From 2004, Our Girl in Chicago on Henry James:
Whatever you think of James’s style–and I know that plenty of smart people go into sneezing fits when they even get into the same room with his books–I find it hard to believe that someone could read his work and think of his as a sheltered existence. The inner lives of so many different kinds of people are animated there: men, women, children, rich, poor, middle-class, bright, dim, kind, wicked, and so on. This curiosity, let alone his insight, didn’t come from simply sitting back and coldly observing life….
Read the whole thing here.