I must give some response, however brief, to your letter of Dec. 21st,
enclosing the project of your house and a long letter from R. Temple.
Three days ago, too, came the two copies of Father's (and your) book,
which have [given] me great filial and fraternal joy. All I have had
time to read as yet is the introduction--your part of which seems to me
admirable, perfect. It must have been very difficult to do, and you
couldn't have done it better. And how beautiful and extraordinarily
individual (some of them magnificent) all the extracts from Father's
writings which you have selected so happily. It comes over me as I read
them (more than ever before,) how intensely original and personal his
whole system was, and how indispensable it is that those who go in for
religion should take some heed of it. I can't enter into it (much)
myself--I can't be so theological nor grant his extraordinary premises,
nor throw myself into conceptions of heavens and hells, nor 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 closing over this system which he tried
to offer it, and of how we were touched by this act of yours which will
(I am sure) do so much to rescue him from oblivion. I have received no
notice from Scribner of the arrival of the other volumes, and shall
write to him in a day or two if I don't hear. But I am rather
embarrassed as to what to do with so many--wishing only to dispose of
them in a manner which will entail some prospect of decent consideration
and courtesy. I can give away five or six copies to persons who will
probably have some attention and care for them (e.g. Fredk. Harrison,
Stopford Brooke, Burne-Jones, Mrs. Orr, etc.) But the newspapers and
reviews are so grim and philistine and impenetrable and stupid, that I
can scarcely think of any to which it isn't almost an act of
untenderness to send it. But I will go into the matter with Scribner....
The project for your house is charming--very big it looks, and of a
most pleasant type. Love to all.
Ever your
HENRY.
_To Miss Grace Norton._
3 Bolton St., W.
Jan. 24th [1885].
My dear Grace,
* * * * *
It is a feature of life in this place that the longer it lasts the more
one's liabilities of every kind accumulate--the more things there are to
be done, every hour of the day. I have so many to do that I am thinking
of inventing some new day with 40 or 50 hours--or else some newer one
still, with only half a dozen, as that would simplify a large proportion
of one's diurnal duties out of existence.... I am having a "quieter"
winter than I have had for some years (in London) and have seen very few
new people and not even many old friends. My quietness (comparative of
course) is my solemn choice, and means that I have been dining out much
less than at most former times, for the sacred purpose of getting my
evenings to myself. I have been sitting at the festive British board for
so many years now that I feel as if I had earned the right to give it up
save in really seductive cases. You can guess the proportion of these!
It is the only way to find any time to read--and my reading was going to
the dogs. Therefore I propose to become henceforth an occasional and not
a regular diner, with the well-founded hope that my mind, body, spirits,
temper and general view 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 race (for such they are) has been expended, struggling
with forces which perhaps, in the long run, will prove too many for it.
If she only will struggle, and not collapse and surrender and give up a
part which, looking at Europe as it is to-day, still may be great, the
drama will be well worth watching from [such] a good, near standpoint as
I have here. But I didn't mean to be so beastly political! Another drama
interesting me is the question of poor dear J. R. Lowell's possible
recall after Cleveland mounts the throne. This, to me, is tragic,
pathetic. His position here is in the highest degree honourable, useful,
agreeable--in short perfect; and to give it all up to return, from one
day to another, to John Holmes and the Brattle Street horsecar (which is
very much what it amounts to--save when he goes to see you) seems to me
to be the sport of a cruel, a barbaric, fortune.... I haven't asked you
about yourself--the complexion of your winter, etc. But there are some
things I know sufficiently without asking. So do you--as that I am
always praying for you (though I don't pray, in general, and don't
understand it, I make this brilliant exception for _you_!)
Your very faithful friend,
HENRY JAMES.
_To William James._
The first number of _The Bostonians_ appeared this month in the
_Century Magazine_, containing scenes in which the veteran
philanthropist "Miss Birdseye" figured.
3 Bolton St., W.
Feb. 14th [1885].
Dear William,
I am quite appalled by your note of the 2nd, in which you assault me on
the subject of my having painted a "portrait from life" of Miss Peabody!
I was in some measure prepared for it by Lowell's (as I found the other
day) taking for granted that she had been my model, and an allusion to
the same effect in a note from Aunt Kate. Still, I didn't expect the
charge to come from you. I hold, that I have done nothing to deserve
it.... I should be very sorry--in fact deadly sick, or fatally ill--if I
thought Miss Peabody _herself_ supposed I intended to represent her. I
absolutely had no shadow of such an intention. I have not seen Miss P.
for twenty years, I never had but the most casual observation of her, I
didn't know whether she was alive or dead, and she was not in the
smallest degree my starting-point or example. Miss Birdseye was evolved
entirely from my moral consciousness, like every other person I have
ever drawn, and originated in my desire to make a figure who should
embody in a sympathetic, pathetic, picturesque, and at the same time
grotesque way, the humanitary and ci-devant transcendental tendencies
which I thought it highly probable I should be accused of treating in a
contemptuous manner in so far as they were otherwise represented in the
tale. I wished to make this figure a woman, because so it would be more
touching, and an old, weary, battered, and simple-minded woman because
that deepened the same effect. I elaborated 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 much nearer to me, and that in short I
have the vanity to claim that Miss Birdseye is a creation. You may think
I protest too much: but I am alarmed by the sentence in your letter--"It
is really a pretty bad business," and haunted by the idea that this may
apply to some rumour you have heard of Miss Peabody's feeling
_atteinte_. I can imagine no other reason why you should call the
picture of Miss Birdseye a "bad business," or indeed any business at
all. I would write to Miss P. on this chance--only I don't like to
_assume_ that she feels touched, when it is possible that she may not,
and knows nothing about the matter. If you can ascertain whether or no
she does and will let me know, I will, should there be need or fitness,
immediately write to her. Miss Birdseye is a subordinate figure in the
_Bostonians_, and after appearing in the first and second numbers
vanishes till toward the end, where she re-enters, briefly, and
pathetically and honourably dies. But though subordinate, she is, I
think, the best figure in the book; she is treated with respect
throughout, and every virtue of heroism and disinterestedness is
attributed to her. She is represented as the embodiment of pure, the
purest philanthropy. The story is, I think, the best fiction I have
written, and I expected you, if you said anything about it, would
intimate that you thought as much--so that I find this charge on the
subject of Miss Peabody a very cold douche indeed....
Ever yours,
H. JAMES.
_To James Russell Lowell._
Lowell was now leaving London after having held the post of
American Minister there since 1880.
St. Alban's Cliff,
Bournemouth.
May 29th [1885].
My dear Lowell,
My hope of coming up to town again has been defeated, and it comes over
me that your departure is terribly near. Therefore I write you a line of
hearty and affectionate farewell--mitigated by the sense that after all
it is only for a few months that we are to lose you. I trust, serenely,
to your own conviction of this fact, but for extra safety just remark
that if you don't return to London next winter I shall hurl myself
across the ocean at you like a lasso. As I look back upon the years of
your mission my heart swells and almost breaks again (as it did when I
heard you were superseded) at the thought that anything so perfect
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 town till
the end of June. I give you my blessing and every good wish for a happy
voyage. I wish I could receive you over there--and assist at your
arrival and impressions--little as I want you to go back. Don't forget
that you have produced a relation between England and the U.S. which is
really a gain to civilization and that you must come back to look after
your work. You can't look after it there: that is the function of an
Englishman--and if _you_ do it there they will call you one. The only
way you can be a good American is to return to our dear old stupid,
satisfactory London, and to yours ever affectionately and faithfully,