women in modern fiction; and I think Isabel is the more subtly
divined of the two. If we speak of mere characterization, we
must not fail to acknowledge the perfection of Gilbert Osmond.
It was a profound stroke to make him an American by birth. No
European could realize so fully in his own life the ideal of a
European dilettante in all the meaning of that cheapened word; as
no European could so deeply and tenderly feel the sweetness and
loveliness of the English past as the sick American, Searle, in
"The Passionate Pilgrim."

What is called the international novel is popularly dated from
the publication of "Daisy Miller," though "Roderick Hudson" and
"The American" had gone before; but it really began in the
beautiful story which I have just named. Mr. James, who invented
this species in fiction, first contrasted in the "Passionate
Pilgrim" the New World and Old World moods, ideals, and
prejudices, and he did it there with a richness of poetic effect
which he has since never equalled. I own that I regret the loss
of the poetry, but you cannot ask a man to keep on being a poet
for you; it is hardly for him to choose; yet I compare rather
discontentedly in my own mind such impassioned creations as
Searle and the painter in "The Madonna of the Future" with "Daisy
Miller," of whose slight, thin personality I also feel the
indefinable charm, and of the tragedy of whose innocence I
recognize the delicate pathos. Looking back to those early
stories, where Mr. James stood at the dividing ways of the novel
and the romance, I am sometimes sorry that he declared even
superficially for the former. His best efforts seem to me those
of romance; his best types have an ideal development, like Isabel
and Claire Belgarde and Bessy Alden and poor Daisy and even