...preference, and ethnicity. prominent voice among this historically--and culturally--specific scholarship is that of John Carlos Rowe, who prefaces The Other Henry James with the claim that "he [James] writes well because he has so much to say about the societies in which he participated." (1) Rowe then presents a picture of James as a writer very capable of keeping his finger firmly on the pulse of the rapidly changing society at the beginning of the modern period. In particular, he sees James's work as reflecting changing attitudes in England and America concerning gender and sexual identity and sexual preference. Rowe is also particularly sensitive to shifts in emphasis in James's work, singling out, for example, the writings of the 1890s which "display a much greater openness with respect to male homosexuality as a viable alternative to Victorian sexual norms" (28).

Here I will concentrate on some of James's works from the 1890s addressing the subject of friendship, conceived as a relationship that places more emphasis on the "good" or "goodness" of self and other than it does on physical intimacy, homosexual or otherwise. James's own predilection for friendship, which may have been coupled with a wariness of physical intimacy in his personal life, has been suggested by biographer, Fred Kaplan, who writes,

Something extraordinary began happening to James in the mid-1890's ... He fell in love a number of times.... In each case he fell in love with a younger man.... Each time he fell in love, he placed the emphasis on friendship, not on physical consummation, which remained as threatening, as morally and culturally difficult for him as it had always been. (2)

In the last decade of the nineteenth century in addition to writing about friendship, James also found himself drawn to writing about children. (3) This interest in children was not unique, for many artists around the turn of the century were also showing signs of an interest in, bordering on preoccupation with children. Painters' absorption in the topic would blossom in the first half of the twentieth century as reflected, for example, in several sketches and paintings by Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee. (4) It was in literature, however, not painting, that a relationship between childhood and friendship could best be explored. The juxtaposing of these two themes in James's writing in the 1890s, then, merits scrutiny.

Rowe rightly points out that James "was always an experimental writer, interested in new ideas" (1). The American critic, however, does not give enough space to James's long-standing interest in philosophy which means that in addition to being drawn to "new" ideas, James was more than willing to imbibe "old" ones. (5) I see James belonging to the virtue-ethics tradition established to a large extent by Aristotle. (6) Although in the sphere of friendship, James may or may not have been aware of Aristotle's delineation of different kinds or levels of friendship, the American writer resembles Aristotle when he links friendship to a concern for virtue or moral goodness. They differ, however, when it comes to the placement of children in the context of friendship. Thus, while Aristotle tends to give children a minor role, banishing them entirely from the superior kind of friendship, James recognizes great potential in children and uses them as moral instruments trying in some cases to propel themselves toward or move adults toward the highest level of friendship.

As well as turning to Aristotle, I will turn briefly to John Stewart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. In general, the philosophy of Utilitarianism was well known in educated circles at the time when James was writing. Ultimately, however, G. E. Moore and Jacques Derrida are more useful for my purposes. Moore is especially important because his contention that recognizing the goodness of the Other is essentially a matter of intuition rather than reason opens up the possibility for certain children to surpass adults in this domain. Indeed, I believe that some of the children in James's fiction--I call them James's children-are far more sensitive to the delicate beauty of friendship and to friendship as a serious moral responsibility than the adults around them.

Derrida is important here not just as a commentator on Aristotle's books on friendship but also for elaborating on the complexities of friendship which even extend to relationships between the living and the dead. Furthermore, Derrida's sense of shifting borders helps highlight the dynamic boundary between childhood and adulthood crucial to an understanding of James's children. Derrida also demonstrates how friendship invariably gets caught up in the dynamics of gift-giving. James's children turn out to be peculiarly in tune with the nature of the gift of friendship.

Like his ancient Greek predecessor, James identifies the best possible life for a human being as centered on "virtue" (Aristotle's term arete is usually translated as "virtue"; James generally uses the term "good'). (7) James may be read as endorsing Aristotle's conception of friendship as a relationship between two people, both of whom are guided by an appreciation of virtue (or "goodness") as the basis for a meaningful relationship. I suspect that James would also agree with Aristotle's view that few people are irrevocably "bad," and that most have at least the potential to live a "good" life, and he would also accept Aristotle's thesis that in order to do so, one individual must recognize or sense "virtue" or "goodness" in another and have this mirror his or her own.

This privileging of "virtue" or "goodness" certainly does not mean that sexuality has no role to play either in Aristotle's or James's conception of friendship. In fact, although the primary emphasis in friendship for both James and the ancient Greek philosopher is on the moral qualifies of friends, they both also envisage a relation between friendship and a love that may be affected by eros.

Derrida helps us to see that oppositions can be destabilized and transcended. Thus when Aristotle declares that "Goodwill, then, would seem to be a beginning of friendship, just as pleasure coming through sight is a beginning of erotic passion" (1167a4-5), this does not mean that there can be no overlap between friendship and eros. (8) Indeed, Aristotle suggests a tension between friendship and eros, so that it may become a question of relative emphasis at any given moment. In instances where friendship and eros are able to stand apart from one another, however, the distinction between them can be seen in friendship's preference for goodness and moral virtue rather than sex or sexuality. In the highest forms of friendship the stress is certainly on the former.

When Aristotle distinguishes between three fundamental kinds of friendship, the first two kinds are those based on utility (or usefulness) and pleasure. Aristotle maintains that,

Those who love each other for utility love the other not in his own right, but in so far as they gain some good for themselves from him. The same is true of those who love for pleasure; for they love a witty person not for his character, but he is pleasant to them. Those who love for utility or pleasure, then, are fond of a friend because of what is good or pleasant for themselves, not insofar as the beloved is who he is, but insofar as he is useful or pleasant. (1156a10-17)

Derrida points out that in the Eudemian Ethics this third kind of friendship where the other is loved for "who he [or she] is" is called "prote philia," usually translated as "primary friendship," primary in the sense that "all other friendship is determined with reference to it." In the Nicomachean Ethics, however, Aristotle uses the term "term philia," usually translated as "perfect or accomplished friendship." Both "prote philia" and "teleia philia," then, can be bracketed together with the term "friendship par excellence" which is "an arkhe or a telos, precisely toward which one must tend even flit is never reached." (9) This highest form of friendship is always grounded in "the human good," defined as "activity of the soul in accord with virtue" (1098a18). When this friendship founded upon virtue is attained individuals love each other not for personal advantage...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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