An Interview on the War With Henry James
By Preston Lockwood
[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 21, 1915.]
One of the compensations of the war, which we ought to take advantage
of, is the chance given the general public to approach on the personal
side some of the distinguished men who have not hitherto lived much in
the glare of the footlights. Henry James has probably done this as
little as any one; he has enjoyed for upward of forty years a reputation
not confined to his own country, has published a long succession of
novels, tales, and critical papers, and yet has apparently so delighted
in reticence as well as in expression that he has passed his seventieth
year without having responsibly "talked" for publication or figured for
it otherwise than pen in hand.
Shortly after the outbreak of the war Mr. James found himself, to his
professed great surprise, Chairman of the American Volunteer Motor
Ambulance Corps, now at work in France, and today, at the end of three
months of bringing himself to the point, has granted me, as a
representative of THE NEW YORK TIMES, an interview. What this departure
from the habit of a lifetime means to him he expressed at the outset:
"I can't put," Mr.
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