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I do not know into what brand of ink Mr. Henry James dips his pen; indeed, I heard that of late he has been dictat ing; but I know that his mind is steeped in the waters flow ing from the fountain of intellectual youth. The thing? a privilege? a miracle? what you will? is not quite hidden from the meanest of us who run as we read. To those who have the grace to stay their feet it is manifest. After some twenty years of attentive acquaintance with Mr. Henry James's work, it grows into absolute conviction, which, all personal feeling apart, brings a sense of happiness into one's artistic existence. If gratitude, as some one defined it, is a lively sense of favors to come, it becomes very easy t? be grateful to the author of The Ambassadors? to name the latest of his works. The favors are sure to come; the spring of that benevolence will never dry up. The stream of in spiration runs brimful in a predetermined direction, unaf fected by the periods of drought, untroubled in its clear ness by the storms of the land of letters, without languor or violence in its force, never running back upon itself, opening new visions at every turn of its course through that richly inhabited country its fertility has created for our de lectation, for our judgment, for our exploring. It is, in fact, a magic spring.