ther, and persevere in raking the
surface of things, if haply they may chance upon another. The moral of
one of Hawthorne's stories is that there is no element of treasure-trove
in success, but that true luck lies in the deep and assiduous
cultivation of our own plot of ground, be it larger or smaller. For
indeed the only estate of man that savors of the realty is in his mind.
Mr. James seems to have arrived early at an understanding of this, and
to have profited by the best modern appliances of self-culture. In
conception and expression is he essentially an artist and not an
irresponsible _trouvere_. If he allow himself an occasional
carelessness, it is not from incaution, but because he knows perfectly
well what he is about. He is quite at home in the usages of the best
literary society. In his writing there is none of that hit-or-miss
playing at snapdragon with language, of that clownish bearing-on in what
should be the light strokes, as if mere emphasis were meaning, and
naturally none of the slovenliness that offends a trained judgment in
the work of so many of our writers later, unmistakably clever as they
are. In short, he has _tone_, the last result and surest evidence of an
intellect reclaimed from the rudeness of nature, for it means
self-restraint. The story of Handel's composing always in full dress
conveys at least the useful lesson of a gentlemanlike deference for the
art a man professes and for the public whose attention he claims. Mr.
James, as we see in his sketches of travel, is not averse to the
lounging ease of a shooting-jacket, but he respects the usages of
convention, and at the canonical hours is sure to be found in the
required toilet. He does not expect the company to pardon his own
indolence as one of the necessary appendages of originality. Always
considerate himself, his readers soon find reason to treat him with
consideration. For they soon come to see that literature may be light
and at the same time thoughtful; that lightness, indeed, results much
more surely from serious study than from the neglect of it.

We have said that Mr. James was emphatically a man of culture, and we
are old-fashioned enough to look upon him with the more interest as a
specimen of exclusively _modern_ culture. Of any classical training we
have failed to detect the traces in him. His allusions, his citations,
are in the strictest sense contemporary, and indicate, if we may trust
our divination, a preference for Fr