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Jamesian Gleanings by Arthur Sherbo, Michigan State University In a short piece, "Henry James in The Critic, 1883-1885," published in the Henry James Review, 9 (1987:136-41), I resurrected some forgotten reviews of James's writings that appeared in the first five volumes of that New York periodical. I concluded by expressing the hope that some Jamesian would go through the whole run of The Critic for anything else that might be gleaned. In the course of other work on The Critic, I kept an eye out for any piece, however slight, that might have escaped the notice of the compilers of the bibliographies of secondary literature on James. There is one letter which is not in the four-volume edition of the correspondence, edited by Leon Edel, and I begin by quoting it, the rest being set forth in order of appearance in The Critic.1 The letter is long and important (on international copyright) and is introduced by this statement, "We gladly make room this week for Mr. Henry James's letter addressed to the Executive Committee of the American Copyright League on the occasion of the Authors' Readings in Chickering Hall. It has not appeared in any other paper" (December 10, 1887). The ellipses were inserted by The Critic. Dear Sirs: LONDON, November 15th, 1887. There have been few accidents in my life that I regret more deeply than that of my being separated by so wide a distance from the privilege of taking part in your meetings of the 28th and 29th of this month. I enter with such cordial sympathy into the aims and efforts of the American Copyright League, and entertain such earnest hopes for its success, that it would, besides the great personal pleasure, have been an extreme satisfaction to me to feel that I might, in my small measure, testify directly to the excellent cause and help, in however insignificant a degree, to establish the reform we all so eagerly wait for, and remove the wrong we all so deeply deplore. Where justice is so closely in question, and the profession of letters so intimately concerned, I am almost ashamed to be away. I am to some extent consoled, however, by this reflection, that the very fact of my being in London and not in New York, only serves to fortify the conviction which I share with you, and of which I wish I could give you the benefit in some better eloquence—some communication more immediately operative. For it is through my observation of the case here, while you are observing it at home, that it is impressed upon me that Americans enjoy in another country a courtesy and an advantage which, among ourselves, we have so long and so ungenerously denied to the stranger, even when the stranger has given us some of the most precious enjoyment we know—has delighted and fortified and enriched us. I have all the material benefit of publishing my productions in England. I have only to put them forth shortly before their appearance in the United States to secure an effective copyright. The circumstance that the profit in question would be much more important Jamesian Gleanings 43 if my writings were more so, does not alter my sense of its being sadly out of keeping with the genius of our people to withhold reciprocity in a matter in which my own case is simply a small illustration. It is out of keeping with the genius of our people to have to take lessons in liberality—in fair dealing—from other lands, and to keep its citizens, in relation to those more hospitable countries, in a false, indefensible, intolerable position. To feel this strongly, indeed,—to know our unenviable eminence in this respect,—I do not mean to imply that the American must cross the Atlantic; for your organized existence is in itself a proof of our active conscience, of the manner in which all informed, all intelligent feeling seeks expression. But I speak as one who happens to have had for a good while this particular light, and this particular humiliation, of seeing the right thing done and not being able to...

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