_To Miss Jessie Allen._
The "hideous American episode" was the recent assassination of
President McKinley, on which Mr. Roosevelt succeeded to the
Presidency. The "heavenly mansion" was the Palazzo Barbaro
(referred to in the preceding letter to Mr. Gosse), where H. J. had
stayed in company with Miss Allen.
Lamb House, Rye.
September 19th, 1901.
Dear bountiful and beautiful lady!
It is equally impossible to respond to you adequately and not to respond
to you somehow. You flash your many-coloured lantern, over my small grey
surface, from every corner of these islands, and I sit blinking, gaping,
clapping my hands, at the purple and orange tints to such a tune that
I've scarce presence of mind left for an articulate "Thank you." How you
keep it up, and how exactly you lead the life that, long years ago, when
I was young, I used to believe a very, very few fantastically happy
mortals on earth _could_ lead, and could survive the bliss of
leading--the waltz-like, rhythmic rotation from great country-house to
great country-house, to the sound of perpetual music and the acclamation
of the "house-parties" that gather to await you. You are the dream come
true--you really do it, and I get the side-wind of the fairy-tale--which
is more than I can really quite believe of myself--such a
living--almost--_near_ the rose! You make me feel near, at any rate,
when you write me so kindly about the hideous American episode--almost
the worst feature of which is that I don't either like or trust the new
President, a dangerous and ominous Jingo--of whom the most hopeful thing
to say is that he may be rationalized by this sudden real
responsibility. _Speriamo_, as we used to say in the golden age, in the
heavenly mansion, along with the ministering angel, long, long ago. And
all thanks meanwhile for your sympathetic thought. It must indeed--the
base _success_ of the act--cause a sinking of the heart among the
potentates in circulation. One wonders, for instance, just now, who is
most nervous, the poor little Tsar for himself or M. Loubet for him. Let
us thank our stars that we are not travelling stars, I not even a
Loubet, nor you a Loubette, and that though we have many annoyances we
are probably not marked for the dagger of the assassin.
_20th, p.m._ I had to break off last night, and I resume--perhaps a
trifle precariously at this midnight hour of what is just no longer
Friday, but about to be Saturday. I have seen, as it were, my two
guests, and my tardy servants, to bed, and I put in again this illegible
little talk with (poor) you! It has been a more convivial 24 hours than
my general scheme of life often permits.... Such are the modest annals
of Lamb House--or rather its daily and nightly chronicle. But don't let
it depress you--for everything passes, and I bow my head to the
whirlwind. But I hate the care of even a tiny and twopenny house and
wish I could farm out the same. If some one would only undertake it--and
the backgarden--at so much a year I would close with the offer and ask
no questions. I may still have to try Whiteley. But I shall try a winter
in town first. I blush for my meagreness of response to all your social
lights and shadows, your rich record of adventures.... But it's now--as
usual over my letters--tomorrow a.m. (I mean 1 a.m.) and I am, dear Miss
Allen, very undecipherably but constantly yours,