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,