_To Charles Eliot Norton._
34 De Vere Gardens, W.
Aug. 28th, 1891.
My dear Charles,
It is only the conspiracy of hindrances so perpetually characteristic of
life in this place, even when it is theoretically not alive, as in the
mid-August, that has stayed my hand, for days past, when it has most
longed to write to you. Dear Lowell's death--the words are almost as
difficult as they are odious to write--has made me think almost as much
of you as of him. I imagine that you are the person in the world to whom
it makes the most complete and constant difference that he is no longer
here; just as you must have been the one most closely associated with
the too vain watching of his last struggle with the monster. It is a dim
satisfaction to me, therefore, to say to you how fond I was of him and
how I shall miss him and miss him and miss him. During these last
strange English years of his life (it would take me long to tell you why
I call them strange,) I had seen a great deal of him, and all with the
effect of confirming my affection for him. London is bestrewn, to my
sense, with reminders of his happy career here, and his company and his
talk. He was kind and delightful and gratifying to me, and all sorts of
occasions in which he will ever be vivid swarm before me as I think of
him.... Strange was his double existence--the American and the English
sides of his medal, which had yet so much in common. That is, I don't
know how English he was at home, but he was conspicuously American here.
However, I am not trying to characterize him, to you least of all who
had known him well so much longer and seen all, or most, of the chapters
of his history; but only letting you see how much I wish we might talk
of him together. Some day we will, though it's a date that seems
unfixable now. I am taking for granted ... that you inherit the greatest
of literary responsibilities to his memory. I think of this as a very
high interest, but also a very arduous labour. It's a blessing, however,
to feel that such an office is in such hands as yours. The posthumous
vulgarities of our day add another grimness to death. Here again is
another matter as to which I really miss not having the opportunity to
talk with you. This is a brief communication, my dear Charles, for I am
literally catching a train. I go down to the Isle of Wight half an hour
hence....
_To Edmund Gosse._
This refers to the recent production of _The American_ in London.
34 De Vere Gardens, W.
October 2nd [1891].
My dear Gosse,
Your good and charming letter should have been answered on the spot--but
my days are abnormal and perspective and relation are blurred. I shall
come to see you the moment you return, and then I shall be able to tell
you more in five minutes than in fifteen of such hurried scrawls as
this. Meanwhile many thanks for your sympathy and curiosity and
suspense--_all_ thanks, indeed--and, in return, all eagerness for your
rentree here. My own suspense has been and still is great--though the
voices of the air, rightly heard, seem to whisper _prosperity_. The
papers have been on the whole quite awful--but the audiences are
altogether different. The only thing is that these first three or four
weeks _must_ be up-hill: London is still empty, the whole enterprise is
wholly new--the elements must assemble. The strain, the anxiety, the
peculiar form and colour of such an ordeal (not to be divined the least
in advance) have sickened me _to death_--but I am getting better. I
forecast nothing, however--I only wait. Come back and wait with me--it
will be easier. Your picture of your existence and circumstance is like
the flicker of the open door of heaven to those recumbent in the
purgatory of yours not _yet_ damned--ah no!--