New Year's offering" (and my hand is tremendously _in_ for those just
now, though it is also tremendously fatigued) it is a bit behind;
whereas for an independent overture it follows perhaps indiscreetly fast
on the heels of my Christmas letter. However, as since this last I have
had the promptest and most beautiful one from you--a miracle of the
perfect "fist" as well as of the perfect ease and grace--I make bold to
feel that I am not quite untimely, that you won't find me so, and I
offer you still all the compliments of the Season--sated and gorged as
you must by this time be with them and vague thin sustenance as they at
best afford. If I hadn't already in the course of the several score of
letters which had long weighed on me and which I really retired to this
place on Dec. 30th to work off as much as anything else, run into the
ground the image of the coming year as the grim, veiled, equivocal and
sinister figure who holds us all in his dread hand and whom we must
therefore grovel and abase ourselves at once on the threshold of, as to
curry favour with him, I would give you the full benefit of it--but I
leave it there as it is; though if you do wish to crawl beside me, here
I am flat on my face. I am putting in a few more days here--in order to
bore if possible _through_ my huge heap of postal obligations, the
accumulation of three or four years, and not very visibly reduced even
by the heroic efforts of the last week. I have never in all my life
written so many letters within the same space of time--and I really
think that is in the full sense of the term documentary proof of my
recovery of a _normal_ senile strength. I go to-morrow over into Kent to
spend Sunday with some friends near Maidstone (they have lately acquired
and extraordinarily restored Allington Castle, which is down in a deep
sequestered bottom, plants its huge feet in the Medway, actually
overflowed, I believe, up to its middle). I come back here again (with
acute lumbago, I quite expect,) and begin again--that is, write 300 more
letters; after which I relapse fondly, and I think very wisely, upon
London. Now that I am not _obliged_ to be in this place (by having so
committed myself to it for better for worse as I had in the past) I find
I quite like it--having enjoyed the deep peace and ease of it this last
week; but I have to go away to prove to myself the non-obligation to
stay, and that takes some doing--which I shall have set about by the
15th. London was quite delicious during that brown still Xmastide--the
four or five days after I wrote to you: the drop of life and of traffic
was beyond anything of the sort I had ever seen in that frame. The
gregariousness of movement of the population is an amazing
phenomenon--they had vanished so in a bunch that the streets were an
uncanny desert, with the difference from of old that the taxis and
motors were more absent than the cabs and carriages and busses ever
were, for at any given moment the horizon is through this power of
disappearance, void of them--whereas the old things _had_, through their
slowness, to hang about. One _gets_ a taxi, by the way, much faster than
one ever got a handsome (lo, I have managed to forget how to _write_ the
extinct object!)--and yet one gets it from so much further away and from
such an at first hopeless void....
Very romantic and charming the arrival of your gallant George--from all
across Europe--for his Xmas eve with you; your account of it touches me
and I find myself ranking you with the celebrated fair of history and
fable for whom the swimmings of the Hellespont and the breakings of the
lance were perpetrated. I congratulate you on such a George in these for
the most part merely "awfully sorry" days, and him on a chance of which
he must have been awfully glad. And apropos of such felicities--or
rather of felicities pure and simple, and not quite such, I do heartily
hope that you _will_ go on to Spain with your niece in the spring--I'm
convinced that you'll find it a charming adventure. I've myself utterly
ceased to travel--I'm a limpet now, for the rest of my life, on the rock
of Britain, but I intensely enjoy the travels of my friends.
My pen fails and my clock strikes and I am yours all faithfully,
/*
HENRY JAMES.
*/
_To Miss M. Betham Edwards._
/*
Lamb House, Rye,
Jan. 5th, 1912.
*/
/*
Dear Miss Betham Edwards,
*/
I can now at last tell you the sad story of the book for Emily
Morgan--which I am having put up to go to you with this; as well as
explain a little my long silence. The very day, or the very second day,
after last seeing you, a change suddenly took place, under great
necessity, in my then current plans and arrangements; I departed under
that stress for London, practically to spend the winter, and have come
back but for a very small number of days--I return there next week.
"But," you will say, "why didn't you send the promised volume for E. M.
from _London_ then? What matter to us where it came from so long as it
came?" To which I reply: "Well, I had in this house a small row of books
available for the purpose and among which I could choose--also which I
came away, in my precipitation, too soon to catch up in flight. In
London I should have to go and _buy_ the thing, my own production--while
I _have_ two or three bran-new volumes, which will be an economy to a
man utterly depleted by the inordinate number of copies of _The Outcry_
that he has given away and all but six of which he has had to pay
for--his sanguinary (admire my restraint!) publisher allowing him but
six." "Why then couldn't you write home and have one of the books in
question sent you?--or have it sent to Hastings directly from your
house?" "Because I am the happy possessor of a priceless parlourmaid who
_loves_ doing up books, and other parcels, and does them up beautifully,
and if the volume comes to me here, to be inscribed, I shall then have
to do it up myself, an act for which I have absolutely no skill and
which I dread and loathe, and tumble it forth clumsily and insecurely!
Besides I was vague as to which of my works I _did_ have on the
accessible shelf--I only knew I had some--and would have to look and
consider and decide: which I have now punctually done. And the thing
will be beautifully wrapped!" "That's all very well; but why then didn't
you write and explain why it was that you were keeping us unserved and
uninformed?" "Oh, because from the moment I go up to town I
_plunge_--plunge into the great whirlpool of postal matter, social
matter, and above all, this time, grey matter of _cerebration_--having
got back to horrible arrears of work and being at best so _postally_
submerged during these last weeks that every claim of that sort that
could be temporarily dodged was a claim that found me shameless and
heartless." But you see the penalty of all is that I have to write all
_this_ now.
...I'm glad you like adverbs--I adore them; they are the only
qualifications I really much respect, and I agree with the fine author
of your quotations in saying--or in thinking--that the sense for them is
_the_ literary sense. None other is much worth speaking of. But I hope
my volume won't contain too many for Emily Morgan. Don't let her dream
of "acknowledging" it. She can do so when we meet again. Perhaps you can
even help her out with the book by reading, yourself, the Beast in the
Jungle, say--or the Birthplace. May our generally so ambiguous 1912 be
all easy figuring for _you_. Yours, dear Miss Betham Edwards, all
faithfully,
/*
HENRY JAMES.
*/
_To Wilfred Sheridan._
/#
Mr. and Mrs. Wilfred Sheridan had asked him to be godfather to
their eldest child.
#/
/*
105 Pall Mall, S.W.
Jan. 12th, 1912.
*/
/*
My dear Wilfred,
*/
Beautiful and touching to me your conjoined appeal, with dear Clare's,
but I beg you to see the matter in the clear and happy light when I say
that I'm afraid it won't do and that the blest Babe must really be
placed, on the threshhold of life (there should be but _one_ h
there--don't teach her to _spell_ by me!) under some more valid and more
charming protection than that of my accumulated and before long so
_concluding_ years. She mustn't be taken, for her first happy holiday,
to visit her late godfather's tomb--as would certainly be the case were
I to lend myself to the fond anachronism her too rosy-visioned parents
so flatteringly propose. You see, dear Wilfred, I speak from a wealth of
wisdom and experience--life has made me rather exceptionally acquainted
with the godpaternal function (so successful an impostor would I seem to
have been,) and it was long since brought home to me that the character
takes more wearing and its duties more performing than I feel I have
ever been able to give it. I have three godchildren living (for to some
I have been fatal)--two daughters and a son; and my conscience tells me
that I have long grossly neglected them. They write me--at considerable
length sometimes, and I just remember that I have one of their last
sweet appeals still unanswered. This, dear Clare and dear Wilfred, is
purely veracious history--a dark chapter in my life. Let me not add
another--let me show at last a decent compunction. Let me not offer up a
helpless and unconscious little career on the altar of my incompetence.
Frankly, the lovely child should find at her font a younger and braver
and nimbler presence, one that shall go on with her longer and become
accessible to her personal knowledge. You will feel this together on
easier reflection--just as you will see how my plea goes hand in hand
with my deep appreciation of your exquisite confidence.
You must indeed, Wilfred, have been through terrific tension--I gathered
from Ethel Dilke's letter that Clare's crisis had been dire; such are
not the hours when a man most feels the privilege and pride of
fatherhood. But I rejoice greatly in the good conditions now, and
already make out that the daughter is to be of prodigious power, beauty
and stature. I feel for that matter that by the time Easter comes I
should drop her straight into the ritual reservoir--with a scandalous
splash. It will take more than me--! (though you may well say you don't
_want_ more--after so many words!) I embrace you all three and am
devotedly yours,
/*
HENRY JAMES.
*/
_To Walter V. R. Berry._
/#
H. J. never at any time received presents easily, and the
difficulty seems to have reached a climax over one recently sent
him by Mr. Berry. It may not be obvious that the gift in question
was a leather dressing-case.
#/
/*
Lamb House, Rye.
February 8th, 1912.
*/
/*
Tres-cher et tres-grand ami!
*/
How you must have wondered at my silence! But it has been, alas,
inevitable and now is but feebly and dimly broken. Just after you passed
through London--or rather even _while_ you were passing through it--I
began to fall upon evil days again; a deplorable bout of unwellness
which, making me fit for nothing, gave me a sick struggle, first, in
those awkward Pall Mall conditions, and then reduced me to scrambling
back here as best I might, where I have been these several days but a
poor ineffectual rag. I shall get better here if I can still further
draw on my sadly depleted store of time and patience; but meanwhile I am
capable but of this weak and appealing grimace--so deeply discouraged am
I to feel that there are still, and after I have travelled so far, such
horrid little deep holes for me to tumble into. (This has been a deeper
one than for many months, though I am, I believe, slowly scrambling out;
and blest to me has been the resource of crawling to cover here--for
better aid and comfort.) ... The case has really and largely been,
however, all the while, dearest Walter, that of my having had to yield,
just after your glittering passage in town, to that simply overwhelming
_coup de massue_ of your--well, of your you know what. It was _that_
that knocked me down--when I was just trembling for a fall; it was that
that laid me flat.
_February 14th._ Well, dearest Walter, it laid me after all so flat that
I broke down, a week ago, in the foregoing attempt to do you, and your
ineffable procede, some manner of faint justice; I wasn't then apt for
any sort of right or worthy approach to you, and there was nothing for
me but resignedly to intermit and _me recoucher_. You had done it with
your own mailed fist--mailed in glittering gold, speciously glazed in
polished, inconceivably and indescribably sublimated, leather, and I had
rallied but too superficially from the stroke. It claimed its victim
afresh, and I have lain the better part of a week just languidly heaving
and groaning as a result _de vos oeuvres_--and forced thereby quite to
neglect and ignore all letters. I am a little more on my feet again, and
if this continues shall presently be able to return to town (Saturday or
Monday;) where, however, the monstrous object will again confront me.
That is the grand fact of the situation--that is the tawny lion,
portentous creature, in my path. I can't get past him, I can't get round
him, and on the other hand he stands glaring at me, refusing to give way
and practically blocking all my future. I can't live with him, you see;
because I can't live _up_ to him. His claims, his pretensions, his
dimensions, his assumptions and consumptions, above all the manner in
which he causes every surrounding object (on my poor premises or within
my poor range) to tell a dingy or deplorable tale--all this makes him
the very scourge of my life, the very blot on my scutcheon. He doesn't
regild that rusty metal--he simply takes up an attitude of gorgeous
swagger, straight in front of all the rust and the rubbish, which makes
me look as if I had stolen _somebody else's_ (re-garnished _blason_) and
were trying to palm it off as my own. Cher et bon Gaultier, I simply
can't _afford_ him, and that is the sorry homely truth. _He is out of
the picture_--out of _mine_; and behold me condemned to live forever
with that canvas turned to the wall. Do you know what that means?--to
have to give up going about at all, lest complications (of the most
incalculable order) should ensue from its being seen what I go about
_with_. Bonne renommee vaut mieux que sac-de-voyage dore, and though I
may have had weaknesses that have brought me a little under public
notice, my modest hold-all (which has accompanied me in most of my
voyage through life) has at least, so far as I know, never _fait jaser_.
All this I have to think of--and I put it candidly to you while yet
there is time. That you shouldn't have counted the cost--to
yourself--that is after all perhaps conceivable (quoiqu'a peine!) but
that you shouldn't have counted the cost to _me_, to whom it spells
ruin: _that_ ranks you with those great lurid, though lovely, romantic
and historic figures and charmers who have scattered their affections
and lavished their favours only (as it has presently appeared) to
consume and to destroy! More prosaically, dearest Walter (if one of the
most lyric acts recorded in history--and one of the most finely
aesthetic, and one stamped with the most matchless grace, _has_ a
prosaic side,) I have been truly overwhelmed by the princely munificence
and generosity of your procede, and I have gasped under it while tossing
on the bed of indisposition. For a beau geste, c'est le plus beau, by
all odds, of any in all my life ever esquisse in my direction, and it
_has_, as such, left me really and truly panting helplessly after--or
rather quite intensely _before_--it! What is a poor man to do, mon
prince, mon bon prince, mon grand prince, when so prodigiously practised
upon? There is _nothing_, you see: for the proceeding itself swallows at
a gulp, with its open crimson jaws (_such_ a rosy mouth!) like Carlyle's
Mirabeau, "all formulas." One doesn't "thank," I take it, when the
heavens open--that is when the whale of Mr. Allen's-in-the-Strand
celestial shopfront does--and discharge straight into one's lap the
perfect compendium, the very burden of the song, of just what the Angels
have been raving about ever since we first heard of them. Well _may_
they have raved--but I can't, you see; I have to take the case (the
incomparable suit-case) in abject silence and submission. Ah, Walter,
Walter, why do you do these things? they're magnificent, but they're
not--well, discussable or permissible or forgiveable. At least not all
at once. It will take a long, long time. Only little by little and
buckle-hole by buckle-hole, shall I be able to look, with you, even one
strap in the face. As yet a sacred horror possesses me, and I must ask
you to let me, please, though writing you at such length, not so much as
mention the subject. It's better so. Perhaps your conscience will tell
you why--tell you, I mean, that great supreme _gestes_ are only fair
when addressed to those who can themselves gesticulate. I can't--and it
makes me feel so awkward and graceless and poor. I go about trying--so
as to hurl it (something or other) back on you; but it doesn't come
off--practice _doesn't_ make perfect; you are victor, winner, master, oh
irresistible one--you've done it, you've brought it off and got me down
forever, and I must just feel your weight and bear your might to bless
your name--even to the very end of the days of yours, dearest Walter,
all too abjectly and too touchedly,
/*
HENRY JAMES.
*/
_To W. D. Howells._
/#
The following "open letter" was written to be read at the dinner
held in New York in celebration of Mr. Howells's seventy-fifth
birthday.
#/
/*
105 Pall Mall, S.W.
February 19th, 1912.
*/
/*
My dear Howells,
*/
It is made known to me that they are soon to feast in New York the
newest and freshest of the splendid birthdays to which you keep treating
us, and that your many friends will meet round you to rejoice in it and
reaffirm their allegiance. I shall not be there, to my sorrow, and
though this is inevitable I yet want to be missed, peculiarly and
monstrously missed; so that these words shall be a public apology for my
absence: read by you, if you like and can stand it, but better still
read _to_ you and in fact straight _at_ you, by whoever will be so kind
and so loud and so distinct. For I doubt, you see, whether any of your
toasters and acclaimers have anything like my ground and title for being
with you at such an hour. There can scarce be one, I think, to-day, who
has known you from so far back, who has kept so close to you for so
long, and who has such fine old reasons--so old, yet so well
preserved--to feel your virtue and sound your praise. My debt to you
began well-nigh half a century ago, in the most personal way possible,
and then kept growing and growing with your own admirable growth--but
always rooted in the early intimate benefit. This benefit was that you
held out your open editorial hand to me at the time I began to
write--and I allude especially to the summer of 1866--with a frankness
and sweetness of hospitality that was really the making of me, the
making of the confidence that required help and sympathy and that I
should otherwise, I think, have strayed and stumbled about a long time
without acquiring. You showed me the way and opened me the door; you
wrote to me, and confessed yourself struck with me--I have never
forgotten the beautiful thrill of _that_. You published me at once--and
paid me, above all, with a dazzling promptitude; magnificently, I felt,
and so that nothing since has ever quite come up to it. More than this
even, you cheered me on with a sympathy that was in itself an
inspiration. I mean that you talked to me and listened to me--ever so
patiently and genially and suggestively conversed and consorted with me.
This won me to you irresistibly and made you the most interesting person
I knew--lost as I was in the charming sense that my best friend was an
editor, and an almost insatiable editor, and that such a delicious being
as that was a kind of property of my own. Yet how didn't that interest
still quicken and spread when I became aware that--with such attention
as you could spare from us, for I recognised my fellow beneficiaries--you
had started to cultivate _your_ great garden as well; the tract of
virgin soil that, beginning as a cluster of bright, fresh, sunny and
savoury patches, close about the house, as it were, was to become that
vast goodly pleasaunce of art and observation, of appreciation and
creation, in which you have laboured, without a break or a lapse, to
this day, and in which you have grown so grand a show of--well, really
of everything. Your liberal visits to _my_ plot, and your free-handed
purchases there, were still greater events when I began to see you
handle, yourself, with such ease the key to our rich and inexhaustible
mystery. Then the question of what you would make of your own powers
began to be even more interesting than the question of what you would
make of mine--all the more, I confess, as you had ended by settling this
one so happily. My confidence in myself, which you had so helped me to,
gave way to a fascinated impression of your own spread and growth; for
you broke out so insistently and variously that it was a charm to watch
and an excitement to follow you. The only drawback that I remember
suffering from was that _I_, your original debtor, couldn't print or
publish or pay you--which would have been a sort of ideal _re_payment
and of enhanced credit; you could take care of yourself so beautifully,
and I could (unless by some occasional happy chance or rare favour)
scarce so much as glance at your proofs or have a glimpse of your
"endings." I could only read you, full-blown and finished--and see, with
the rest of the world, how you were doing it again and again.