Transformation of a novel (simile, metaphor)
The establishment of the novel as a serious form of literature had its history; though novels has been written for many years before James was active, the novel as a literary form had been established in the first part of the 18th century in France and England thanks to the works of Balzac, Hugo, Dickens and many other novelists. The author of the essay [Henry James] says that the novel is developing, and its main purpose – to reflect reality - is transformed to much broader sense, as reality had changed. “During the period I have alluded to [to Dickens and Thackeray’s time] there was a comfortable, good-humoured feeling abroad that a novel is a novel, as a pudding is a pudding, and that this was the end of it”. Henry James’ works had a great influence on the development of modernistic literature, and thanks to his works a novel had transformed into a more complicated and coherent form of literature. According to James, it is important “to make our interest in the novel” as it “ventures to say a little more what it thinks of itself.”
Omnipresence of art (metaphor)
Talking about art, the author remarks that it always was and always will be. The art is referred as a living being that no matter what continues developing, and this process would never cease. “Art lives upon discussion, upon experiment, upon curiosity, upon variety of attempt, upon the exchange of views and the comparison of standpoints.”
Superstitions in literature (metaphor)
The author humorously refers to long-lived ideas concerning literature, which he ironically calls superstitions. “The old superstition about fiction being "wicked" has doubtless died out in England; but the spirit of it lingers in a certain oblique regard directed toward any story”.
