Henry James's cousin, Minny Temple, was the heroine of his youth in New England; he saw her as a free spirit, a plant of pure American growth. The writer Constance Fenimore Woolson was a friend of his middle years in Europe, a solitary, mature woman who pursued her ambitions with an intensity that matched his own. Both had an extraordinary impact on James, even (perhaps especially) in the wakes of their premature deaths.