The Letters of Henry James (volume I)

82-

fallen upon his house. His mother died suddenly, in February 1882. To the end of his life Henry James was to remember this loss as the deepest stroke he had ever received; though she appears but little in his reminiscences there is no doubt that her presence, her completely selfless devotion to her husband and children, had been the greatest of all facts in their lives. Her care, her pride in them, the surrender of her whole nature and will to her love for them, had accompanied and supported all their doings; her husband, during the long years in which he poured out the strange fruits of his thought to

had failed." So Henry James wrote, thirty years later, in the Notes of a Son and Brother, and his letters of the time confirm the impression. "There passes away with him," he says in one of them, "a certain sense of inspiration and protection which had, I think, accompanied each of us even to middle life." Thenceforward it was to his elder brother that Henry James always looked for something of the same kind of support, and many letters will shew how close the bond remained. In the mere prose of business William took complete charge of his brother's share in the family affairs, for which the younger never claimed the smallest aptitude. But during the months that followed their father's death William was in Europe, and it fell to Henry to be

noticeable that English difficulties, English wars and politics and social troubles, of all of which these years were very full, begin to affect him as matters that concern his pride and solicitude for the country. There mingles with his exasperation an ardent desire that the English race may continue to stand high in the world, in spite of the many voices prophesying decadence and disaster. He writes as one who now has a stake in an old and honourable institution, and who feels a personal interest in its well-being and its good fame. Not indeed that he took, or ever for a moment wished to take, any share in the common life of the place but that of the most private fellowship; he resolutely avoided the least appearance of publicity, al

urope for the benefit of her now confirmed ill-health. Her presence near at hand, for the few years that remained to her, was a source of much pleasure, and also of constant anxiety, to her brother. She was a woman of rare talent and of strongly marked character; but the life of an invalid, which proved to be all she was capable of, prevented her from using her opportunities and from taking the place that would have been open to her. She lived in great retirement, at first in London, afterwards chiefly at Bournemouth and Leamington. Henry James was unwearied in his care for her; he visited her constantly, and never without keen delight in her company and her vigorous talk. H

the interruptions of London, and this he secured during the first seven months of 1887. For most of the time he was at Florence, where he took rooms in a villa overhanging the view from Bellosguardo; and he paid two lengthy visits to Venice, staying first with Mrs. Bronson, in the apartment so often occupied by Browning, and later with Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Curtis in the splendid old Palazzo Barbaro, where years afterwards he placed the exquisite and stricken heroine of The Wings of the Dove, for the climax of her story. He returned to England, late in the summer, to settle down to the writing of The Tragic Muse-the first time, as he mentions, that he had attacked a purely English subject on a large scale. "I am getting to know English life better than American," he writes in September 1888, when he was still working upon the book, " ...and to understand the English character, or at least the m

given in the following note of reminiscence, ki

James joined us for a short visit. The Millets possessed, on their domain, a medieval ruin, a small ecclesiastical edifice, which was very roughly repaired so as to make a kind of refuge for us, and there, in the mornings, Henry James and I would write, while Abbey and Millet painted on the floor below, and Sargent and Parsons tilted their easels just outside. We were all within shouting distance, and not much serious work was done, for we were in towering spirits and everythin

he sedentary rest; these walks were long in time but not in distance, for Henry was inclined to saunter. He had not wholly recovered from that weakness of the muscles of his back which had so long troubled him, and I suppose that this was the cause of a curious stiffness in his prog

es, spent one long rollicking day in rowing down the winding Avon from Evesham to Pershore. There was much "singing in the English boat," as Marvell says, and Edwin Abbey "obliged" profus

Henriett

olitan

ngton

9th,

Miss R

ve been delightfully genial and hospitable. It is here that people treat you well; venez-y voir. You have had a great many things, I know; but you have not had a winter in the Americas. The people are extremely nice and humane. I didn't care for it much at first-but it improves immensely on acquaintance, and after you have got the right point of view and diapason it is a wonderfully entertaining and amusing country. The skies are as blue as the blotting paper (as yet unspotted) on which this scrawl reposes, and the sunshine, which is deliciously warm, has always an air de fête. I have seen multitudes of people, and no one has been disagreeable. That is different from your pretentious Old World. Of Washington I can speak as yet but little, having come but four days ago; but it is like nothing else in the old world or the new. Enormou

JAM

es Eliot

incy

idge,

7th,

ar Ch

l, from my father and sister. My mother's death is the greatest change that could befall us, but our lives are so ful

my father, who is infirm and rather tottering; and I shall settle myself in Boston for the next four or five months. I

ithfull

AMES

John L.

the dramatic version of Daisy Miller; it remain

St., Pi

5th [

Mrs. G

t supreme farewell-will however always be one of the most fascinating incidents of life-the incidents that didn't occur, and leave me to muse on what they might have done for us. I think with extraordinary tenderness of those two pretty little evenings when I read you my play. They make a charming picture-a perfect picture-in my mind, and the memory of them appeals to all that is most raffiné in my constitution. Drop a tear-a diminutive tear (as your tears must be-small but beautifully-shaped pearls) upon the fact that my drama is not after all to be brought out in New York (at least for the present).... It is possib

AMES

Grace

l du

lou

17th

ear

What was right for them is, it seems to me, right for you. However, I make this little protest simply for the theory's sake, and promise you solemnly that in practice, in future, you shall be my own exclusive and peculiar Sévigné! Yet I don't at all insist on being your exclusive Walpole! I have indeed the sweet security of the conviction that you will never "want," as they say (you don't) in Cambridge, to exhibit my epistles. Only I give you full leave to read them aloud at your soirées! Have your soirées recommenced by the way? Where are you, my dear Grace, and how are you? The question about your whereabouts will perhaps make you smile, if anything in this letter can, as I make no doubt you are enjoying the gorgeous charm (I speak without irony) of a Cambridge October. For myself, as you see, I am "doing" the south of France-for literary purposes, into which I won't pretend to enter, as they are not of a very elevated character. (I am trying to write some articles about these regions for an American "illustrated"-Harper-but I don't foresee, as yet, any very brilliant results.) I left England some five weeks ago, and after a few days in Paris came down into Touraine-for the sake of the chateaux of the Loire. At the hotel at Tours, where I spent 12 days, I had the advantage of the society of Mrs. Kemble, and her daughter Mrs. Wister, with the son of the latter. We made some excursions together-that is, minus Mrs. K. (a large void,) who was too infirm to junket about, and then the ladies returned to Paris and I took my way further afield. Touraine is charming, Chenonceaux, Chambord, Blois, etc., very interesting, and that episode was on the whole a success-enlivened too by my exciting company. But the rest of France (that is those parts I have been through) [is] rathe

JAME

lliam

. Vern

st

26th,

ar Wi

t 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 bec

r y

JAM

ge du M

aurier was that reprinted

t 25th

Yo

17th

r Du M

ong 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 p

ver 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 Lon

Y JA

Grace

Vernon S

28th

ear

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 stro

Y JA

lliam

Holland

20th,

ar Wi

l 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

NR

D. H

ri

21st,

ar Ho

e 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

d 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 m

à v

Y JA

Addingto

St., Picca

ri

22nd,

J. A.

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 kno

appy (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 cert

th [you], and am

Y JA

honse

St., Picc

19 Jui

Alphons

Sapho énormément de vérité et de vie. Ce n'est pas du roman, c'est de l'histoire, et de la plus complète et de la mieux éclairée. Lorsqu'on a fait un livre aussi solide et aussi sérieux que celui-là, on n'a besoin d'être rassuré par personne; ce n'est donc que pour m'encourager moi-même que je constate dans Sapho encore une preuve-à ajouter à celles que vous avez données-de tout ce que le roman peut accomplir comme révélation de la vie et du dr?le de mélange que nous sommes. La fille est étudiée avec une patience merveilleuse-c'est un de ces portraits qui épuisent un type. Je vous avouerai que je trouve le jeune homme un peu sacrifié-comme étude et comme recherche-sa figure me paraissant moins éclairée-en comparaison de celle de la femme-qu'il ne le faudrait pour l'ntérêt moral la valeur tragique. J'aurais voulu que vous nous eussiez fait voir davantage par où il a passé-en matière d'expérience plus personnelle et plus intime encore que les coucheries avec Fanny-en matière de rammollissement de volonté et de relachement d'ame. En un mot, le drame ne se passe peut-êtr

Y JA

t Louis

tial Portraits. Stevenson's "rejoinder" was the essay called

ton S

5th [

bert Louis

ts 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

Y JA

lliam

ames, with an introduction by William Ja

on Str

2d,

Wil

r 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 cl

r y

NR

Grace

ton S

24th

ear

. . . . . .

w 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

y faithf

Y JA

lliam

th in the Century Magazine, containing scenes in whi

ton S

14th

Wil

rated 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 m

r y

JAM

Russell

fter having held the post of Am

ban's

nemo

9th [

ar Lo

ct 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 tow

Y JA

lliam

to at the end of this letter is H. J.'s sister-in-law, Mrs. William James. Hi

ere Man

9th

ar Wi

n 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 quatrième. 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 w

tly 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 sémillant. She could ea

ich 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 com

having a goodish success there. All your tidings about your own life, Bob, &c., were of the deepest interest.... I wi

r y

NR

es Eliot

the first instalment of his edit

cember 6t

ar Ch

t 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 m

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-p

d-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 char

Grace

ere Gar

23rd,

ear

el Curtises-the happy owners, to-day, of that magnificent house-a place of which the full charm only sinks into your spirit as you go on living there, seeing it in all its hours and phases. I went for ten days, and they clinging to me, I stayed five weeks: the longest visit I ever paid a "private family." ... In the interval between my two visits to Venice I took again some rooms at the Villa Bricchieri at Bellosguardo-the one just below your old Ombrellino-where I had stayed for three December weeks on my arrival in Florence. The springtime there was enchanting, and you know what a thing that incomparable view is to live with. I really did live with it, and rejoiced in it every minute, holding it to be (to my sensibilities) positively the most beautiful and interesting in the world. Florence was given over to fêtes during most of those weeks-the fêtes of the completion of the fa?ade of the Duomo-which by the way (the new fa?ade) isn't "half bad." It is of a very splendouriferous effect, and there is doubtless too much of it. But it does great honour to the contemporary (as well as to the departed) Italian-and I don't believe such work could have been produced elsewhere than in that country of the delicate hand and the insinuating chisel. I stepped down into the fêtes from my hill top-and even put on a crimson lucco and a beautiful black velvet headgear and disported myself at the great ballo storico that was given at the Palazzo Vecchio to the King and Queen. This had the defect of its class-a profusion of magnificent costumes but a want of entrain; and the success of the whole episode was much more a certain really splendid procession of the old time, with all the Strozzis, Guicciardinis, Rucellais, etc., mounted on magnificent horses and wearing admirable dresses with the childlike gallantry and glee with which only Italians can wear them, riding through the brown old streets and followed by an immense train of citizens all in the careful

Y JA

mund

e has described the episode in his recollections of R. L. S. (Critical Kit-kats). Stevenson's

ere Gar

17th

r G

ard (whom I wanted to see) were not there, as I was told by a man on the dock who was seeing some things being put on by a crane in which I couldn't be transferred. The appearance of the vessel was the reverse of attractive, though she is rather large than small. I write to-night to Mrs. Stevenson, to ask if they are really coming up to sa

r y

Y JA

t Louis

n the Century Magazine, April, 1888, a

ere Gar

r 30th

ear

m from my merit. To be not only witty one's self but the cause in others of a wit that is not at one's expense-that is a rare and high character, and altogether yours. I devoutly hope that it's in the November Century that the thing appears, and also that it was not too apparent to you in it that I hadn't seen a proof-a privation I detest. I wrote to you some three weeks or so ago-c/o Scribners. Wondrous seems to me the fate that leads you to the prospect of wintering at-well, wherever you are. The succession of incidents and places in your career is ever romantic. May you find what you need-white, sunny Winter hours, not too stove-heated nor too pork-fed, with a crisp dry air and a frequent leisure and no desperation of inanition. And may much good prose flow from it all. I wish I cou

ithfull

Y JA

very explicit friendliness to your mother. I hope she ret

t Louis

erick Hudson and execration of The Portrait of a Lady is included i

ere Gar

er 5th

ear

o earn their living, they seem to me dead. They dwindle when weaned-removed from the parental breast, and only flourish, a little, while imbibing the milk of my plastic care. None the less am I touched by your excellent and friendly words. Perhaps I am touched even more by those you dedicate to the less favoured Portrait. My dear Louis, I don't think I follow you here-why does that work move you to such scorn-since you can put up with Roderick, or with any of the others? As they are, so it is, and as it is, so they are. Upon my word you are unfair to it-and I scratch my head bewildered. 'Tis surely a graceful, ingenious, elaborate work-with too many pages, but with (I think) an interesting subjec

s very fa

JAM

tten a good deal lately-but the beastly periodicals hold them back: I can't make out why. But I trust the dance will begin before long, and that then you may glean some pleasure. I pray you, do write something yourself for one who knows and yet is famished: for there isn't a morsel here tha

D. H

ere Gar

y 2nd,

ar Ho

gs, about many of which you could give me, I think (or rather I am sure,) advice and direction. I have entered upon evil days-but this is for your most private ear. It sounds portentous, but it only means that I am still staggering a good deal under the mysterious and (to me) inexplicable injury wrought-apparently-upon my situation by my two last novels, the Bostonians and the Princess, from which I expected so much and derived so little. They have reduced the desire, and the demand, for my productions to zero-as I judge from the fact that though I have for a good while past been writing a number of good short things, I remain irremediably unpublished. Editors keep them back, for months and years, as if they were ashamed of them, and I am condemned apparently to eternal silence. You must be so widely versed in all the reasons of things (of this sort, to-day) in the U.S. that if I could discourse with you awhile by the fireside I should endeavour to draw from you some secret to break the spell. However, I don't despair, for I think I am now really in better form than I have ever been in my life, and I propose yet to do many things. Very likely too, some day, all my buried prose will kick off its various tombstones at once. Therefore don't betray me till I myself have given up. That won't be for a long time yet. If we could have that rich conversation I should speak to you too of your monthly polemics in Harper and tell you (I think I should go as far as that) of certain parts of the business in which I am less with you than in others. It

ithfull

Y JA

t Louis

t begun, was T

ere Gar

31st

ear

stomach withal. The wan wet months elapse and I see no sign of it. The beautiful portrait of your wife shimmers at me from my chimney-piece-brought some months ago by the natural McClure-but seems to refer to one as dim and distant and delightful as a "toast" of the last century. I wish I could make you homesick-I wish I could spoil your fun. It is a very featureless time. The summer is rank with rheumatism-a dark, drowned, unprecedented season. The town is empty but I am not going away. I have no money, but I have a little work. I have lately written several short fictions-but you may not see them unless you come home. I have just begun a novel which is to run through the Atlantic from January 1st and which I aspire to finish by the end of this year. In reality I suppose I shall not be fully delivered of it before the middle of next. After that, with God's help, I propose, for a longish period, to do nothing but short lengths. I want to leave a multitude of pictures of my time, projecting my small circular frame upon as many different spots as possible and going in for number as well as quality, so that the number may constitute a total having a certain value as observation and testimony. But there isn't so much as a creature here even to whisper such an intention to. Nothing lifts its hand in these islands save blackguard party politics. Criticism is of an abject density and puerility-it doesn't exist-it writes the intellect of our race too low. Lang, in the D.N., eve

Y JA

lliam

e l'Ecu

r 29th

ar Wi

with you. I wish to delay no hour longer to write to you, though I am at this moment rather exhausted with the effort of a long letter, completed five minutes since, to Louis Stevenson, in answer to one I lately received from his wife, from some undecipherable cannibal-island in the Pacific. They are such far-away, fantastic, bewildering people that there is a c

busy for the next three or four months with the long thing I am doing for the Atlantic and which is to run no less than 15-though in shorter instalments than my previous fictions; so that I have no time for wanton travelling. But I enjoy the easier, lighter feeling of being out of England. I suppose if one lived in one of these countries one would take its problems to one's self, also, or be oppressed and darkened by them-even as I am, more or less, by those which hang over me in London. But as it is, the Continent gives one a refreshing sense of getting away-away from Whitechapel and Parnell and a hundred other constantly thickening heavinesses.... It is always a great misfortune, I think, when one has reached a certain age, that if one is living in a country not one's own and one is of anything of an ironic or critical disposition, one mistakes the inevitable reflections and criticisms that one makes, more and more as one grows older, upon life and human nature etc., for a judgment of that particular country, its natives, peculiarities, etc., to which, really, one has grown exceedingly accustomed. For myself, at any rate, I am deadly weary of the whole "international" state of mind-so that I ache, at times, with fatigue at the way it is constantly forced upon me as a sort of virtue or obligation. I can't look at the English-American world, or feel about them, any more, save as a big Anglo-Saxon total, destined to such an amount of melting together that an insistence on their differences becomes more and more idle and pedantic; and that melting together will come the faster the more one takes it for granted and treats the life of the two countries as continuous or more or less convertible, or at any rate as simply

wonderful little Jusserand, the chargé d'affaires in London, who is a great friend of mine, and to oblige and relieve whom it was that I invited the two other diplomatists, his friends, whom he had rather helplessly on his hands. THERE is the real difference-a gulf from the English (or the American) to the Frenchman, and vice versa (still more); and not from the Englishman to the American. The Frenchmen I see all seem to me wonderful the first time-but not so much, at all, the second.-But I must finish this without having touched any of the sympathetic things I meant to say to you about your place, your work on it, Alice's prowesses as a country lady, the children's vie champêtre, etc. Aunt Kate, after her

Y JA