Books: What Henry James Went Through

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James Barrie said of James's smile: "It brought one down like Leatherstocking's Killdeer ... it was a part of him chuckling at the other parts of him." But James was always getting into trouble with his cumbersome shyness. Once in Europe at a table d'hôte, he ordered a bottle of wine in order to get up nerve enough to talk to the lady beside him, then spilled it on her. She forgave him, and he ordered another bottle—and spilled that one on her also.

Mishaps & Misgivings. The most obscure part of The Legend of the Master is the celebrated booing from the stage at the opening night of James's play, Guy Domville. It seems to have been a fairly good play; in 1930 (35 years later), the London Times called it "that beautiful, harshly treated play . . ." The producer of Guy Domville was sanguine, though James, with his usual misgivings stayed away opening night. Instead, he went to the Haymarket and saw Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband, which had just opened. James considered Wilde's play crude, bad, clumsy, feeble, vulgar—but it appeared to be a complete success—"and that gave me the most fearful apprehension."

Meanwhile, at St. James's Theater, Guy Domville had opened brilliantly, but during the second act the audience began to laugh at an elderly actress whose hoop skirt and high plumed hat struck them as ridiculous. Then the producer (and star) made an awkward last-act exit, and the uproar became a thunderstorm.

As the curtain fell, James entered the theater by the stage door. He was told that all had gone well. The star, "with incredible cruelty," led him to the middle of the stage. "For a moment or so James faced the storm, his round face white, his mouth opening and shutting." Then the star dragged him back into the wings. A contemporary account suggested that there had been a cabal against the play, and that the hissing began according to a prearranged signal. Says Author Nowell-Smith: "The problem is perhaps now insoluble."