Ideas and the Novel: Henry James and some others
Mary McCarthy, 3 April 1980
“... and Maggie and Chad remain nonetheless ideas of a sort. That is, ideas, expelled by a majestic butler at the front door, return by another entrance and stand waiting pathetically to be dressed in words. Before leaving James, hoist – if I am right – by his own petard, I want to ask whether his exclusion of ideas in the sense of mental concepts was ... ”