Генри Джеймс
The Letters of Henry James. Vol. I
To W. E. Norris
Lamb House, Rye,September 26th, 1900.
My dear Norris,
Charming and "gracious" your letter, and welcome sign of your restoration in more senses than one. Though I see you, alas, nowadays, at such intervals, I feel this extremely individual little island to be appreciably less its characteristic self when you are away from it, and sensibly more so, and breathing the breath of relief, when it gets you back and plumps you down with a fond "There!" on your high hilltop, a beacon-like depository of traditions no one else so admirably embodies. Your invitation to come and share for a few days your paradise with you finds me, I am very sorry to say, in a hindered and helpless moment. I am obliged to recognise the stern fact that I can't leave home just now. I have had a complicated and quite overwhelmed summer—agreeably, interestingly, anxiously and worriedly, even; but inevitably and logically—waves of family history, a real deluge, having rolled over my bowed head and left me, as to the question of work, production, time, ease and other matters, quite high and dry. I went on Saturday last to Dover to see my sister-in-law off to the Continent—and as she took a night boat had to stop there over Sunday, at the too-familiar (and too other things) Lord Warden; after which I came back to bury (yes, bury!) my precious, my admirable little Peter, whom I think you had met. (He passed away on Sunday at St. Leonard's, fondly attended by the local "canine specialist"—after three days of dreadful little dysentery.) Thus is constituted the first moment of my being by myself for about four months. It may last none too long, and is, already, to be tempered by the palpable presence of Gosse from Saturday p.m. to Monday next. So, with arrears untold, in every direction, with preoccupations but just temporarily arranged, I feel that I absolutely must sit close for a good many weeks to come; in fact till the New Year—after which I depart. I don't quite know what becomes of me then, but I don't, distinctly, for a third year, hibernate here. My London rooms are as probably as sordidly let for 1901 (though not to a certainty,) and it will (my wretched fate—not fat—fate) depend more or less upon that. My brother, ill, but thank God, better, wants me to come to Egypt with him and his wife for 12 weeks—his health demanding it, but he only going if I will accompany him. So the pistol is at my head. Will it bring me down? I've a positive terror of it. The alternatives are Rome (of which I've a still greater terror than of Egypt, for it's an equal complication and less reward,) or De Vere Gardens, or a more squalid perch in town if De V.G. are closed to me. The latter, the last-named, doom is what I really want. If I should, clingingly, clutchingly, stick to these shores, I might then, were it agreeable to you, be able to put in three days of Underbank, which I've never seen in its tragic winter mood. But these things are in the lap of the gods.
Later, same night.
I broke off this a.m. to go over to Lydd, where I've had, all summer, a friend in camp, and promised to pay him a visit. My amanuensis, who has been taking at the Paris exhibition a week of joy refused to his employer (and indeed wholly undesired by him—did your "slow" return from Marienbad partly consist of the same?) comes back to-morrow, and my friend's battalion departs on Saturday—so it was my one chance to redeem my perpetually falsified vow. I went by train and bicycled back—in the teeth of a gale now fully developed here and howling in my old chimneys; which sounds the knell of this (to do it justice) incomparable September. I don't quite know what Drury Lane military drama effects I had counted on—but I trundled home with the depressed sense of something that hadn't wholly come off (in the way of a romantic appeal,) a dusty, scrubby plain in which dirty, baby soldiers pigged about with nothing particular to do. However, I've performed my promise, and I sit down to a pile of correspondence that, for many days past, has refused visibly to shrink.... You excite, with your Scandinavian and Austrian holidays and junketings, the envious amaze of poor motionless and shillingless me. I've been thinking of appealing to your "Suffrages," but I more and more feel that I could never afford you. My watering place is Hastings, and my round tour is rounded by the afternoon. But good-night; my servant has just deposited by my side the glass of boiling water which constitutes his nightly admonition that it's "high time" I went to bed—and constitutes my own inexpensive emulation of Marienbad and Copenhagen—where I am sure Gosse drinks the most exotic things. Please say to Miss Effie that I doubly regret having to be deaf to any kind urgency of hers, and that I hope she will find means to include me in some prayer for the conversion of the benighted. But my hot water is cooling, and it takes me so long to let it gouge its inward course that I will be first yours, my dear Norris, always—though I'm afraid you will say always impracticably—
HENRY JAMES.
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 à peu près, 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 accablé 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, à 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,
HENRY JAMES.
To A. F. de Navarro
Lamb House, Rye.December 29th, 1900.
Dear and splendid Tony!
They are all admirable and exquisite—for I seem to have received so much from you that "all" is the only indication comprehensive enough. I came down from ten days in town the other day to find L'Aiglon, and within three or four the beautiful little pocket-diary has added itself to that obligation. Dear and splendid Tony, let me not even (scarcely) speak of my obligations. That way lies prostration, the sense of deep unworthyness (wrongly spelled—to show how unworthi I am:) the memory and vision of a little library of Bond St. booklets that collectors (toward the end of 1901) will cut each others' throats for: and what do I know besides? I am more touched than I can say, in short, by your fidelity in every particular. L'Aiglon, now that we at last have the glittering text, has been a joy to me, of the finest kind, here by the Xmas fireside. I haven't seen the thing done—and I don't hugely want to: I so represent it to myself as I go. The talent, the effect, the art, the mastery, the brilliancy, are all prodigious. The man really has talent like an attack of smallpox—I mean it rages with as purple an intensity, and might almost (one vainly feels as one reads) be contagious. You have given me, by your admirable consideration, an exquisite pleasure. I wish we could talk of these things: but we are like the buckets in the well.... Make me a preliminary sign the first time you pass. For the present good-night. My Xmas letters are still mainly unwritten and they are many and much. I greet you and Mrs. Tony very constantly: I wish you a big slice of the new century: and I am yours ever so gratefully,
HENRY JAMES.
To the Viscountess Wolseley
Lamb House, Rye.Dec. 29, 1900.
Dearest Lady Wolseley,
This is a very faint and meagre little word, addressed to you late of a terrifically windy winter's night by an old friend who doesn't happen2 to be in very good physical case (only for the moment, thank goodness, probably!) and yet who doesn't want the New Year to edge an hour nearer before he has made you Both—made you all Three—a sign of affectionate remembrance amounting to tenderness pure and simple. I wish there were a benediction I could call down on your house and your associated life in sufficiently immediate and visible form: you would then see it flutter into your midst and perch upon your table even while you read these lines. I have thought of you constantly these past weeks, and have only not written to you from the fear of appearing to assume that your retirement has been to you woeful or in any degree heart-breaking. I couldn't congratulate you positively, on the event, and yet I hated to condole, in the case of people so gallant and distinguished. So I have been hovering about you in thought like an anxious mother armed, in the evening air, with a shawl or extra wrap, for a pair of belated but high-spirited children liable to feel a chill, but not quite venturing to approach the young people and clap the article on their shoulders. I have remained in short with my warm shawl on my hands, but if I were near you I should clap it straight on your shoulders at the first symptom of a shiver, and wrap it close round and tuck it thoroughly in. Forgive this feeble image of the confirmed devotion I hold at your service. To see you will be a joy and a relief—the next time I go up to town: I mean if it so befalls that you are then in residence at the Palace. I do go up on the 31st—Monday next—to stay till Easter: where my address is 105 Pall Mall, S. W., and if you should be at Hampton Court the least sign from you would bring me begging for a cup of tea. I hope, meanwhile, with all my heart, that these weeks spent in looking, after so many years, Comparative Leisure in the face, have had somewhat the effect of mitigating the austerity of that countenance. There are opportunities always lurking in it—the opportunity, heaven-sent, in Lord Wolseley's case—as I venture to think of it—of sitting down again to the engaging Marlborough. But here I am talking as if you wouldn't know what to do! Whatever you do, or don't, please believe, both of you, in the great personal affection that prompts this and that calls toward you, to the threshold of the New Year, every pleasant possibility and all ease and honour and, so far as you will consent to it, rest.
Yours, dear Lady Wolseley, always and ever, and more than ever,
HENRY JAMES.
To William James
The news had just arrived of the death of F. W. H. Myers at Rome, where William James was spending the winter.
Reform Club, Pall Mall, S. W.Jan. 24, 1901.
My dear William,
A laggard in response you and Alice will indeed feel that I have become. I've had for three or four days your so interesting and relieving letter dictated to Alice at the hour of poor Myers's death, and though it greatly eased me off (as to my fears that the whole thing would have worn you out,) yet till this moment my hand has been stayed. I wrote you very briefly, moreover, as soon as the papers here gave the news. Blessed seems it to have been that everything round about Myers was so sane and comfortable; the reasonableness and serenity of his wife and children etc., not to speak of his own high philosophy, which it must have been fine to see in operation. But I hope the sequel hasn't been prolonged, and have been supposing that, by the necessary quick departure of his "party," you will have been left independent again and not too exhausted. We here, on our side, have been gathering close round the poor old dying and dead Queen, and are plunged in universal mourning tokens—which accounts for my black-edged paper. It has really been, the event, most moving, interesting and picturesque. I have felt more moved, much, than I should have expected (such is community of sentiment,) and one has realized all sorts of things about the brave old woman's beneficent duration and holding-together virtue. The thing has been journalistically overdone, of course—greatly; but the people have appeared to advantage—serious and sincere and decent—really caring. Meanwhile the drama of the accession, new reign, &c., has its lively spectacular interest—even with the P. of W. for hero. I dined last night in company with some Privy Councillors who had met him ceremonially, in the a.m., and they said (John Morley in particular said) that he made a very good impression. Speriamo!
I find London answering very well, but with so much more crowdedness on one's hours and minutes than in the country that I shall be glad indeed when the end comes. Meanwhile, however, work proceeds.... The war has doubled the income tax here; it is hideous.
Ever tenderly yourHENRY.
To Miss Muir Mackenzie
Miss Muir Mackenzie, during a recent visit to Rye, had been nominated "Hereditary Grand Governess" of the garden of Lamb House, and is addressed accordingly.
Lamb House, Rye.June 15th, 1901.
Dear Grand Governess,
You are grand indeed, and no mistake, and we are bathed in gratitude for what you have done for us, and, in general, for all your comfort, support and illumination. We cling to you; we will walk but by your wisdom and live in your light; we cherish and inscribe on our precious records every word that drops from you, and we have begun by taking up your delightful tobacco-leaves with pious and reverent hands and consigning them to the lap of earth (in the big vague blank unimaginative border with the lupines, etc.) exactly in the manner you prescribe; where they have already done wonders toward peopling its desolation. It is really most kind and beneficent of you to have taken this charming trouble for us. We acted, further, instantaneously on your hint in respect to the poor formal fuchsias—sitting up in their hot stuffy drawing-room with never so much as a curtain to draw over their windows. We haled them forth on the spot, everyone, and we clapped them (in thoughtful clusters) straight into the same capacious refuge or omnium gatherum. Then, while the fury and the frenzy were upon us, we did the same by the senseless stores of geranium (my poor little 22/-a-week-gardener's idée fixe!)—we enriched the boundless receptacle with them as well—in consequence of which it looks now quite sociable and civilised. Your touch is magical, in short, and your influence infinite. The little basket went immediately to its address, and George Gammon (!!) my 22-shillinger, permitted himself much appreciation of your humour on the little tin soldiers. That regiment, I see, will be more sparingly recruited in future. The total effect of all this, and of your discreet and benevolent glance at my ineffective economy, is to make me feel it fifty times a pity, a shame, a crime, that, as John Gilpin said to his wife "you should dine at Edmonton, and I should dine at Ware!"—that you should bloom at Effingham and I should fade at Rye! Your real place is here—where I would instantly ask your leave to farm myself out to you. I want to be farmed; I am utterly unfit to farm myself; and I do it, all round, for (seeing, alas, what it is) not nearly little enough money. Therefore you ought to be over the wall and "march" with me, as you say in Scotland. However, even as it is, your mere "look round" makes for salvation. I am, I rejoice to say, clothed and in my right mind—compared with what I was when you left me; and so shall go on, I trust, for a year and a day. I have been alone—but next week bristles with possibilities—two men at the beginning, two women (postponed—the Americans) in the middle—and madness, possibly, at the end. I shall have to move over to Winchelsea! But while my reason abides I shall not cease to thank you for your truly generous and ministering visit and for everything that is yours. Which I am, very faithfully and gratefully,
HENRY JAMES.
