But that artistic impartiality which puzzled so many in the
treatment of Daisy Miller is one of the qualities most valuable
in the eyes of those who care how things are done, and I am not
sure that it is not Mr. James's most characteristic quality. As
"frost performs the effect of fire," this impartiality comes at
last to the same result as sympathy. We may be quite sure that
Mr. James does not like the peculiar phase of our civilization
typified in Henrietta Stackpole; but he treats her with such
exquisite justice that he lets US like her. It is an extreme
case, but I confidently allege it in proof.

His impartiality is part of the reserve with which he works in
most respects, and which at first glance makes us say that he is
wanting in humor. But I feel pretty certain that Mr. James has
not been able to disinherit himself to this degree. We Americans
are terribly in earnest about making ourselves, individually and
collectively; but I fancy that our prevailing mood in the face of
all problems is that of an abiding faith which can afford to be
funny. He has himself indicated that we have, as a nation, as a
people, our joke, and every one of us is in the joke more or
less. We may, some of us, dislike it extremely, disapprove it
wholly, and even abhor it, but we are in the joke all the same,
and no one of us is safe from becoming the great American
humorist at any given moment. The danger is not apparent in Mr.
James's case, and I confess that I read him with a relief in the
comparative immunity that he affords from the national
facetiousness. Many of his people are humorously imagined, or
rather humorously SEEN, like Daisy Miller's mother, but these do
not give a dominant color; the business in hand is commonly
serious, and the droll people are subordinated. They abound,