Life — November 2, 1893 — page 7: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“How can you, Mx. Overt?” (Eater Miss Fancourt and Daisy MILLER, in afternoon costume.) Miss FANCOURT (fo Overt): You promised to go with us to drink tea with the Princess Casamassima. Datsy MILLER : and social freaks. Miss Fancourt: Henry James will be there, and you always enjoy his talk. Overt: Oh, yes, his £a/4 is always good. THE MASTER (explaining): James has been the cause of ourdispute. Overt thinks he is acold and uasympathetic artist (s/y/y), and all the other things that the Philistines call him, Miss FaNcourt (gushingly): How can you, Mr, Overt. You, with the soul of an artist under your hat! Daisy MILLER (smpertinently): 1 suspect that his artist-soul is just as conventionally English as his plug hat. Mtss FANCourRT (mystified): of hat? Datsy MILLER (laughing): His plug- diczr, beaver, tile—don't you know your mother tongue ? Overt: James isan American but he does not speak your language. Daisy MILLER (fositively): And that's what's the matter with Mr. James. If he wrote his native language we'd read him more over the pond. THE MASTER: I've often wondered why you Americans do not more appreciate him. Datsy Mitter: Well, I'll tell you. He's lived with you so long that we're not onto his curves, Do you catch on? His trolley's off the American wire. (Zhe others look at her and at each other in mute astonishment.) Oh, but you ave slow at learning the lingo. And meet a lot of artistic What kind - LIFE: We used to have a reading club in Schenectady —the girls of our set—to improve our minds, you know, Well, when we had finished ** Barriers Burned Away,” “St, Elmo," Farrar’s “ Life of Christ,” and ‘Molly Bawn,” one of the girls, a regular blue-stocking from Boston with glasses on her nose, proposed that we read Heary James. That roused my dander. here, girls,” I said, ‘if you want to turn this into a circle of King’s Daughters to read religious books and sew for the heathen, I'll resign at once." The Boston girl looked shocked and said ‘* How can you be so rude. Mr. James writes the purest Boston Enghsh, and is highly approved by Charles Eliot Nor- ton and the Harvard seniors." (Sighing) Ob, she made me tired.‘ Why doesn't he come to America again and learn something besides “His Trouuny’s ory rie American Wine.” Bustonese!" Isai. ‘We don't all talk like prigs or vulgarians over here! In New York we're refined from our bangs to our boots, and don't you forget it!" THE MASTER (ge‘ting control of his face) : Thank you. I never understood why James was unpopular in America till | met you. Datsy MILLER (protesting): O, you must not take me for a fair sample of an American girl, [had to go abroad for my health before Thad had a year at a finishing school in New York. They put a polish on you there in which you can see to comb your hair. Mr. James has not caught on to the fact that we're getting mighty civilized in the States. THE Master (turning to Aliss Fancourt : Come, give us an English girl's defence of him, Miss FaNcourT (with enthusiasm): He satisfies my longing for perfection in work. There is never anything in his stories to jar my taste, When he treats a disagreeable subject, he does it as a gentleman would talk about it to a refined woman —with polite phrases, delicate See. 279 metaphor, and a humor that plays about it all gently. ‘There is none of the heat or prejudice about his stories which is so often evident in the writings of people you would not care to know. When I have finished one of Mr. James's stories | always feel that I should like to meet him in the alcove of a library aud talk about it all with him as though it were true. (Start- ing.) And that's what I hope to do at Princess Casamassima’s. I want to ask him whether he did not mean “+ The Real Thing" to be a satire on the artist's point-of-view, as much as on the poor dear gentleman and gentlewonan who tried to be useful. (70 Daisy and Overt.) Come, this afternoon is almost over! (They follow her through the portPres after adieus to THE MASTER.) acters with garments woven with James's art they would live for a century ortwo, But I have marketed my crude inventioas for the luxuries of a London establishment, for the pleasures of an ever-present success. But 1 know, and Overt and James know in their hearts, that it isn’t the Real Thing. (Tating up his pen). Come, charlatan, pick up your fuol’s wand and finish your daily tricks ! Drock NEW BOOKS. ETIQUETTE FOR GIRLS. By 2“ Heaton Armstrong. London: Warne and Company. The Brownies at Home. By Palmer Cox. New York: The Century Company. The White Islander By Mary Hartwell Catherwood, New York: The Century Com- pany, Poems Here at Home, By lames Whitcomb Riley. New York: The Century Company. Etsays in Idleness. Wy Agnes Repplicr. Bos ton and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Compan An Embassy to, Provence i Janvier. New York: The Century Company. 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