So o n e r O r La t e r , I think, all o f us who adm ire the work o f H enry Jam es m ust confront the doubts we have at the back o f our minds about the M aster's late style. Sooner or later, as we stand am ong the cheering crowds watching the stately procession o f the M aster's prose, we must confront the precocious child who pipes up for all to hear during a lull in the tumult, not this time that the em peror has no clothes but that under the regal robes there is no emperor. Critics have

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... alt with the obscurities and difficulties o f Jam es's late m anner in a num ber o f ways. O ften they have denied that it is all that obscure; m ore often, they have justified it as being necessary to express Jam es's subject m atter. A good exam ple o f the first strategy is Charles Crow's essay on The Wings o f the Dove. 1 Crow analyzes seven passages from the novel to dem onstrate the variety and flexibility o f the prose. Crow succeeds very well with his chosen passages, but his choices are exceptions to Jam es's usual style. Three are descriptive introductions to the main characters o f the novel, and two are prolonged descriptions o f actions. None o f these passages features the m ost com m on elements of Jam esian proseabstract subjects, passive verbs, and a great m any parenthetical interrup tions-or the m ost com m on subject o f that prose-a mind in fierce delibera tion. W hen he does arrive at m ore typical examples o fja m e s's writing, Crow justifies much o f the convoluted syntax by the second strategy; he argues that the prose dramatizes the subject m atter. Here, for example, is a sentence from Book II o f The Wings o f the Dove: On possessing himself o f her arm he had made her turn, so that they faced afresh St. Mark's, over the great presence o f which his eyes moved while she twiddled her parasol.2 And here is Crow's interpretation: By its structure the sentence suspends the church, a "great presence," above Densher's awareness o f its presence and Kate's action o f trivial disregard. Something o f the dramatic contrast, that is, in the attitudes o f these two is caught and fixed for a moment in the structure o f the sentence.3