_To A. F. de Navarro._
"The Place of the Thirty Peacocks" was H. J.'s name for the old
moated house of Groombridge Place, near Tunbridge Wells, which he
had visited some years before with Mr. de Navarro.
Lamb House, Rye.
November 13, 1900.
Dear and exquisite Tony,
I would deal death, or a peu pres, to the man who should have said that
I would have delayed these too many days to acknowledge your beautiful
little letter from--or about--the Place of the Thirty Peacocks. Yet he,
low wretch, would have been, after all, in the secrets of Fate; he would
have foreseen me a good deal accable with arrears, interruptions, a
deluge of proofsheets, a complexity of duties and distractions; he would
have heard in advance my ineffectual groans and even have pitied my
baffled efforts. These things have eventuated to-night in the
irresistible desire to chat with you by the fire before turning in. The
fire burns low, and the clock marks midnight: everything but the
quantity of combustion reminds me of those small nocturnal hours, two
years ago, when I was communing with you thus and the fire _didn't_ burn
low. You saved my life then, and my house, and all that was mine; and
for aught I know you are now saving us all again--from some other deadly
element. To-night it's _water_--or the absense of it; I don't quite
understand which. Something has happened to my water supply, through a
pulling-up of the street, though it doesn't yet quite appear whether I'm
to perish by thirst or by submersion. Here I sit as usual, at any rate,
holding on to you--also as usual--while the clock ticks in the
stillness.--I can't tell you how happily inspired I feel it to have been
of you to remember our erstwhile pilgrimage to the Maeterlinck house and
moat and peacocks and ladies--for that's how--as a moated Maeterlinck
matter--the whole impression of our old visit, yours and mine and Miss
Reubell's comes back to me. I rejoice that they are still _en place_,
and how glad they must have been to see _you_! Willingly would I too
taste again the sweet old impression--which your letter charmingly
expresses. But I seem to travel, to peregrinate, less and less--and I am
reduced to living on my past accumulations. I wish they were larger. But
I make the most of them. They include very closely you and _Mrs._ You.
To _them_ I do seem reduced with you. What with our so far separated
country settlements and present absence of a London common centre (save
the Bond St. corner of which J. S. is the pivot!) memories and sighs,
echoes and ghosts are our terms of intercourse. You oughtn't, you know,
to have driven in stakes in your merciless Midland. This southern shore,
twinkling and twittering, with a semi-foreign light, a kind of familiar
_wink_ in the air, would have favoured your health, your spirits, and
heaven knows your being here would have favoured mine. I breakfast all
these weeks, mostly, with my window open to the garden and a flood of
sunshine pouring in. It's really meridional. It would--Rye would--remind
you of Granada--more or less. But I hope, after Xmas, to be in town for
three or four months. You will surely pass and repass there. When I, at
intervals, go up, on some practical urgency, for three or four hours, I
always see the abysmal Jon. He usually has some news of you to give; and
when he hasn't it's not for want of--on my part--solemn invocation.
However, I must now solemnly invoke slumber. Good-night--good-morning. I
bless your house, its glorious mistress and its innocent heir.
Yours always and ever,
HENRY JAMES.
_To W. E. Norris._
Lamb House, Rye.
December 23rd, 1900.
My dear Norris,
I greatly desire that this shall not fail to convey you my sentiments on
this solemn Xmas morn; so I sit here planning and plotting, and making
well-meant _pattes de mouche_, to that genial end. A white sea-fog
closes us in (in which I've walked healthily, with my young niece, out
to the links--with the sense of being less of a golfist than ever;) the
clock ticks and the fire crackles during the period between tea and
dinner; the young niece aforesaid (my only companion this season of
mirth, with her parents abroad and a scant snatch of school holidays to
spend with me) sits near me immersed in _Redgauntlet_; so the moment
seems to lend itself to my letting off this signal in such a manner as
_may_, even in these troublous times (when my nerves are all gone and I
feel as if _anything_ shall easily happen,) catch your indulgent eye. I
feel as if I hadn't caught your eye, for all its indulgence, for a long
and weary time, and I daresay you won't gainsay my confession. May the
red glow of the Yuletide log diffuse itself at Underbank (with plenty of
fenders and fireguards and raking out at night,) in a good old jovial
manner. I think of you all on the Lincombes, &c, in these months, as a
very high-feeding, champagne-quaffing, orchid-arranging society; and my
gaze wanders a little wistfully toward you--away from my plain broth and
barley-water. I in fact, some three weeks ago, fled from that Spartan
diet up to town, hoping to be in the mood to remain there till Easter,
and the experience is still going on, with this week here inserted as a
picturesque parenthesis. I asked my young niece in the glow of last
August not to fail to spend her Xmas with me, as I then expected to be,
Promethean-like, on my rock; and I've returned to my rock not to leave
her in the lurch. And I find a niece does temper solitude....
London, at all events, seems to me, after long expatriation, rather
thrilling--all the more that I have the thrill, the quite anxious throb,
of a new little habitation--which makes, alas, the third that I am
actually master of! I've taken (with 34 De Vere Gardens still on my
hands, but blessedly let for another year to come, and _then_ to be
wriggled out of with heaven's help) a permanent room at a club (Reform,)
which seems to solve the problem of town on easy terms. They are let by
the year only, and one waits one's turn long--(for years;) but when mine
the other day came round I went it blind instead of letting it pass. One
has to furnish and do all one's self--but the results, and conditions,
generally, repay. My cell is spacious, southern, looking over Carlton
Gardens: and tranquil, utterly, and singularly well-serviced; and I find
I can work there--there being ample margin for a type-writer and its
priest, or even priestess. It all hung by _that_--but I think I am not
deceived; so I bear up. And the next time you come to perch at a
neighbouring establishment, I shall sweep down on you from my eyrie.
It's astonishing how remote, cumbrous and expensive it makes 34 De Vere
Gardens seem. Worse luck that that millstone still dangles gracefully
from my neck!...
I've now dined, and re-established my niece with the second volume of
_Redgauntlet_--besides plying her, at dessert, with delicacies brought
down, a son intention, from Fortnum & Mason; and thus with a good
conscience I prepare to close this and to sally forth into the sea-fog
to post it with my own hand--if it's to reach you at any congruous
moment. I yesterday dismissed a servant at an hour's notice--the house
of the Lamb scarce knew itself and felt like that of the Wolf--so that,
with reduced resources, I make myself generally useful. Besides, at
little, huddled, neighbourly Rye, even a white December sea-fog is a
cosy and convenient thing.
So good night and all blessings on your tropic home. May your table
groan with the memorials of friendship, and may Miss Effie's midnight
masses not make her late for breakfast and _her_ share of them--which is
a little even in these poor words from yours, my dear Norris, always,