and fearlessly, that I am not a competent critic, because emotionally I do not understand him, and all except an emotional understanding is worthless