Chapter X: Introduction (5)

You will already have heard the circumstances under which I arrived at New York on Thursday 21st, at noon, after a very rapid and prosperous, but painful passage. Letters from Alice and Katherine L. were awaiting me at the dock, telling me that dear father was to be buried that morning. I reached Boston at 11 that night; there was so much delay in getting up-town. I found Bob at the station here. He had come on for the funeral only, and returned to Milwaukee the next morning. Alice, who was in bed, was very quiet and A. K. was perfect. They told me everything--or at least they told me a great deal--before we parted that night, and what they told me was deeply touching, and yet not at all literally painful. Father had been so tranquil, so painless, had died so easily and, as it were, deliberately, and there had been none--not the least--of that anguish and confusion which we imagined in London.... He simply, after the "improvement" of which, we were written before I sailed, had a sudden relapse--a series of swoons--after which he took to his bed not to rise again. He had no visible malady--strange as it may seem. The "softening of the brain" was simply a gradual refusal of food, because he _wished_ to die. There was no dementia except a sort of exaltation of his belief that he had entered into "the spiritual life." Nothing could persuade him to eat, and yet he never suffered, or gave the least sign of suffering, from inanition. All this will seem strange and incredible to you, but told with all the details, as Aunt Kate has told it to me, it becomes real--taking father as he was--almost natural. He prayed and longed to die. He ebbed and faded away, though in spite of his strength becoming continually less, he was able to see people and talk. He wished to see as many people as he could, and he talked with them without effort. He saw F. Boott and talked much two or three days before he died. Alice says he said the most picturesque and humorous things. He knew I was coming and was glad, but not impatient. He was delighted when he was told that you would stay in my rooms in my absence, and seemed much interested in the idea. He had no belief apparently that he should live to see me, but was perfectly cheerful about it. He slept a great deal, and as A. K. says there was "so little of the sick-room" about him. He lay facing the windows, which he would never have darkened--never pained by the light.... 27th a.m. Will send this now and write again tonight. All our wish here is that you should remain abroad the next six months.

Ever your H. JAMES.

_To George du Maurier._

The article on George du Maurier was that reprinted in _Partial
Portraits_ (1888).

115 East 25th Street, New York.

April 17th, 1883.

My dear Du Maurier,

I send you by this post the sheets of that little tribute to your genius which I spoke of to you so many months ago and which appears in the _Century_ for May. The magazine is not yet out, or I would send you that, and the long delay makes my article so slight in itself, rather an impotent conclusion. Let me hasten to assure you that the "London Society", tacked to the title, is none of my doing, but that of the editors of the Magazine, who put in an urgent plea for it. Such as my poor remarks are, I hope you will find in them nothing disagreeable, but only the expression of an exceeding friendliness. May my blessing go with them and a multitude of good wishes!

I should have been to see you again long ago if I had not suddenly been called to America (by the death of my father) in December last. The autumn, before that, I spent altogether abroad, and have scarcely been in England since I bade you good-bye, after that very delightful walk and talk we had together last July--an episode of which I have the happiest, tenderest memory. Romantic Hampstead seems very far away from East 25th St; though East 25th St. has some good points. I have been spending the winter in Boston and am here only on a visit to a friend, and though I am "New Yorkais d'origine" I never return to this wonderful city without being entertained and impressed afresh. New York is full of types and figures and curious social idiosyncrasies, and I only wish we had some one here, to hold up the mirror, with a 15th part of your talent. It is altogether an extraordinary growing, swarming, glittering, pushing, chattering, good-natured, cosmopolitan place, and perhaps in some ways the best imitation of Paris that can be found (yet with a great originality of its own.) But I didn't mean to be so geographical; I only meant to shake hands, and to remind myself again that if my dear old London life is interrupted, it isn't, heaven be praised, finished, and that therefore there is a use--a delightful and superior use--in "keeping up" my relations. I am talking a good deal like Mrs. Ponsonby de Tomkyns, but when you reflect that you are not Sir Gorgius Midas, you will acquit me. I have a fair prospect of returning to England late in the summer, and that will be for a long day. I hope your winter has used you kindly and that Mrs. du Maurier is well, and also the other ornaments of your home, including the Great St. Bernard. I greet them all most kindly and am ever very faithfully yours,

HENRY JAMES.

_To Miss Grace Norton._

131 Mount Vernon St., Boston. July 28th [1883].

My dear Grace,

Before the sufferings of others I am always utterly powerless, and your letter reveals such depths of suffering that I hardly know what to say to you. This indeed is not my last word--but it must be my first. You are not isolated, verily, in such states of feeling as this--that is, in the sense that you appear to make all the misery of all mankind your own; only I have a terrible sense that you give all and receive nothing--that there is no reciprocity in your sympathy--that you have all the affliction of it and none of the returns. However--I am determined not to speak to you except with the voice of stoicism. I don't know _why_ we live--the gift of life comes to us from I don't know what source or for what purpose; but I believe we can go on living for the reason that (always of course up to a certain point) life is the most valuable thing we know anything about, and it is therefore presumptively a great mistake to surrender it while there is any yet left in the cup. In other words consciousness is an illimitable power, and though at times it may seem to be all consciousness of misery, yet in the way it propagates itself from wave to wave, so that we never cease to feel, and though at moments we appear to, try to, pray to, there is something that holds one in one's place, makes it a standpoint in the universe which it is probably good not to forsake. You are right in your consciousness that we are all echoes and reverberations of the _same_, and you are noble when your interest and pity as to everything that surrounds you, appears to have a sustaining and harmonizing power. Only don't, I beseech you, _generalize_ too much in these sympathies and tendernesses--remember that every life is a special problem which is not yours but another's, and content yourself with the terrible algebra of your own. Don't melt too much into the universe, but be as solid and dense and fixed as you can. We all live together, and those of us who love and know, live so most. We help each other--even unconsciously, each in our own effort, we lighten the effort of others, we contribute to the sum of success, make it possible for others to live. Sorrow comes in great waves--no one can know that better than you--but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us it leaves us on the spot, and we know that if it is strong we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain. It wears us, uses us, but we wear it and use it in return; and it is blind, whereas we after a manner see. My dear Grace, you are passing through a darkness in which I myself in my ignorance see nothing but that you have been made wretchedly ill by it; but it is only a darkness, it is not an end, or _the_ end. Don't think, don't feel, any more than you can help, don't conclude or decide--don't do anything but _wait_. Everything will pass, and serenity and _accepted_ mysteries and disillusionments, and the tenderness of a few good people, and new opportunities and ever so much of life, in a word, will remain. You will do all sorts of things yet, and I will help you. The only thing is not to _melt_ in the meanwhile. I insist upon the necessity of a sort of mechanical condensation--so that however fast the horse may run away there will, when he pulls up, be a somewhat agitated but perfectly identical G. N. left in the saddle. Try not to be ill--that is all; for in that there is a failure. You are marked out for success, and you must not fail. You have my tenderest affection and all my confidence. Ever your faithful friend--

HENRY JAMES.

_To William James._

Hotel de Hollande, Paris. Feb. 20th, '84.

My dear William--

I owe you an answer to two letters--especially to the one in which you announce to me the birth of your little Israelite. I bid him the most affectionate welcome into this world of care and I hope that by this time he has begun to get used to it. I am too delighted to hear of Alice's well-being, and trust it has now merged into complete recovery. Apropos of the Babe, allow me to express an earnest hope that you will give him some handsome and pictorial name (within discreet limits). Most of our names are rather colourless--collez-lui dessus, therefore, a little patch of brightness--and don't call him _after_ any one--give him a name quite to himself. And let it be only one.... I have seen several times the gifted Sargent, whose work I admire exceedingly and who is a remarkably artistic nature and charming fellow. I have also spent an evening with A. Daudet and a morning at Auteuil with Ed. de Goncourt. Seeing these people does me a world of good, and this intellectual vivacity and _raffinement_ make an English mind seem like a sort of glue-pot. But their ignorance, corruption and complacency are strange, full strange. I wish I had time to give you more of my impressions of them. They are at any rate very interesting and Daudet, who has a remarkable personal charm and is as beautiful as the day, was extremely nice to me. I saw also Zola at his house, and the whole group are of course intense pessimists. Daudet justified this to me (as regards himself) by the general sadness of life and his fear, for instance, whenever he comes in, that his wife and children may have died while he was out! I hope _you_ manage to keep free from this apprehension.... I return to London on the 27th, to stick fast there till the summer. I embrace Alice and the little Jew and am ever your affectionate

HENRY.

_To W. D. Howells._

Paris. Feb. 21st, 1884.

My dear Howells,

Your letter of the 2d last gives me great pleasure. A frozen Atlantic seemed to stretch between us, and I had had no news of you to speak of save an allusion, in a late letter of T. B. A., to your having infant-disease in your house. You give me a good account of this, and I hope your tax is paid this year at least. These are not things to make a hardened bachelor mend his ways.--Hardened as I am, however, I am not proof against being delighted to hear that my Barberina tale entertained you. I am not prepared even to resent the malignity of your remark that the last third is not the best. It isn't; the [last] part is squeezed together and ecourte! It is always the fault of my things that the head and trunk are too big and the legs too short. I spread myself, always, at first, from a nervous fear that I shall not have enough of my peculiar tap to "go round." But I always (or generally) have, and therefore, at the end, have to fill one of the cups to overflowing. My tendency to this disproportion remains incorrigible. I begin short tales as if they were to be long novels. Apropos of which, ask Osgood to show you also the sheets of another thing I lately sent him--"A New England Winter." It is not very good--on the contrary; but it will perhaps seem to you to put into form a certain impression of Boston.--What you tell me of the success of ----'s last novel sickens and almost paralyses me. It seems to me (the book) so contemptibly bad and ignoble that the idea of people reading it in such numbers makes one return upon one's self and ask what is the use of trying to write anything decent or serious for a public so absolutely idiotic. It must be totally wasted. I would rather have produced the basest experiment in the "naturalism" that is being practised here than such a piece of sixpenny humbug. Work so shamelessly bad seems to me to dishonour the novelist's art to a degree that is absolutely not to be forgiven; just as its success dishonours the people for whom one supposes one's self to write. Excuse my ferocities, which (more discreetly and philosophically) I think you must share; and don't mention it, please, to any one, as it will be set down to green-eyed jealousy.

I came to this place three weeks since--on the principle that anything is quieter than London; but I return to the British scramble in a few days. Paris speaks to me, always, for about such a time as this, with many voices; but at the end of a month I have learned all it has to say. I have been seeing something of Daudet, Goncourt and Zola; and there is nothing more interesting to me now than the effort and experiment of this little group, with its truly infernal intelligence of art, form, manner--its intense artistic life. They do the only kind of work, to-day, that I respect; and in spite of their ferocious pessimism and their handling of unclean things, they are at least serious and honest. The floods of tepid soap and water which under the name of novels are being vomited forth in England, seem to me, by contrast, to do little honour to our race. I say this to you, because I regard you as the great American naturalist. I don't think you go far enough, and you are haunted with romantic phantoms and a tendency to factitious glosses; but you are in the right path, and I wish you repeated triumphs there--beginning with your Americo-Venetian--though I slightly fear, from what you tell me, that he will have a certain "gloss." It isn't for me to reproach you with that, however, the said gloss being a constant defect of _my_ characters; they have too much of it--too damnably much. But I am a failure!--comparatively. Read Zola's last thing: _La Joie de Vivre_. This title of course has a desperate irony: but the work is admirably solid and serious.... Addio--stia bene. I wish you could send me anything _you_ have in the way of advance-sheets. It is rather hard that as you are the only English novelist I read (except Miss Woolson), I should not have more comfort with you. Give my love to Winnie: I am sure she will dance herself well. Why doesn't Mrs. Howells try it too?

Tout a vous, HENRY JAMES.

_To John Addington Symonds._

(3 Bolton St., Piccadilly, W.) Paris.

Feb. 22nd, 1884.

My dear J. A. Symonds,

Your good letter came to me just as I was leaving London (for a month in this place--to return there in a few days,) and the distractions and interruptions incidental to a short stay in Paris must account for my not having immediately answered it, as the spirit moved me to do. I thank you for it very kindly, and am much touched by your telling me that a communication from me should in any degree, and for a moment, have lighted up the horizon of the Alpine crevice, in which I can well believe you find it hard, and even cruel, to be condemned to pass life. To condole with you on a fate so stern must seem at the best but a hollow business; I will therefore only wish you a continuance of the courage of which your abundant and delightful work gives such evidence, and take pleasure in thinking that there may be entertainment for you in any of my small effusions.--I _did_ send you the _Century_ more than a year ago, with my paper on Venice, not having then the prevision of my reprinting it with some other things. I sent it you because it was a constructive way of expressing the good will I felt for you in consequence of what you have written about the land of Italy--and of intimating to you, somewhat dumbly, that I am an attentive and sympathetic reader. I nourish for the said Italy an unspeakably tender passion, and your pages always seemed to say to me that you were one of a small number of people who love it as much as I do--in addition to your knowing it immeasurably better. I wanted to recognize this (to your knowledge;) for it seemed to me that the victims of a common passion should sometimes exchange a look, and I sent you off the magazine at a venture.... I thank you very sincerely for the good-natured things you say of its companions. It is all very light work, indeed, and the only merit I should dream of anyone finding in it would be that it is "prettily turned." I thank you still further for your offer to send me the Tauchnitz volumes of your Italian local sketches. I know them already well, as I have said, and possess them in the English issue; but I shall welcome them warmly, directly from you--especially as I gather that they have occasional retouchings.

I lately spent a number of months in America, after a long absence, but I live in London and have put my constant address at the top of my letter. I imagine that it is scarcely ever in your power to come to England, but do take note of my whereabouts, for this happy (and possibly, to you, ideal) contingency. I should very much like to see you--but I go little, nowadays, to Switzerland in summer (though at one time I was there a good deal). I think it possible moreover that at that season you get out of your Alps. I certainly should, in your place, for the Alps are easily too many for me.--I can well imagine the innumerable things you miss at Davos--year after year--and (I will say it) I think of you with exceeding sympathy. As a sign of that I shall send you everything I publish.

I shake hands with [you], and am very truly yours,

HENRY JAMES.

_To Alphonse Daudet._

3 Bolton St., Piccadilly, W. London, 19 Juin [1884].

Mon cher Alphonse Daudet,

J'aurais du deja vous remercier de tout le plaisir que vous m'avez fait en m'envoyant _Sapho_. Je vous suis tres-reconnaissant de cette bonne et amicale pensee, qui s'ajoutera desormais, pour moi, au souvenir du livre. Je n'avais pas attendu l'arrivee de votre volume pour le lire--mais cela m'a donne l'occasion de m'y remettre encore et de tirer un peu au clair les diverses impressions que tant d'admirables pages m'ont laissees. Je n'essaierai pas de vous rapporter ces impressions dans leur plenitude--dans la crainte de ne reussir qu'a deformer ma pensee--tout autant que la votre. Un nouveau livre de vous me fait passer par l'esprit une foule de belles idees, que je vous confierais de vive voix--et de grand coeur--si j'avais le bonheur de vous voir plus souvent. Pour le moment, je vous dirai seulement que tout ce qui vient de vous compte, pour moi, comme un grand evenement, une jouissance rare et fructueuse. Je vous aime mieux dans certaines pages que dans d'autres, mais vous me charmez, vous m'enlevez toujours, et votre maniere me penetre plus qu'aucune autre. Je trouve dans _Sapho_ enormement de verite et de vie. Ce n'est pas du roman, c'est de l'histoire, et de la plus complete et de la mieux eclairee. Lorsqu'on a fait un livre aussi solide et aussi serieux que celui-la, on n'a besoin d'etre rassure par personne; ce n'est donc que pour m'encourager moi-meme que je constate dans Sapho encore une preuve--a ajouter a celles que vous avez donnees--de tout ce que le roman peut accomplir comme revelation de la vie et du drole de melange que nous sommes. La fille est etudiee avec une patience merveilleuse--c'est un de ces portraits qui epuisent un type. Je vous avouerai que je trouve le jeune homme un peu sacrifie--comme etude et comme recherche--sa figure me paraissant moins eclairee--en comparaison de celle de la femme--qu'il ne le faudrait pour l'nteret moral la valeur tragique. J'aurais voulu que vous nous eussiez fait voir davantage par ou il a passe--en matiere d'experience plus personnelle et plus intime encore que les coucheries avec Fanny--en matiere de rammollissement de volonte et de relachement d'ame. En un mot, le drame ne se passe peut-etre pas assez dans l'ame et dans la conscience de Jean. C'est a mesure que nous touchons a son caractere meme que la situation devient interessante--et ce caractere, vous me faites l'effet de l'avoir un peu neglige. Vous me direz que voila un jugement bien anglais, et que nous inventons des abstractions, comme nous disons, afin de nous dispenser de toucher aux grosses realites. J'estime pourtant qu'il n'y a rien de plus reel, de plus positif, de plus a peindre, qu'un caractere; c'est la qu'on trouve bien la couleur et la forme. Vous l'avez bien prouve, du reste, dans chacun de vos livres, et en vous disant que vous avez laisse l'amant de Sapho un peu trop en blanc, ce n'est qu'avec vous-meme que je vous compare. Mais je ne voulais que vous remercier et repondre a votre envoi. Je vous souhaite tout le repos qu'il vous faudra pour recommencer encore! Je garde de cette soiree que j'ai passee chez vous au mois de fevrier une impression toute coloree. Je vous prie de me rappeler au souvenir bienveillant de Madame Daudet, je vous serre la main et suis votre bien devoue confrere,

HENRY JAMES.

_To Robert Louis Stevenson._

H. J.'s article on "The Art of Fiction" was reprinted in _Partial
Portraits_. Stevenson's "rejoinder" was the essay called "A Humble
Remonstrance," included in _Memories and Portraits_.

3 Bolton St., W. Dec. 5th [1884].

My dear Robert Louis Stevenson,

I read only last night your paper in the December _Longman's_ in genial rejoinder to my article in the same periodical on Besant's lecture, and the result of that charming half-hour is a friendly desire to send you three words. Not words of discussion, dissent, retort or remonstrance, but of hearty sympathy, charged with the assurance of my enjoyment of everything you write. It's a luxury, in this immoral age, to encounter some one who _does_ write--who is really acquainted with that lovely art. It wouldn't be fair to contend with you here; besides, we agree, I think, much more than we disagree, and though there are points as to which a more irrepressible spirit than mine would like to try a fall, that is not what I want to say--but on the contrary, to thank you for so much that is suggestive and felicitous in your remarks--justly felt and brilliantly said. They are full of these things, and the current of your admirable style floats pearls and diamonds. Excellent are your closing words, and no one can assent more than I to your proposition that all art is a simplification. It is a pleasure to see that truth so neatly uttered. My pages, in Longman, were simply a plea for liberty: they were only half of what I had to say, and some day I shall try and express the remainder. Then I shall tickle you a little affectionately as I pass. You will say that my "liberty" is an obese divinity, requiring extra measures; but after one more go I shall hold my tongue. The native _gaiety_ of all that you write is delightful to me, and when I reflect that it proceeds from a man whom life has laid much of the time on his back (as I understand it), I find you a genius indeed. There must be pleasure in it for you too. I ask Colvin about you whenever I see him, and I shall have to send him this to forward to you. I am with innumerable good wishes yours very faithfully,

HENRY JAMES.

_To William James._

_The Literary Remains of the late Henry James_, with an
introduction by William James, had just been published in America.

3 Bolton Street, W. Jan. 2d, 1885.

Dear William--

I must give some response, however brief, to your letter of Dec. 21st, enclosing the project of your house and a long letter from R. Temple. Three days ago, too, came the two copies of Father's (and your) book, which have [given] me great filial and fraternal joy. All I have had time to read as yet is the introduction--your part of which seems to me admirable, perfect. It must have been very difficult to do, and you couldn't have done it better. And how beautiful and extraordinarily individual (some of them magnificent) all the extracts from Father's writings which you have selected so happily. It comes over me as I read them (more than ever before,) how intensely original and personal his whole system was, and how indispensable it is that those who go in for religion should take some heed of it. I can't enter into it (much) myself--I can't be so theological nor grant his extraordinary premises, nor throw myself into conceptions of heavens and hells, nor be sure that the keynote of nature is humanity, etc. But I can enjoy greatly the spirit, the feeling, and the manner of the whole thing (full as this last is of things that displease me too,) and feel really that poor Father, struggling so alone all his life, and so destitute of every worldly or literary ambition, was yet a great writer. At any rate your task is beautifully and honourably done--may it be as great or even half as great a service as it deserves to be, to his memory! The book came at a bad time for Alice, as she has had an upset which I will tell you of; but though she has been able to have it in her hand but for a moment it evidently gives her great pleasure. She burst into tears when I gave it to her, exclaiming "How beautiful it is that William should have done it! Isn't it, isn't it beautiful? And how good William is, how good, how good!" And we talked of poor Father's fading away into silence and darkness, the waves of the world closing over this system which he tried to offer it, and of how we were touched by this act of yours which will (I am sure) do so much to rescue him from oblivion. I have received no notice from Scribner of the arrival of the other volumes, and shall write to him in a day or two if I don't hear. But I am rather embarrassed as to what to do with so many--wishing only to dispose of them in a manner which will entail some prospect of decent consideration and courtesy. I can give away five or six copies to persons who will probably have some attention and care for them (e.g. Fredk. Harrison, Stopford Brooke, Burne-Jones, Mrs. Orr, etc.) But the newspapers and reviews are so grim and philistine and impenetrable and stupid, that I can scarcely think of any to which it isn't almost an act of untenderness to send it. But I will go into the matter with Scribner.... The project for your house is charming--very big it looks, and of a most pleasant type. Love to all.

Ever your HENRY.

_To Miss Grace Norton._

3 Bolton St., W. Jan. 24th [1885].

My dear Grace,

* * * * *

It is a feature of life in this place that the longer it lasts the more one's liabilities of every kind accumulate--the more things there are to be done, every hour of the day. I have so many to do that I am thinking of inventing some new day with 40 or 50 hours--or else some newer one still, with only half a dozen, as that would simplify a large proportion of one's diurnal duties out of existence.... I am having a "quieter" winter than I have had for some years (in London) and have seen very few new people and not even many old friends. My quietness (comparative of course) is my solemn choice, and means that I have been dining out much less than at most former times, for the sacred purpose of getting my evenings to myself. I have been sitting at the festive British board for so many years now that I feel as if I had earned the right to give it up save in really seductive cases. You can guess the proportion of these! It is the only way to find any time to read--and my reading was going to the dogs. Therefore I propose to become henceforth an occasional and not a regular diner, with the well-founded hope that my mind, body, spirits, temper and general view of the human understanding and of the conversational powers of the English race, will be the gainers by it. Moreover, there is very little "going on"--the country is gloomy, anxious, and London reflects its gloom. Westminster Hall and the Tower were half blown up two days ago by Irish Dynamiters, there is a catastrophe to the little British force in the Soudan in the air (rather an ominous want of news since Gen. Stewart's victory at Aboukir a week ago,) and a general sense of rocks ahead in the foreign relations of the country--combined with an exceeding want of confidence--indeed a deep disgust--with the present ministry in regard to such relations. I find such a situation as this extremely interesting and it makes me feel how much I am attached to this country and, on the whole, to its sometimes exasperating people. The possible _malheurs_--reverses, dangers, embarrassments, the "decline," in a word, of old England, go to my heart, and I can imagine no spectacle more touching, more thrilling and even dramatic, than to see this great precarious, artificial empire, on behalf of which, nevertheless, so much of the strongest and finest stuff of the greatest race (for such they are) has been expended, struggling with forces which perhaps, in the long run, will prove too many for it. If she only will struggle, and not collapse and surrender and give up a part which, looking at Europe as it is to-day, still may be great, the drama will be well worth watching from [such] a good, near standpoint as I have here. But I didn't mean to be so beastly political! Another drama interesting me is the question of poor dear J. R. Lowell's possible recall after Cleveland mounts the throne. This, to me, is tragic, pathetic. His position here is in the highest degree honourable, useful, agreeable--in short perfect; and to give it all up to return, from one day to another, to John Holmes and the Brattle Street horsecar (which is very much what it amounts to--save when he goes to see you) seems to me to be the sport of a cruel, a barbaric, fortune.... I haven't asked you about yourself--the complexion of your winter, etc. But there are some things I know sufficiently without asking. So do you--as that I am always praying for you (though I don't pray, in general, and don't understand it, I make this brilliant exception for _you_!)

Your very faithful friend, HENRY JAMES.

_To William James._

The first number of _The Bostonians_ appeared this month in the
_Century Magazine_, containing scenes in which the veteran
philanthropist "Miss Birdseye" figured.

3 Bolton St., W. Feb. 14th [1885].

Dear William,

I am quite appalled by your note of the 2nd, in which you assault me on the subject of my having painted a "portrait from life" of Miss Peabody! I was in some measure prepared for it by Lowell's (as I found the other day) taking for granted that she had been my model, and an allusion to the same effect in a note from Aunt Kate. Still, I didn't expect the charge to come from you. I hold, that I have done nothing to deserve it.... I should be very sorry--in fact deadly sick, or fatally ill--if I thought Miss Peabody _herself_ supposed I intended to represent her. I absolutely had no shadow of such an intention. I have not seen Miss P. for twenty years, I never had but the most casual observation of her, I didn't know whether she was alive or dead, and she was not in the smallest degree my starting-point or example. Miss Birdseye was evolved entirely from my moral consciousness, like every other person I have ever drawn, and originated in my desire to make a figure who should embody in a sympathetic, pathetic, picturesque, and at the same time grotesque way, the humanitary and ci-devant transcendental tendencies which I thought it highly probable I should be accused of treating in a contemptuous manner in so far as they were otherwise represented in the tale. I wished to make this figure a woman, because so it would be more touching, and an old, weary, battered, and simple-minded woman because that deepened the same effect. I elaborated her in my mind's eye--and after I had got going reminded myself that my creation would perhaps be identified with Miss Peabody--_that_ I freely admit. So I have in mind the sense of being careful, at the same time that I didn't see what I could do but go my way, according to my own fancy, and make my image as living as I saw it. The one definite thing about which I had a scruple was some touch about Miss Birdseye's spectacles--I remembered that Miss Peabody's were always in the wrong place; but I didn't see, really, why I should deprive myself of an effect (as regards this point) which is common to a thousand old people. So I thought no more about Miss P. _at all_, but simply strove to realize my vision. If I have made my old woman _live_ it is my misfortune, and the thing is doubtless a rendering, a vivid rendering, of my idea. If it is at the same time a rendering of Miss P. I am absolutely irresponsible--and extremely sorry for the accident. If there is any chance of its being represented to _her_ that I have undertaken to reproduce her in a novel I will immediately write to her, in the most respectful manner, to say that I have done nothing of the kind, that an old survivor of the New England Reform period was an indispensable personage in my story, that my paucity of data and not my repletion is the faulty side of the whole picture, that, as I went, I had no sight or thought of her, but only of an imaginary figure which was much nearer to me, and that in short I have the vanity to claim that Miss Birdseye is a creation. You may think I protest too much: but I am alarmed by the sentence in your letter--"It is really a pretty bad business," and haunted by the idea that this may apply to some rumour you have heard of Miss Peabody's feeling _atteinte_. I can imagine no other reason why you should call the picture of Miss Birdseye a "bad business," or indeed any business at all. I would write to Miss P. on this chance--only I don't like to _assume_ that she feels touched, when it is possible that she may not, and knows nothing about the matter. If you can ascertain whether or no she does and will let me know, I will, should there be need or fitness, immediately write to her. Miss Birdseye is a subordinate figure in the _Bostonians_, and after appearing in the first and second numbers vanishes till toward the end, where she re-enters, briefly, and pathetically and honourably dies. But though subordinate, she is, I think, the best figure in the book; she is treated with respect throughout, and every virtue of heroism and disinterestedness is attributed to her. She is represented as the embodiment of pure, the purest philanthropy. The story is, I think, the best fiction I have written, and I expected you, if you said anything about it, would intimate that you thought as much--so that I find this charge on the subject of Miss Peabody a very cold douche indeed....

Ever yours, H. JAMES.

_To James Russell Lowell._

Lowell was now leaving London after having held the post of
American Minister there since 1880.

St. Alban's Cliff, Bournemouth.

May 29th [1885].

My dear Lowell,

My hope of coming up to town again has been defeated, and it comes over me that your departure is terribly near. Therefore I write you a line of hearty and affectionate farewell--mitigated by the sense that after all it is only for a few months that we are to lose you. I trust, serenely, to your own conviction of this fact, but for extra safety just remark that if you don't return to London next winter I shall hurl myself across the ocean at you like a lasso. As I look back upon the years of your mission my heart swells and almost breaks again (as it did when I heard you were superseded) at the thought that anything so perfect should be gratuitously destroyed. But there is a part of your function which can go on again, indefinitely, whenever you take it up--and that, I repeat, I hope you will do soon rather than late. I think with the tenderest pleasure of the many fire-side talks I have had with you, from the first--and with a pleasure dimmed with sadness of so many of our more recent ones. You are tied to London now by innumerable cords and fibres, and I should be glad to think that you ever felt me, ever so lightly, pulling at one of them. It is a great disappointment to me not to see you again, but I am kept here fast and shall not be in town till the end of June. I give you my blessing and every good wish for a happy voyage. I wish I could receive you over there--and assist at your arrival and impressions--little as I want you to go back. Don't forget that you have produced a relation between England and the U.S. which is really a gain to civilization and that you must come back to look after your work. You can't look after it there: that is the function of an Englishman--and if _you_ do it there they will call you one. The only way you can be a good American is to return to our dear old stupid, satisfactory London, and to yours ever affectionately and faithfully,

HENRY JAMES.

_To William James._

To prevent confusion of names it should be mentioned that the
"Alice" referred to at the end of this letter is H. J.'s
sister-in-law, Mrs. William James. His sister, Miss Alice James,
remained in England till her death six years later.

13 De Vere Mansions, W. March 9th [1886].

My dear William,

Long before getting your most excellent letter of Feb. 21st I had been pricked with shame and remorse at my long silence; you may imagine then how this pang sharpened when, three or four days ago, that letter arrived. There were all sorts of reasons for my silence which I won't take up time now with narrating--further than to say that they were not reasons of misfortune or discomfort--but only of other-engagement-and-occupation pressure--connected with arrears of writing, consumption of time in furnishing and preparing my new habitation, and the constant old story of London interruptions and distractions. Thank God I am out of them far more now than I have ever been before--in my chaste and secluded Kensington quatrieme. I moved in here definitely only three days ago, and am still rather upside down. The place is excellent in every respect, improves on acquaintance every hour and is, in particular, flooded with light like a photographer's studio. I commune with the unobstructed sky and have an immense bird's-eye view of housetops and streets. My rooms are very pretty as well as very convenient, and will be more so when little by little I have got more things. When I have time I will make you a diagram, and later, when the drawing-room (or library: meantime I have a smaller sitting-room in order) is furnished (I have nothing for it yet), I shall have the place photographed. I shall do far better work here than I have ever done before.

Alice is going on the same very good way, and receiving visits almost daily. A great many people come to see her; she is highly appreciated, and might easily, if she were to stay here, getting sufficiently better to exert herself more &c, become a great success and queen of society. Her vigour of mind, decision of character &c, wax daily, and her conversation is brilliant and semillant. She could easily, if she were to stay, beat the British female all round. She is also looking very well.... The weather continues bitterly cold, and there will be no question of her going out for a long time to come.

The two great public matters here have been the riot, and the everlasting and most odious ---- scandal. (I mean, of course, putting the all-overshadowing Irish question aside.) I was at Bournemouth (seeing R. L. Stevenson) the day of the emeute, and lost the spectacle, to my infinite chagrin. I should have seen it well from my balcony, as I should have been at home when it passed, and it smashed the windows in the houses (three doors from mine) on the corner of Bolton St. and Piccadilly. Alice was all unconscious of it till the morrow, and was not at all agitated. The wreck and ruin in Piccadilly and some other places (I mean of windows) was, on my return from Bournemouth, sufficiently startling, as was also the manner in which the carriages of a number of ladies were stopped, and the occupants hustled, rifled, slapped or kissed, as the case might be, and turned out. The real unemployed, I believe, had very little share in all this: it was the work of the great army of roughs and thieves, who seized, owing to the very favourable nature of their opportunity, a day of licence. It is difficult to know whether the real want of work is now, or not, so very much greater than usual--in face of positive affirmations and negations; there is, at any rate, immense destitution. Every one here is growing poorer--from causes which, I fear, will continue. All the same, what took place the other day is, I feel pretty sure, the worst that for a long time to come, the British populace is likely to attempt.... I can't talk about the Irish matter--partly because one is sick of it--partly because I _know_ too little about it, and one is still more sick of all the vain words on the subject, without knowledge or thought, that fill the air here. I don't believe much in the Irish, and I believe still less [in] (consider with less complacency) the disruption of the British Empire, but I don't see how the management of their own affairs can be kept away from them--or why it should. I can't but think that, as they are a poor lot, with great intrinsic sources of weakness, their power to injure and annoy England (if they were to get their own parliament) would be considerably less than is assumed.

The "Bostonians" must be out, in America, by this time; I told them, of course, to send you a copy. It appears to be having a goodish success there. All your tidings about your own life, Bob, &c, were of the deepest interest.... I wish I could assist at your researches and see the children, and commune with Alice--to whom I send much brotherly love.

Ever your HENRY.

_To Charles Eliot Norton._

Professor Norton had sent H. J. the first instalment of his edition
of Carlyle's correspondence.

Milan, December 6th [1886].

My dear Charles,

I ought long ago to have thanked you for your very substantial present of Carlyle--but I waited in the first place till I should have read the book (which business was considerably delayed,) and then till I had wound up a variety of little matters, mainly matters of writing which pressed upon me in anticipation of my leaving England for two or three months. Now when at last I seize the moment, I _have_ left England, but you will be as glad of a letter from here as from out of the dense grey medium in which we had been living for a month before I quitted London. I came hither straight from Dover last night through the hideous but convenient hole in the dear old St. Gotthard, and I have been strolling about Milan all the morning, drinking in the delicious Italian sun, which fortunately shines, and giving myself up to the sweet sense of living once more--after an interval of several years--in the adorable country it illumines. It is Sunday and all the world is in the streets and squares, and the Italian type greets me in all its handsomeness and friendliness, and also, I fear I must add, not a little in its vulgarity. But its vulgarity is the exaggeration of a merit and not, as in England and the U.S., of a defect. Churches and galleries have such a fatal chill that being sore-throatish and neuralgic I have had to keep out of them, but the Duomo lifts all its pinnacles and statues into the far away light, and looks across at the other white needles and spires of the Alps in the same bewildering cluster. I go to spend the remainder of this month in Florence and afterwards to--I hope--take a month between Rome, Naples and Venice--but it will be as it will turn out. Once I am in Italy it is about the same to me to be in one place as in another.

All this takes me away from Carlyle and from the Annandale view of life. I read the two volumes with exceeding interest; for my admiration of Carlyle as a letter writer is boundless, and it is curious to watch the first step and gradual amplification of his afterwards extraordinary style. Those addressed to his own family are most remarkable as dedicated to a household of peasants, by one of themselves, and in short for the _amateur_ of Carlyle the book has a high value. But I doubt whether the general public will bite at it very eagerly. I don't know why I allude to this, though--for the general public has small sense and less taste, and its likes and dislikes, I think, must mostly make the judicious grieve. You seem to me a most perfect and ideal editor--and it is a great pleasure to me that so excellent and faultless a piece of editorial work should proceed from our rough and ready country--but at the same time your demolitions of the unspeakable Froude don't persuade me that Carlyle was _amiable_. It seems to me he remains the most disagreeable in character of men of genius of equal magnificence. In these youthful letters it appears to me even striking how his disagreeableness comes out more and more in proportion as his talent develops. This doesn't prevent him, however, from being in my opinion--and doubtless in yours--one of the very greatest--perhaps the very greatest of letter writers; only when one thinks of the other most distinguished masters of expression the image evoked has (though sometimes it may be sad enough) a serenity, a general _pleasantness_. When the vision of Carlyle comes to us there comes with it the idea of harshness and discord. The difference between the man and the genius seems to me, in other words, greater than in any other case--for if Voltaire was a rascal he was eminently a social one--and Rousseau (to think of a great intellectual swell who must have been odious) hadn't anything like Carlyle's "parts." All the same, I shall devour the volumes I am delighted to see you are still to publish.

I ought to have plenty of London news for you--but somehow I feel as if I had not brought it to Italy with me. Much of it, in these days, is such as there must be little profit in carrying about with one. The subject of the moment, as I came away, was the hideous ---- divorce case, which will besmirch exceedingly the already very damaged prestige of the English upper class. The condition of that body seems to me to be in many ways very much the same rotten and _collapsible_ one as that of the French aristocracy before the revolution--minus cleverness and conversation; or perhaps it's more like the heavy, congested and depraved Roman world upon which the barbarians came down. In England the Huns and Vandals will have to come _up_--from the black depths of the (in the people) enormous misery, though I don't think the Attila is quite yet found--in the person of Mr. Hyndman. At all events, much of English life is grossly materialistic and wants blood-letting. I had not been absent from London for a year before this--save for two or three days at a time. I remained in town all summer and autumn--only paying an occasional, or indeed a rather frequent, country visit--a business, however, which I endeavour more and more to keep, if possible, within the compass of _hours_. The gilded bondage of the country house becomes onerous as one grows older, and then the waste of time in vain sitting and strolling about is a gruesome thought in the face of what one still wants to do with one's remnant of existence. I saw Matt Arnold the other night, and he spoke very genially of you and of his visit to Ashfield--very _affectionately_, too, of George Curtis--which I loudly echoed. M. A. said of Stockbridge and the summer life thereabouts, etc. (with his chin in the air)--"Yes, yes--it's a proof that it's attaching that one thinks of it again--one thinks of it again." This was amiably sublime and amiably characteristic.--I see Burne-Jones from time to time, but not as often as I should like. I am always so afraid of breaking in on his work. Whenever he is at home he is working and when he isn't working he's not at home. When I _do_ see him, it is one of the best human pleasures that London has for me. But I don't understand his life--that is the manner and tenor of his production--a complete _studio_ existence, with doors and windows closed, and no search for impressions outside--no open air, no real daylight and no looking out for it. The things he does in these conditions have exceeding beauty--but they seem to me to grow colder and colder--pictured abstractions, less and less observed. Such as he is, however, he is certainly the most distinguished artistic figure among Englishmen to-day--the only one who has escaped vulgarization and on whom claptrap has no hold. Moreover he is, as you know, exquisite in mind and talk--and we fraternize greatly....

_To Miss Grace Norton._

34 De Vere Gardens, W. July 23rd, 1887.

My dear Grace,