“The Sacred Fount” (1901) is a fanciful sketch dealing with the idea of youth as a rejuvenator of age. “The Wings of the Dove” (1902) has been called the most remarkable book that Mr. James has written. It is a long story of the old warfare between the flesh and the spirit, in which the unseen forces from another world play an unlooked-for part. Mr. James’ most recent stories are “The Better Sort” (1903), “The Ambassadors” (1904), and “The Golden Bowl” (1905). It is difficult to sum up in a few words the leading traits of Mr. James. It is easy to speak of him as reeling off volumes of abstruseness in which the petty ambitions of worthless Americans are analysed with a minuteness like that in which the leisurely student of anatomy delights; but such innocuous “criticism” does not even touch Mr. James. Undoubtedly it has been increasingly hard of late years to follow him; his later stories, with their proneness to excessive psychological delving, have a certain analogy to Browning’s later poems, which became harder to follow. But judged by his best works, such as “Roderick Hudson,” “The Princess Casamassima,” and “The Other House,” he must be pronounced a great artist, a keen analyst of the small section of life and the few types of character which he has chosen to study (and if one does not care for the types, one may still recognise the art with which they are presented); and as always a loyal American. He is not a master of style; yet at his best he embodies certain qualities of supreme excellence in style--ease, intimacy, suggestiveness, lucidity, sincerity. He is never a preacher, nor is he ever the mere idler and _dilettante_. He is very much in earnest; and in consequence the moral effect of his exposition of life is wholesome. “Out of the corruption,” says Miss Cary,[16] “of a society which Mr. James depicts with unsparing detail and without satire or didactic comment, rises the flame of purity. Some one among his characters is sure to stand for invincible goodness.” If the language of his later books becomes unintelligible, it will of course be a pity; but it seems quite unlikely that the great works of his middle period will soon cease to have a large body of appreciative and delighted readers. _Edward Eggleston._--The Hoosier life of southern Indiana has been described by Edward Eggleston (1837-1902). A native of Vevay, Indiana, he received only a brief school education, but taught himself several languages. He first became (1857) an itinerant Methodist minister in southern Indiana and then for nine years was a Bible Society agent in Minnesota. From 1866 till 1879, he was engaged partly in journalism and partly in a Brooklyn pastorate; then he retired to his country place on Lake George to devote himself entirely to literature.