_To Edmund Gosse._
This refers to a suggestion that Stevenson's body should be removed
from his place of burial, on the mountain-top above Vailima, and
brought home.
Lamb House, Rye.
Sunday [Nov. 12, 1899].
My dear Gosse,
I wholly agree with you as to any motion toward the preposterous and
unseemly deportation from their noble resting-place of those illustrious
and helpless ashes. I find myself, somehow, unable to think of Louis in
these days (much more to speak of him) without an emotion akin to tears;
and such blatant busybody ineptitude causes the cup to overflow and
sickens as well as enrages. But nothing but cheap newspaperism will come
of it--it has in it the power, fortunately, to drop, utterly and
abysmally, if not _touched_--if decently ignored. Don't write a
protest--don't write _anything_: simply _hush_! The _lurid_ asininity of
the hour!
...I will write you about your best train Saturday--which heaven speed!
It will probably be the 3.23 from Charing Cross--better, really, than
the (new) 5.15 from St. Paul's. I find S. Africa a nightmare and need
cheering. Arrive therefore primed for that office.
Ever yours,
HENRY JAMES.
_To Miss Henrietta Reubell._
Lamb House, Rye.
Sunday midnight.
[Nov. 12th, 1899.]
Dear Miss Reubell,
I have had great pleasure of your last good letter and this is a word of
fairly prompt reconnaissance. Your bewilderment over _The Awkward Age_
doesn't on the whole surprise me--for that ingenious volume appears to
have excited little _but_ bewilderment--except indeed, _here_,
thick-witted denunciation. A work of art that one has to _explain_ fails
in so far, I suppose, of its mission. I suppose I must at any rate
mention that I had in view a certain special social (highly "modern" and
actual) London group and type and tone, which seemed to me to se preter
a merveille to an ironic--lightly and simply ironic!--treatment, and
that clever people at least would know who, in general, and what, one
meant. But here, at least, it appears there are very few clever people!
One must point with finger-posts--one must label with _pancartes_--one
must explain with _conferences_! The _form_, doubtless, of my picture is
against it--a form all dramatic and scenic--of presented episodes,
architecturally combined and each making a piece of the building; with
no going behind, no _telling about_ the figures save by their own
appearance and action and with explanations reduced to the explanation
of everything by all the other things _in_ the picture. Mais il parait
qu'il ne faut pas faire comme ca: personne n'y comprend rien: j'en suis
pour mes frais--qui avaient ete considerables, tres considerables! Yet I
seem to make out you were interested--and that consoles me. I think Mrs.
Brook the best thing I've ever done--and Nanda also much _done_. Voila!
Mitchy marries Aggie by a calculation--in consequence of a state of
mind--delicate and deep, but that I meant to show on his part as highly
conceivable. It's absolute to him that N. will never have him--and she
_appeals_ to him for another girl, whom she sees him as "saving" (from
things--realities she sees). If he does it (and she shows how she values
him by wanting it) it is still a way of getting and keeping near her--of
making for _her_, to him, a tie of gratitude. She becomes, as it were,
to him, responsible for his happiness--they can't (_especially if the
marriage goes ill_) _not_ be--given the girl that Nanda is--more, rather
than less, together. And the _finale_ of the picture _justifies_ him: it
leaves Nanda, precisely, with his case on her hands. Far-fetched? Well,
I daresay: but so are diamonds and pearls and the beautiful Reubell
turquoises! So I scribble to you, to be sociable, by my loud-ticking
clock, in this sleeping little town, at my usual more than midnight
hour.
...Well, also, I'm like you--I like growing (that is I like, for many
reasons, _being_) old: 56! But I don't like growing _older_. I quite
love my present age and the compensations, simplifications, freedom,
independences, memories, advantages of it. But I don't keep it long
enough--it passes too quickly. But it mustn't pass _all_ (good as that
is) in writing to _you_! There is nothing I shall like more to dream of
than to be convoyed by you to the expositionist Kraals of the Savages
and the haunts of the cannibals. I surrender myself to you de
confiance--in vision and hope--for that purpose. Jonathan Sturges lives,
year in, year out, at Long's Hotel, Bond St., and promises to come down
here and see me, but never does. He knows hordes of people, every one
extraordinarily likes him, and he has tea-parties for pretty ladies: one
at a time. Alas, he is three quarters of the time ill; but his little
spirit is colossal. Sargent grows in weight, honour and interest--to
_my_ view. He does one fine thing after another--and his crucifixion
(that is big Crucifie with Adam and Eve under each arm of cross catching
drops of blood) for Boston Library is a most noble, grave and admirable
thing. But it's already to-morrow and I am yours always,