Rebecca West described the book, in her biography of Henry James, as "a foolish song set to a good tune in the way it fails to 'come off.'" She praised the book's language and themes, but thought the book's political content was strained and unnecessary; she believed that James, by emphasising the political aspects of the subject matter, had inadvertently distracted the reader from what he actually had set out to say: "The pioneers who wanted to raise the small silvery song of art had to tempt their audiences somehow from the big brass band of America's political movements."