James be not incapable of describing passion, at all events he has still to show that he is capable of it. He has introduced us to many characters that seem to have in them capacity for the highest passion,--as witness Christina Light,--and yet he has never allowed them an opportunity to develop it. He seems to evade the situation; but the evasion is managed with so much plausibility that, although we may be disappointed, or even irritated, and feel, more or less vaguely, that we have been unfairly dealt with, we are unable to show exactly where or how the unfairness comes in. Thus his novels might be compared to a beautiful face, full of culture and good breeding, but lacking that fire of the eye and fashion of the lip that betray a living human soul. The other one of the two writers whose names are so often mentioned together, seems to have taken up the subject of our domestic and social pathology; and the minute care and conscientious veracity which he has brought to bear upon his work has not been surpassed, even by Shakespeare. But, if I could venture a criticism upon his productions, it would be to the effect that there is not enough fiction in them. They are elaborate and amiable reports of what we see around us. They are not exactly imaginative,--in the sense in which I have attempted to define the word. There are two ways of warning a man against unwholesome life--one is, to show him a picture of disease; the other is, to show him a picture of health. The former is the negative, the latter the positive treatment. Both have their merits; but the latter is, perhaps, the better adapted to novels, the former to essays. A novelist should not only know what he has got; he should also know what he wants. His mind should have an active, or theorizing, as well as a passive, or contemplative, side. He should have energy to discount the people he personally knows; the power to perceive what phases of thought are to be represented, as well as to describe the persons who happen to be their least inadequate representatives; the sagacity to analyze the age or the moment, and to reveal its tendency and meaning. Mr. Howells has produced a great deal of finely wrought tapestry; but does not seem, as yet, to have found a hall fit to adorn it with.