has now splcndidK’ edited—is to comernto know what Adams called the “tpernbourgeois-bostonien.” In old age Adamsrnhad nothing but disdain for the achievementsrnof this tvpc—himself, James,rnWilliam Wetmore Ston, Ralph WildornEmerson, Charles Sumner, Bronson Alcott,rnand James Russell Lowell. All ofrnus, he told James in 1903, “were in actualrnfact only one mind and nature; thernindiidual was a facet of Boston. Wernknew each other to the last nervous centre,rnand feared each other’s knowledge.”rnWhat thcv knew, Adams thought, wasrnthat [ larvard and Unitarianism had keptrnthem shallow; and out of this Bostonrnmatrix had arisen their profound ignorance,rntheir introspectixe self-distrust,rnand the nervous self-consciousness thatrn itiatcd them all.rnOf course, Hcnrv James did ecrvthingrnpossilile to avoid being thought arnbourgeois Bostonian, as his satiricalrnnovel The Bostonians (1886) makesrnplain. To Adams, the expatriate Jamesrnwas impersonating, in his straitened way,rnthe bearing of an English earl; et hernproduced a library of brilliant fictionrnthat beggars most other Boston literaryrnaccomplishments—Adams’s excepted.rnJames had known Adams’s wife.rnClover Hooper, before he knew Adams,rnand after their marriage, wlienever hernvisited \4ishington or they London, hernsettled m at their hearth for what wasrnperhaps the best conversation in town.rnCloer thought James made too freernwith their hospitality. She told her fatherrnin 18S0 that “Mr. James. . . comesrnin everv day at dusk & sits by our firernbut is a frivolous being dining out nightly,rntomorrow being an off night he hasrninvited himself to dine with us.” Invariabhrnthey argued about the merits ofrnlife in America versus Europe. ThernAdamses, James told Sir John Clark,rn”don’t pretend to conceal (as whyrnshould they?) their preference of Americarnto Europe, and they rather rub it inrnto me, as they think it a wholesome disciplinernfor my demoralized spirit.” Yetrntlieir aersion to Europe, he thouglit,rnwas invidious: “One excellent reason forrntheir liking Washington better than I,ondonrnis that they are, vulgarly speaking,rn’someone’ here, and that thcv are nothingrnin your complicated kingdom.”rnYet James was enchanted withrn”Clover Adamses.” Clover was bright,rnwitty, and irreverent; she secured tornJames “the incarnation” of his nativernland. Compared to Englishwomen, shernwas “a perfect Voltaire in petticoats.”rnShe liked James but made it plain to thernnovelist that he was spending too muchrntime in Europe. And she said about ThernPortrait of a Lady that, while there werernnice things in it, she preferred the “bigrnbow-wow stvle.” She told her father thatrn”It’s not that [James] ‘bites off morernthan he can chaw,’ . . . but he chawsrnmore than he bites off.”rnLlcnry Adams’s literary accomplishments,rnin his several histories, the novelsrnDemocracy (1880), Esther (1884), andrnT/7e Education (1907), put the two writersrnon an ccjual footing. But how differentrnthey were! While James foundrnAdams’s “monotonous disappointedrnpessimism” difficult to take, Adams (descendedrnfrom a line of Presidents) wasrnwhat James confessed he would like tornbe: “a man of wealth and leisure, ablernto satisfy all his curiosities, while I am arnpenniless toiler.” As James toiled along,rncreating lords and ladies in The PrhicessrnCasamassima (1886), ‘I’he Wings of thernDove (1902), and other works, thernbrooding Adams thought James was pretendingrn”to belong to a wodd which is asrnextinct as Queen Elizabeth” and “alreadyrnas fossil as the buffalo.”rnThe suicide of Clover Adams in 1885rndevastated them both. But, paradoxicalK,rnas the ears passed, their solituderndrew James aird Adams closer togetherrn—especialK as, over the vears, theirrnmutual friends died off. hi 1915 Adamsrnwrote to Elizabeth Cameron that “Atrnabout three in the morning I wobble allrnoer the supposed universe. A little indigestionrnstarts whole flocks of strangernimages, and then I wonder what HenryrnJames is thinking about, as he is my lastrnstandard of comparison.”rnA basis for comparing these tw o writersrnof genius, wlio felt neglected in oldrnage, is suggested by Adams’s responsernto James’s autobiography, Notes of a Sonrnand Brother (1914), published whenrnboth were in their 70’s. Adams toldrnMrs. Cameron that “Poor Henry Jamesrnthinks it all real, I believe, and actuallvrnstill lives in that dream, stuffy Newportrnand Cambridge, with papa James andrnCharles Norton—and me! Yet whv? Itrnis a terrible dream, but not so weird asrnthis here which is quite loony.” Hernmust have expostulated to James in arnsimilar vein in a letter no longer extant.rnJames answered him on March 21, 1914,rnwith, in my view, a magisterial statementrnof why he and pediaps every otherrnartist creates. James acknowledged thern”unmitigated blackness” of Adams’srnstate of mind: “Of course we are lonernsuri<)rs, of course the past that was ourrnlives is at the bottom of an abyss—if thernabyss has any bottom; of course toornthere’s no use talking unless one particularlyrnwants to.” But, James went on tornsav. “I still find my consciousness interesting,”rnand he urged Adams to cultivaternthe same within himself:rnYou sec I still, in presence of lifern(or of what you deny to be such),rnhave reactions—as mam as possiblern—& the book I sent ou is arnproof of them. It’s because I amrnthat queer monster the artist, anrnobstinate finality, an inexhaustiblernsensibility. I lence thernreactions—appearances, memories,rnmany things go on playingrnupon it with consequences that Irnnote & “enjoy” (grim word!) noting.rnIt all takes doing—& I do. Irnbelie e I .shall do yet again—it isrnstill an act of life.rnJames, then, wouldn’t hear of Adams’srnthrowing in the towel. He had the generosityrnand acuity to remind Adams that,rndespite his avowed nihilism, he continuedrnto perform these acts of life himselfrn—in his distincti’e letters, essavs,rnand books.rnUnfortunately, many of their brilliantrnand cantankerous letters have not survived.rnJames destroyed most of the correspondencernhe received in a huge bonfirernlate in life (people alued privacvrnthen); and Adams destroyed Clover’srnletters shortly after her death. But thesernmere 56 letters—29 by James, seven byrnAdams—are still suggestive testamentsrnof genius, and editor Montciro has superblyrnintroduced and annotated themrnso that the whole relationship is niccK’rncondensed in this tender and acerbicrnbut very valuable little collection.rnJames \ . Tuttleton is a professor ofrnEnglish at New York University.rn34/CHRONICLESrnrnrn