Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

I invoked one novel of Henry James (1843 - 1916) in my "golden age" list a few weeks back. It was THE SACRED FOUNT. Here is some Wikipedia-type stuff about it.  The novel was published in 1901. It was his 16th novel. By length it might almost be considered a novella.  THE SACRED FOUNT was a departure for James, for several reasons, starting with the first person narration.  Something he never had used before and never would again.  There is also the pagination. All Roman numerals, from beginning to end.  One is accustomed to Roman numbers in a preface and then Arabic numerals for the volume proper.  But in this case, the Romans only end when the book does (at page cxcii). The mental energy required to translate that into 192 is a small thing, but not nothing and presumably contributes to a desired effect.  The plot? As far as outward events go, the plot is simply this.  Our unnamed narrator, a man, takes a train to a party, apparently held on a la...

The James household of the 1850s consisted of a patriarch and matriarch, four sons, and one daughter.  Let's run through the scorecard this morning. The patriarch was Henry James Sr., a graduate from Union College, a drop-out from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a participant at what seemed an earth-shaking movement at the time, but what has been nearly forgotten since -- Swedenborgian mysticism. The matriarch was Mary Robertson James, nee Walsh, Irish on her father's side, Scottish on her mother's, introduced to her future husband by her brother, when both of the young men were students together at Princeton. In long talks Henry persuaded her first that the Bible doesn't require the office of Minister (he was talking himself into leaving the seminary), and then that she should marry him -- in a civil ceremony, of course. (The officiant at the wedding was the Mayor of NYC himself, Isaac Varian.) Their oldest child was William James, who of course is the ins...