_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.