To Mrs. Wharton
Lamb House, Rye.April 19th, 1909.
My dear Edith,
I thank you very kindly for your so humane and so interesting letter, even if I must thank you a little briefly—having but this afternoon got out of bed, to which the Doctor three days ago consigned me—for a menace of jaundice, which appears however to have been, thank heaven, averted! (I once had it, and basta così;) so that I am a little shaky and infirm. You give me a sense of endless things that I yearn to know more of, and I clutch hard the hope that you will indeed come to England in June. I have had—to be frank—a bad and worried and depressed and inconvenient winter—with the serpent-trail of what seemed at the time—the time you kindly offered me a princely hospitality—a tolerably ominous cardiac crisis—as to which I have since, however, got considerable information and reassurance—from the man in London most completely master of the subject—that is of the whole mystery of heart-troubles. I am definitely better of that condition of December-January, and really believe I shall be better yet; only that particular brush of the dark wing leaves one never quite the same—and I have not, I confess (with amelioration, even,) been lately very famous; (which I shouldn't mention, none the less, were it not that I really believe myself, for definite reasons, and intelligent ones, on the way to a much more complete emergence—both from the above mentioned and from other worries.) So much mainly to explain to you my singularly unsympathetic silence during a period of anxiety and discomfort on your own part which I all the while feared to be not small—but which I now see, with all affectionate participation, to have been extreme.... Sit loose and live in the day—don't borrow trouble, and remember that nothing happens as we forecast it—but always with interesting and, as it were, refreshing differences. "Tired" you must be, even you, indeed; and Paris, as I look at it from here, figures to me a great blur of intense white light in which, attached to the hub of a revolving wheel, you are all whirled round by the finest silver strings. "Mazes of heat and sound" envelop you to my wincing vision—given over as I am to a craven worship (only henceforth) of peace at any price. This dusky village, all deadening grey and damp (muffling) green, meets more and more my supreme appreciation of stillness—and here, in June, you must come and find me—to let me emphasize that—appreciation!—still further. You'll rest with me here then, but don't wait for that to rest somehow—somewhere en attendant. I am afraid you won't rest much in a retreat on the Place de la Concorde. However, so does a poor old croaking barnyard fowl advise a golden eagle!…
I am, dearest Edith, all constantly and tenderly yours,
HENRY JAMES.
To Arthur Christopher Benson
Queen's Acre, Windsor.June 5th, 1909.
My dear Arthur,
Howard S. has given me so kind a message from you that it is like the famous coals of fire on my erring head—renewing my rueful sense of having suffered these last days to prolong the too graceless silence that I have, in your direction, been constantly intending and constantly failing to break. It isn't only that I owe you a letter, but that I have exceedingly wanted to write it—ever since I began (too many weeks ago) to feel the value of the gift that you lately made me in the form of the acquaintance of delightful and interesting young Hugh Walpole. He has been down to see me in the country, and I have had renewed opportunities of him in town—the result of which is that, touched as I am with his beautiful candour of appreciation of my "feeble efforts," etc., I feel for him the tenderest sympathy and an absolute affection. I am in general almost—or very often—sorry for the intensely young, intensely confident and intensely ingenuous and generous—but I somehow don't pity him, for I think he has some gift to conciliate the Fates. I feel him at any rate an admirable young friend, of the openest mind and most attaching nature, and anything I can ever do to help or enlighten, to guard or guide or comfort him, I shall do with particular satisfaction, and with a lively sense of being indebted to you for the interesting occasion of it. Of these last circumstances please be very sure.
I go to Cambridge next Friday, for almost the first time in my life—to see a party of three friends whom I am in the singular position of never having seen in my life (I shall be for two or three days with Charles Sayle, 8 Trumpington Street,) and I confess to a hope of finding you there (if so be it you can by chance be;) though if you flee before the turmoil of the days in question, when everything, I am told, is at concert pitch, I won't insist that I shan't have understood it. If you are, at any rate, at Magdalene I should like very much to knock at your door, and see you face to face for half-an-hour; if that may be possible. And I won't conceal from you that I should like to see your College and your abode and your genre de vie—even though your countenance most of all. If you are not, in a manner, well, as Howard hints to me, I shan't (perhaps I can't!) make you any worse—and I may make you a little better. Meditate on that, and do, in the connection, what you can for me. Boldly, at any rate, shall I knock; and if you are absent I shall yearn over the sight of your ancient walls.
I am spending a dark, cold, dripping Sunday here—with two or three other amis de la maison; but above all with the ghosts, somehow, of a promiscuous past brushing me as with troubled wings, and the echoes of the ancient years seeming to murmur to me: "Don't you wish you were still young—or young again—even as they so wonderfully are?" (my fellow-visitors and inexhaustibly soft-hearted host.) I don't know that I particularly do wish it—but the melancholy voices (I mean the inaudible ones of the loquacious saloon) have thus driven me to a rather cold room (my own) of refuge, to invoke thus scratchily your fine friendly attention and to reassure you of the constant sympathy and fidelity of yours, my dear Arthur, all gratefully,
HENRY JAMES.
To Charles Sayle
For several years past H. J. had received a New Year greeting from three friends at Cambridge—Mr. Charles Sayle, Mr. A. T. Bartholomew, Mr. Geoffrey Keynes—none of whom he had met till he went up to Cambridge this month to stay with Mr. Sayle during May-week. It was on this occasion that he first met Rupert Brooke.
Reform Club, Pall Mall, S.W.June 16th, 1909.
My dear Charles Sayle,
I want to send you back a grateful—and graceful—greeting—and to let you all know that the more I think over your charming hospitality and friendly labour and (so to speak) loyal service, the more I feel touched and convinced. My three days with you will become for me a very precious little treasure of memory—they are in fact already taking their place, in that character, in a beautiful little innermost niche, where they glow in a golden and rose-coloured light. I have come back to sterner things; you did nothing but beguile and waylay—making me loll, not only figuratively, but literally (so unforgettably—all that wondrous Monday morning), on perfect surfaces exactly adapted to my figure. For their share in these generous yet so subtle arts please convey again my thanks to all concerned—and in particular to the gentle Geoffrey and the admirable Theodore, with a definite stretch toward the insidious Rupert—with whose name I take this liberty because I don't know whether one loves one's love with a (surname terminal) e or not. Please take it from me, all, that I shall live but to testify to you further, and in some more effective way than this—my desire for which is as a long rich vista that can only be compared to that adorable great perspective of St. John's Gallery as we saw it on Saturday afternoon. Peace then be with you—I hope it came promptly after the last strain and stress and all the rude porterage (so appreciated!) to which I subjected you. I'll fetch and carry, in some fashion or other, for you yet, and am ever so faithfully yours,
HENRY JAMES.
P.S. Just a momentary drop to meaner things—to say that I appear to have left in my room a sleeping-suit (blue and white pyjamas—jacket and trousers,) which, in the hurry of my departure and my eagerness to rejoin you a little in the garden before tearing myself away, I probably left folded away under my pillows. If your brave Housekeeper (who evaded my look about for her at the last) will very kindly make of them such a little packet as may safely reach me here by parcels' post she will greatly oblige yours again (and hers),
H. J.
To Mrs. W.K. Clifford
The two plays on which H.J. was at work were The Other House (written many years before and now revised) and The Outcry.
Lamb House, Rye.July 19th, 1909.
Dearest Lucy C!
I have been a prey to agitations and complications, many assaults, invasions and inconveniences, since leaving town—whereby I have had to put off thanking you for two brilliant letters. And yet I have wanted to write—to tell you (explaining) how I found myself swallowed up by one social abyss after another, and tangled in a succession of artful feminine webs, at Stafford House that evening, so that I couldn't get into touch with you, or with Ethel, again, before you were gone, as I found when I finally made a dash for you. That too was very complicated, and evening-parties bristle with dangers.... The very critical business of the final luminous copy is, how ever, coming to an end—I mean the arriving at the utterly last intense reductions and compressions. So much has to come out, however, that I am sickened and appalled—and this sacrifice of the very life-blood of one's play, the mere vulgar anatomy and bare-bones poverty to which one has to squeeze it more and more, is the nauseating side of the whole desperate job. In spite of which I am interesting myself deeply in the three act comedy I have undertaken for Frohman—and which I find ferociously difficult—but with a difficulty that, thank God, draws me on and fascinates. If I can go on believing in my subject I can go on treating it; but sometimes I have a mortal chill and wonder if I ain't damnably deluded. However, the balance inclines to faith and I think it works out. You shall hear what comes of it—even at the worst. Meanwhile for yourself, dearest Lucy, buck up and patiently woo the Muse. She responds at last always to true and faithful wooing—to the right artful patience—and turns upon one the smile from which light breaks. I have been reading over the Long Duel (which I immediately return)—with a sense of its having great charm and care of execution, and quality and grace, but also, dear Lucy, of its drawbacks for practical prosperity. The greatest of these seems to me to be fundamental—to reside in the fact that the subject isn't dramatic, that it deals with a state, a position, a situation (of the "static" kind), and not, save in a very minor degree, with an action, a progression; which fact, highly favourable to it for a tale, a psychologic picture, is detrimental to its tenseness—to its being matter for a play and developed into 4 acts. A play appears to me of necessity to involve a struggle, a question (of whether, and how, will it or won't it happen? and if so, or not so, how and why?—which we have the suspense, the curiosity, the anxiety, the tension, in a word, of seeing; and which means that the whole thing shows an attack upon oppositions—with the victory or the failure on one side or the other, and each wavering and shifting, from point to point.) But your hero is thus not an agent, he is passive, he doesn't take the field. I say all this because I think there is light on the matter of the history of the fate of the play in it—and also think that there are other elements of disadvantage for the piece too. The elderly (or almost?) French artist with a virtuous love-sorrow doesn't, for the B.P., belong to the actual; he's romantic, and old-fashionedly romantic, and remote; and the case is aggravated by the corresponding maturity of the heroine. You will say that there is the young couple, and what comes of their being there, and their "action"; but the truth about that, I fear, is that innocent young lovers as such, and not as being engaged in other difficulties and with other oppositions (of their own,) have practically ceased to be a dramatic value—aren't any longer an element or an interest to conjure with. Don't hate me for saying these things—for working them out critically, and so far as may be, illuminatingly, in face of the difficulty the L.D. seems to have had in getting itself brought out. We are dealing with an art prodigiously difficult and arduous every way—and in which one seems most of all to sink into a Sea of colossal Waste. I'm not sure that The Other House, after all my not-to-be-reckoned labour and calculation on it, isn't (to be) wasted. But these are dreary words—it is much past midnight. I am damned critical—for it's the only thing to be, and all else is damned humbug. But I don't mean a douche of cold water, and am ever so tenderly and faithfully yours,
HENRY JAMES.
To Miss Grace Norton
Lamb House, Rye.August 10th, 1909.
I break ground with you thus, dear Grace, late in the evening (too late—for I shall soon have to go most belatedly to bed) of a singularly beautiful and glowingly hot summer's day—one of a succession that August has at last brought us (and with more, apparently, in store,) after a wholly damnable June and July, a hideous ordeal of wet and cold. English fine weather is worth waiting for—it is so sovereign in quality when it comes, and the capacity of this little place of a few marked odd elements to become charming, to shine and flush and endear itself, is then so admirable. I went out for my afternoon walk under stress of having promised my good little gardener (a real pearl of price—these eleven years—in the way of a serving-man) to come and witness his possible triumphs at our annual little horticultural show, given this year in some charming private grounds on a high hill overlooking our little huddled (and lower-hilled) purple town. There I found myself in the extraordinary position—save that other summers might—but haven't—softened the edge of the monstrosity—of seeing "Henry James Esq." figure on thirteen large cards commemorative of first, second and third prizes—and of more first, even, if you can believe it, than the others. It always [seems] to point, more than anything else, the moral, for me, of my long expatriation and to put its "advantages" into a nutshell. In what corner of our native immensity could I have fallen—and practically without effort, helpless ignoramus though I be—into the uncanny flourish of a swell at local flower shows? Here it has come of itself—and it crowns my career. How I wish you weren't too far away for me to send you a box of my victorious carnations and my triumphant sweet peas! However, I remember your telling me with emphasis long years ago that you hated "cut flowers," and I have treasured your brave heresy (the memory of it) so ineffaceably so as to find support in it always, and fine precedent, for a very lukewarm adhesion to them myself, except for a slight inconsistency in the matter of roses and sweet peas (both supremely lovable, I think, in their kind,) which increase and multiply and bless one in proportion as one tears them from the stem. However, it's 1.30 a.m. o'clock—and I am putting this to bed; till to-morrow night again, when I shall pull it forth and add to its yearning volume. I have to write at night, and even late at night—to write letter-things at all; for the simple reason of being so vilely constituted for work that when my regularly recurring morning stint is done (from after breakfast to luncheon-time,) I am "done" utterly, and so cerebrally spent (with the effort to distil "quality" for three or four hours,) that I can't touch a pen till as much as possible of the day has elapsed, to build out and disconnect my morning's association with it. That is one reason—and always has been—of my baseness as a correspondent. The question is whether the effect I produce as a "story writer" is of a nature to make up for it. You will say "most certainly not!"—and who shall blame you? But goodnight and à demain.
August 11th. I don't mean this to be a diary—but it has been another splendid summer day—and I am wondering if you sit in the loose but warm embrace of bowery Cambridge. Every now and then I read in the Times of "92° in the shade in America," and Cambridge is so intensely your America that I ask myself—though my imagination breaks down in the effort to place you anywhere, even as I write again, by my late ticking clock, in this hot stillness, [but] in the vine-tangled porch where I sat so often anciently, but only a little, alas, that other more often and more variously hindered year. It has been almost 92° in the shade, or has almost felt like it here to-day; in spite of which I took—and enjoyed—a long slow walk over the turf by our tidal "channel" here (which goes straight forth to the channel, and over to France, at the end of a mile or two, and has a beautiful colour at the flow.) … I'm spending a very quiet summer, to which the complete absence of any visiting or sojourning relative (a frequent and prized feature with me most other years) gives a rather melancholy blankness. But I'm hoping for a nephew or two—William's Bill, that is, next month; and meanwhile the season melts in my grasp and ebbs with an appalling rush (don't you find, at our age?), for there are still things I want to do, and I ask myself, at such a rate, How? I lately, as I think I've mentioned, spent a couple of months in London, and saw as much as I could of Sally and Lily, whom I found most agreeable, and confirmed in their respective types of charm and character. Lily is still in England—and of course you know all about her—I hope to have her with me here before long for a couple of days. But there is nothing I more wonder at, dear Grace, than the question of what Cambridge has become to you, or seems to you, without (practically) a Shady Hill, after the long years. It must be, altogether, much of a changed world—and thus, afar off, I wonder. It is a way of getting again into communication with you, or at any rate of making you a poor wild and wandering sign, as over broken and scarce sounding wires, of the perfect affectionate fidelity of your firm old friend, my dear Grace, of all and all the wonderful years,
HENRY JAMES.
To William James
Lamb House, Rye.Aug. 17th, 1909.
Dearest William,
I respond without delay to the blessing of your letter of the 6th—which gives me so general a good impression of you all that I must somehow celebrate it. I like to think of your tranquil—if the word be the least applicable!—Chocorua summer; and as the time of year comes round again of my sole poor visit there (my mere fortnight from September 1st 1904), the yearning but baffled thought of being with you on that woodland scene and at the same season once more tugs at my sensibilities and is almost too much for me. I have the sense of my then leaving it all unsated, after a beggarly snatch only, and of how I might have done with so much more of it. But I shall pretty evidently have to do with what I got. The very smell and sentiment of the American summer's end there and of Alice's beautiful "rustic" hospitality of overflowing milk and honey, to say nothing of squash pie and ice-cream in heroic proportions, all mingle for me with the assault of forest and lake and of those delicious orchardy, yet rocky vaguenesses and Arcadian "nowheres," which are the note of what is sweetest and most attaching in the dear old American, or particularly New England, scenery. It comes back to me as with such a magnificent beckoning looseness—in relieving contrast to the consummate tightness (a part, too, oddly, of the very wealth of effect) du pays d'ici. It isn't however, luckily, that I have really turned "agin" my landscape portion here, for never so much as this summer, e.g., have I felt the immensely noble, the truly aristocratic, beauty of this splendid county of Sussex, especially as the winged car of offence has monstrously unfolded it to me. This afternoon an amiable neighbour, Mrs. Richard Hennessy, motored me over to Hurstmonceux Castle, which, in spite of its being but about ten miles "back of" Hastings, and not more than twenty from here, I had never yet seen. It's a prodigious romantic ruin, in an adorable old ruined park; but the splendour of the views and horizons, and of the rich composition and perpetual picture and inexhaustible detail of the country, had never more come home to me. I don't do such things, however, every day, thank goodness, and am having the very quietest summer, I think, that has melted away for me (how they do melt!) since I came to live here. I miss the tie of consanguinity—that I have so often felt!—and now (especially since your letter, for you mention his other plans) I find myself calling on the hoped-for Bill in vain. We lately have had (it broke but yesterday) a splendid heated term—very highly heated—following on a wholly detestable June and July and having lasted without a lapse the whole month up to now—which has been admirable and enjoyable and of a renewed consecration to this dear little old garden. I hope it hasn't broken for good, as complications, of sorts, loom for me next month—but the high possibility is that we shall still have earned, and have suffered for in advance, a fine August-end and September. My window is open wide even now—but to the blustering, softly-storming, south-windy midnight. And through thick and thin I have been very quietly and successfully working. It all pans out, I think, in a very promising way, but it is too "important" for me to chatter about save on the proved, or proveable, basis that now seems rather largely to await it. And I grow, I think, small step by small step, physically easier and easier, and seem to know, pretty steadily, more and more where I am.... I have been following you and Alice in imagination to the kind and beautiful Intervale hospitality—my charming taste of which has remained with me ever so gratefully and uneffacedly, please tell the Merrimans when you have another chance. You tell me that Alice and Harry lift all practical burdens from your genius—than which they surely couldn't have a nobler or a more inspiring task;—but what a fate and a fortune yours too—to have an Alice reinforced by a Harry, and a Harry multiplied by an Alice! L'un vaut l'autre—as they appear to me in the wondrous harmony. You don't mention Harry's getting to you at all—but my mind recoils with horror from the thought that he is not in these days getting somewhere. It's a blow to me to learn that Bill is again to hibernate in Boston—but softened by what you so delightfully tell me of your portrait and of the nature and degree of his progress. If he can do much and get on so there, why right he is of course to stay—and most interesting is it to learn that he can do so much; I wish I could see something—and can't your portrait be photographed? But I lately wrote to him appealingly; and he will explain to me all things. Admirable your evocation of the brave and brown and beautiful Peg—of whom I wish I weren't so howlingly deprived. But please tell her I drench her with her old uncle's proudest and fondest affection. I hang tenderly over Aleck—while he, poor boy, hangs so toughly over God knows what—and fervently do I pray for him. And you and Alice I embrace.
Ever your HENRY.