The Letters of Henry James. Vol. II

Your good letter of a day or two ago is most interesting and suggestive and puts to me as lucidly as possible the questions with which the appearance of my so copious George Sand is involved. I have been turning the matter earnestly over, and rather think I had best tell you now at once in what form it presses on myself. This forces me to consider it in a particular light. It has come up for me that I shall be well advised (from my own obscure point of view!) to collect into a volume and publish at an early date a number of ungathered papers that have appeared here and there during the last fifteen years; these being mainly concerned with the tribe of the Novelists. This involves my asking your leave to include in the Book the article on Balzac of a few months ago, and my original idea was that if the G.S. should appear in the Supplement at once, you would probably authorize my reprinting it also after a decent little interval. As the case stands, and as I so well understand it on your showing—the case for the Supplement I mean—I am afraid that I shall really need the G.S. paper for the Volume before you will have had time to put it forth at your entire convenience—the only thing I would have wished you to consider. What should you say to my withdrawing the paper in question from your indulgent hands, and—as the possibility glimmers before me—making you a compensation in the way of something addressed with greater actuality and more of a certain current significance to the Spring Fiction Number that you mention? (The words, you know, if you can forgive my irreverence—I divine in fact that you share it!—somehow suggest competition with a vast case of plate-glass "window-dressing" at Selfridge's!) The G.S. isn't really a very fit or near thing for the purpose of such a number: that lady is as a fictionist too superannuated and rococo at the present time to have much bearing on any of those questions pure and simple. My article really deals with her on quite a different side—as you would see on coming to look into it. Should you kindly surrender it to me again I would restore to it four or five pages that I excised in sending it to you—so monstrously had it rounded itself!—and make it thereby a still properer thing for my Book, where it would add itself to two other earlier studies of the same subject, as the Balzac of the Supplement will likewise do. And if you ask me what you then gain by your charming generosity I just make bold to say that there looms to me (though I have just called it glimmering) the conception of a paper really related to our own present ground and air—which shall gather in several of the better of the younger generation about us, some half dozen of whom I think I can make out as treatable, and try to do under their suggestion something that may be of real reference to our conditions, and of some interest about them or help for them.... Do you mind my going so far as to say even, as a battered old practitioner, that I have sometimes yearningly wished I might intervene a little on the subject of the Supplement's Notices of Novels—in which, frankly, I seem to have seen, often, so many occasions missed! Of course the trouble is that all the books in question, or most of them at least, are such wretchedly poor occasions in themselves. If it hadn't been for this I think I should have two or three times quite said to you: "Won't you let me have a try?" But when it came to considering I couldn't alas, probably, either have read the books or pretended to give time and thought to them. It is in truth only because I half persuade myself that there are, as I say, some half a dozen selectable cases that the possibility hovers before me. Will you consider at your leisure the plea thus put? I shouldn't want my paper back absolutely at once, though in the event of your kindly gratifying me I should like it before very long.

I am really working out a plan of approach to your domicile in the conditions most favourable to my seeing you as well as Elena, and it will in due course break upon you, if it doesn't rather take the form of my trying to drag you both hither!

    Believe me all faithfully yours,
    HENRY JAMES.

To Hugh Walpole

    21 Carlyle Mansions,
    Cheyne Walk, S.W.
    Jan. 2, 1914.

I have just despatched your inclosure to P. L. at I, Dorotheergasse 6, Vienna; an address that I recommend your taking a note of; and I have also made the reflection that the fury, or whatever, that Edinburgh inspires you with ought, you know, to do the very opposite of drying up the founts of your genius in writing to me—since you say your letter would have been other (as it truly might have been longer) didn't you suffer so from all that surrounds you. That's the very most juvenile logic possible—and the juvenility of it (which yet in a manner touches me) is why I call you retrogressive—by way of a long stroke of endearment. There was exactly an admirable matter for you to write me about—a matter as to which you are strongly and abundantly feeling; and in a relation which lives on communication as ours surely should, and would (save for starving,) such occasions fertilise. However, of course the terms are easy on which you extract communication from me, and always have been, and always will be—so that there's doubtless a point of view from which your reservations (another fine word) are quite right. I'm glad at any rate that you've been reading Balzac (whose "romantic" side is rot!) and a great contemporary of your own even in his unconsidered trifles. I've just been reading Compton Mackenzie's Sinister Street and finding in it an unexpected amount of talent and life. Really a very interesting and remarkable performance, I think, in spite of a considerable, or large, element of waste and irresponsibility—selection isn't in him—and at one and the same time so extremely young (he too) and so confoundingly mature. It has the feature of improving so as it goes on, and disposes me much to read, if I can, its immediate predecessor. You must tell me again what you know of him (I've forgotten what you did tell me, more or less,) but in your own good time. I think—I mean I blindly feel—I should be with you about Auld Reekie—which somehow hasn't a right to be so handsome. But I long for illustrations—at your own good time. We have emerged from a very clear and quiet Xmas—quiet for me, save for rather a large assault of correspondence. It weighs on me still, so this is what I call—and you will too—very brief.... I wish you the very decentest New Year that ever was. Yours, dearest boy, all affectionately,

    H. J.

To Compton Mackenzie

It will be recalled that Edward Compton, Mr. Mackenzie's father, had played the part of Christopher Newman in H.J.'s play The American, produced in 1891.

    21 Carlyle Mansions,
    Cheyne Walk, S.W.
    Jan. 21, 1914.

My dear "Monty Compton!"—

For that was, I think, as I first heard you named—by a worthy old actress of your father's company who, when we were rehearsing The American in some touring town to which I had gone for the purpose, showed me with touching elation a story-book she had provided for you on the occasion of your birthday. That story-book, weighted with my blessing on it, evidently sealed your vocation—for the sharpness of my sense that you are really a prey to the vocation was what, after reading you, I was moved to emphasise to Pinker. I am glad he let you know of this, and it gives me great pleasure that you have written to me—the only abatement of which is learning from you that you are in such prolonged exile on grounds of health. May that dizzying sun of Capri cook every peccant humour out of you. As to this untowardness I mean, frankly, to inquire of your Mother—whom I am already in communication with on the subject of going to see her to talk about you! For that, my dear young man, I feel as a need: with the force that I find and so much admire in your talent your genesis becomes, like the rest of it, interesting and remarkable to me; you are so rare a case of the kind of reaction from the theatre—and from so much theatre—and the reaction in itself is rare—as seldom taking place; and when it does it is mostly, I think, away from the arts altogether—it is violent and utter. But your pushing straight through the door into literature and then closing it so tight behind you and putting the key in your pocket, as it were—that strikes me as unusual and brilliant! However, it isn't to go into all that that I snatch these too few minutes, but to thank you for having so much arrested my attention, as by the effect of Carnival and Sinister Street, on what I confess I am for the most part (as a consequence of some thankless experiments) none too easily beguiled by, a striking exhibition by a member of the generation to which you belong. When I wrote to Pinker I had only read S.S., but I have now taken down Carnival in persistent short draughts—which is how I took S.S. and is how I take anything I take at all; and I have given myself still further up to the pleasure, quite to the emotion, of intercourse with a young talent that really moves one to hold it to an account. Yours strikes me as very living and real and sincere, making me care for it—to anxiety—care above all for what shall become of it. You ought, you know, to do only some very fine and ripe things, really solid and serious and charming ones; but your dangers are almost as many as your aspects, and as I am a mere monster of appreciation when I read—by which I mean of the critical passion—I would fain lay an earnest and communicative hand on you and hypnotize or otherwise bedevil you into proceeding as I feel you most ought to, you know. The great point is that I would so fain personally see you—that we may talk; and I do very much wish that you had given me a chance at one of those moments when you tell me you inclined to it, and then held off. You are so intelligent, and it's a blessing—whereby I prefigure it as a luxury to have a go at you. I am to be in town till the end of June—I hibernate no more at Rye; and if you were only to turn up a little before that it would be excellent. Otherwise you must indeed come to me there. I wish you all profit of all your experience, some of it lately, I fear, rather harsh, and all experience of your genius—which I also wish myself. I think of Sinister Street II, and am yours most truly,

    HENRY JAMES.

To William Roughead, W.S

Mr. Roughead had sent H. J. his edition of the trial of Mary Blandy, the notable murderess, who was hung in 1752 for poisoning her father.

    21 Carlyle Mansions,
    Cheyne Walk, S.W.
    January 29th, 1914.

Dear Mr. Roughead,

I devoured the tender Blandy in a single feast; I thank you most kindly for having anticipated so handsomely my appetite; and I highly appreciate the terms in general, and the concluding ones in particular, in which you serve her up. You tell the story with excellent art and animation, and it's quite a gem of a story in its way, History herself having put it together as with the best compositional method, a strong sense for sequences and the proper march, order and time. The only thing is that, as always, one wants to know more, more than the mere evidence supplies—and wants it even when as in this case one feels that the people concerned were after all of so dire a simplicity, so primitive a state of soul and sense, that the exhibition they make tells or expresses about all there was of them. Dear Mary must have consisted but of two or three pieces, one of which was a strong and simple carnal affinity, as it were, with the stinking little Cranstoun. Yet, also, one would like to get a glimpse of how an apparently normal young woman of her class, at that period, could have viewed such a creature in such a light. The light would throw itself on the Taste, the sense of proportion, of the time. However, dear Mary was a clear barbarian, simply. Enfin!—as one must always wind up these matters by exhaling. I continue to have escaped a further sense of – and as I think I have told you I cultivate the exquisite art of ignorance. Yet not of Blandy, Pritchard and Co.—there, perversely, I am all for knowledge. Do continue to feed in me that languishing need, and believe me all faithfully yours,

    HENRY JAMES.

To Mrs. Wharton

The two novels referred to in the following are M. Marcel Proust's Du Côté de chez Swann and M. Abel Bonnard's La Vie et l'Amour.

    21 Carlyle Mansions,
    Cheyne Walk, S.W.
    February 25th, 1914.

Dearest Edith,

The nearest I have come to receipt or possession of the interesting volumes you have so generously in mind is to have had Bernstein's assurance, when I met him here some time since, that he would give himself the delight of sending me the Proust production, which he learned from me that I hadn't seen. I tried to dissuade him from this excess, but nothing would serve—he was too yearningly bent upon it, and we parted with his asseveration that I might absolutely count on this tribute both to poor Proust's charms and to my own. But depuis lors—! he has evidently been less "en train" than he was so good as to find me. So that I shall indeed be "very pleased" to receive the "Swann" and the "Vie et l'Amour" from you at your entire convenience. It is indeed beautiful of you to think of these little deeds of kindness, little words of love (or is it the other way round?) What I want above all to thank you for, however, is your so brave backing in the matter of my disgarnished gums. That I am doing right is already unmistakeable. It won't make me "well"; nothing will do that, nor do I complain of the muffled miracle; but it will make me mind less being ill—in short it will make me better. As I say, it has already done so, even with my sacrifice for the present imperfect—for I am "keeping on" no less than eight pure pearls, in front seats, till I can deal with them in some less exposed and exposing conditions. Meanwhile tons of implanted and domesticated gold &c. (one's caps and crowns and bridges being most anathema to Des Vœux, who regards them as so much installed metallic poison) have, with everything they fondly clung to, been, less visibly, eradicated; and it is enough, as I say, to have made a marked difference in my felt state. That is the point, for the time—and I spare you further details....

    Yours de cœur,
    HENRY JAMES.

To Dr. J. William White

Dictated.

    21 Carlyle Mansions,
    Cheyne Walk, S.W.
    March 2nd, 1914.

My dear J. William,

I won't pretend it isn't an aid and comfort to me to be able to thank you for your so brilliant and interesting overflow from Sumatra in this mean way—since from the point of view of such a life as you are leading nothing I could possibly do in my poor sphere and state would seem less mean than anything else, and I therefore might as well get the good of being legible. I am such a votary and victim of the single impression and the imperceptible adventure, picked up by accident and cherished, as it were, in secret, that your scale of operation and sensation would be for me the most choking, the most fatal of programmes, and I should simply go ashore at Sumatra and refuse ever to fall into line again. But that is simply my contemptible capacity, which doesn't want a little of five million things, but only requires [much] of three or four; as to which then, I confess, my requirements are inordinate. But I am so glad, for the world and for themselves, above all for you and Letitia, that many great persons, and especially you two, are constructed on nobler lines, with stouter organs and longer breaths, to say nothing of purses, that I don't in the least mind your doing such things if you don't; and most positively and richly enjoy sitting under the warm and fragrant spray of the enumeration of them. Keep it up therefore, and don't let me hear of your daring to skip a single page, or dodge a single prescription, of the programme and the dose!…

I am signing, with J. S. S., three hundred very fine photographs of the Portrait, ever so much finer still, that he did of me last summer, and which I think you know about—in order that they be sent to my friends, of whom you are not the least; so that you will find one in Rittenhouse Square on your return thither, if with the extraordinarily dissipated life you lead you do really get back. With it will wait on you probably this, which I hope won't be sent either to meet or to follow you; I really can't even to the extent of a letter personally participate in your dissipation while it's at its worst. How embarrassed poor Letitia must truly be, if she but dared to confess it, at finding herself so associated; for that is not her nature; my life here, had she but consented to share it, would be so much more congruous with that! I don't quite gather when you expect to reach these shores—since my brain reels at the thought of your re-embarking for them after you reach your own at the climax of your orgy. I realise all that these passions are capable of leading you on to, and therefore shall not be surprised if you do pursue them without a break—shall in fact even be delighted to think I may see you gloriously approach by just sitting right here at this window, which commands so the prospect. But goodbye, dear good friends; gather your roses while ye may and don't neglect this blighted modest old bud, your affectionate friend,

    HENRY JAMES.

To Henry Adams

The book sent to Mr. Adams was Notes of a Son and Brother, now just published.

    21 Carlyle Mansions,
    Cheyne Walk, S.W.
    March 21, 1914.

My dear Henry,

I have your melancholy outpouring of the 7th, and I know not how better to acknowledge it than by the full recognition of its unmitigated blackness. Of course we are lone survivors, of course the past that was our lives is at the bottom of an abyss—if the abyss has any bottom; of course, too, there's no use talking unless one particularly wants to. But the purpose, almost, of my printed divagations was to show you that one can, strange to say, still want to—or at least can behave as if one did. Behold me therefore so behaving—and apparently capable of continuing to do so. I still find my consciousness interesting—under cultivation of the interest. Cultivate it with me, dear Henry—that's what I hoped to make you do—to cultivate yours for all that it has in common with mine. Why mine yields an interest I don't know that I can tell you, but I don't challenge or quarrel with it—I encourage it with a ghastly grin. You see I still, in presence of life (or of what you deny to be such,) have reactions—as many as possible—and the book I sent you is a proof of them. It's, I suppose, because I am that queer monster, the artist, an obstinate finality, an inexhaustible sensibility. Hence the reactions—appearances, memories, many things, go on playing upon it with consequences that I note and "enjoy" (grim word!) noting. It all takes doing—and I do. I believe I shall do yet again—it is still an act of life. But you perform them still yourself—and I don't know what keeps me from calling your letter a charming one! There we are, and it's a blessing that you understand—I admit indeed alone—your all-faithful

    HENRY JAMES.

To Mrs. William James

"Minnie" is of course Mary Temple, the young cousin of old days commemorated in the last chapter of Notes of a Son and Brother.

    21 Carlyle Mansions,
    Cheyne Walk, S.W.
    March 29th, 1914.

Dearest Alice,