HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

London 31 July n.d.

3 Bolton St. W.

July 31st

Dear Stevenson,

A delightful young American friend of mine will bring you this;
thanks to my telling him to go over from Lyndhurst, where he expects to
stay a little, and bring you news of me & also take copious notes at
Skerryvore for my -- & his own -- satisfaction. His name is John Jay
Chapman; he comes from New York, & he is very intelligent & accom-
plished. I like him much & so will you. Let him just come & see you; I
think he will even play soldiers if [you] want an adversary.

Ever yours & very faithfully

Henry James

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

London 10 September n.d.

(3 Bolton St.)

Piccadilly, W.)

?

D

September 10th

My dear Robert Louis,

When I hear, as I have done this a.m., from Sargent (of whom,
till today, I had had no tidings since he paid his visit to you,) that
you have again been ill (& I fear seriously) I feel more than ever that
I have been an incredible brute in not having written to you. But the
motives of my silence have been pure. I knew that it was an effort & a
fatigue to you to answer letters & I didn't wish to seem to appeal to
you for that sort of exertion. Had I known you had again been laid up
I would have made short work with these refined scruples! Even now
I don't like to seem to ask questions of you, or to impose upon your
misery the burden of having to produce unremunerated ms. about it. But
perhaps your wife will at her perfect leisure (she will smile to hear me
attribute to her that article,) give me some brief information. All
my arrangements are made for going ["back"? deleted] over to Paris (for
4 or 5 weeks) tomorrow; & if this were not the case I should immediately
come down & interrogate you with my eyes & ears, & with my heart. Sar-
gent's mention of your case is of the briefest, as he evidently supposes
I know all about you (nair Sargent!) but it seem to point to your having
had a much worse summer than there was reason to hope for when I quitted
Bournemouth. Let me believe, at least, till I hear the contrary, that

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S. [cont'd.]

2.

London 10 September d.d.

you are now on the rise again & encompassed with happy omens. At all events I give you, my dear Stevenson, my heartiest, friendliest sympathy, & to your wife as well, who, I fear has been anxious & weary -- no less than I know she has been brilliantly devoted. I have spent the last month in this place, trying to get ahead of the beastly serial in the *Atlantic*, which I hear panting at my heels. As soon as I come back from Paris, I will come & see you: I have sworn it. I thin, with all sorts of romantic embroidery & retrospective (though superfluous) glamour, of our sociabilities of [*"last s"* deleted] this early summer, in which even Bogue figures as an ingratiating personality. These fluctuations, my dear Stevenson, are mere *fleambolements* of genius, & your star is steady & I believe in it. Expect me at no distant date, & believe me always affectionately yours & your wife's

Henry James

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

London 6 November n.d. [?1883]

3 Bolton St., W.

Nov. 6th

Dear Stevenson,

?

Five days ago, out, as I was leaving Paris, came to me
your delightful letter, which I promised myself to answer the moment
I reached London. When, however, this conspicuous event did not take
place, I was in the throes of a savage neuralgic headache, which sent
me to bed, kept me down for three days, & has but just permitted me to
dedicate to you a few tremulous pen strokes. To-morrow I shall be all
right, but I won't wait even for tomorrow to tell you what a pleasure it
has been to me to get news of you "over", as they say in the American
land, your own signature. I have had anxieties & wonderments about you,
& now, on the very 1st day I can manage it I shall come down & see with
my eyes à quoi m'en tenir. I am afraid that for many reasons this will
be unmanageable before the middle of the month, but I give you my solemn
& affectionate vow that as nearly as possible at that moment my sedentary
part shall press the dear old fireside chair. There is a fundamental
affinity between them which yearns to be gratified. I shall not be able
to stay for long -- only a moment -- but I shall very soon come again. --
I haven't yet got hold of "Time", but I shall find it presently, and shall,
I am sure, enter largely into the joke. Poor Mr. Archer, however, must
have expressed only the conception that most of your readers catch from

2.

London 6 November n.d. [?1885]

your pages when he sees you mainly in want of bloodletting & other ["wise"
deleted] emasculation; for the miracle of your achievement is that your
extreme invalidism has coloured your literary production not at all, &
you project upon the printed page a suggestion of a young Apollo un-
conscious of the doctors & unindebted to the chemist. I hope, very ear-
nestly that this indebtedness has not of late been going fast -- that you
have been in a good ["for"? deleted] phase & have the prospect of an easy
winter. I spent eight weeks in Paris, of which, however, I fear I shall
?
have nothing to tell you. I find Prince Otto here, the
fruit of your munificence, & shall give you my impression of him from the
vantage ground of your grandfather's chair. I send you a corrected copy
of the III<sup>d</sup> Princess. Put me at the feet of your wife till I can crouch
there in the flesh. Courage, patience, my dear Robert Louis -- though I
know not why I should preach you virtues you possess far more richly
than yours ever

very faithfully

Henry James

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

London 6 December n.d. [1885]

3 Bolton St. W.

December 6th

Dear Robert Louis,

I went yesterday to see Mrs. Sitwell & get some picture of
your situation. The scene she drew for me, with a hundred sympathetic
touches, was one in which it seemed to me there might be room for this
little letter, which you have not had before only because I imagined
you too much taken up with coughing & physicking to spell out my hiero-
glyphics. Mrs. Sitwell encourages me to believe that these phenomena
have subsided & not without shaking you & your dear wife as well -- & we
here in London, too a good deal I fear. You have, however, a talent
for being "better", which your many talents is, on the whole, the one
I most prize, & I trust you are giving it every exercise. I am a good
deal distressed at hearing you are to collaborate with Mrs. F. Jenkin.
I doubt of your being in a state to tread a measure with a biographical
widow; pray let the music be very slow. Since I came back to town I
have been romancing (oh, laboriously) & taking a "residential flat" in
Kensington. But I can't begin to grapple with my flat, in the way of fur-
nishing & getting into it, &c, till

[A portion of the letter is apparently missing; it resumes with the following words, written across the first page lengthwise.]

?
tenue, my dear Stevenson, not to doubt, if you d

citude of yours very faithfully

Henry James

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

London 4 February n.d.

3 Bolton St.W.

Feb. 4th

Dear Stevenson,

I haven't answered your last moving note, because every day
I have [been] praying for light on the subject of a possible run to
Bournemouth, -- I wished to give you some definite fact. It has only
come this morning -- & now I can say that if you are to be alone next
Monday 8th, I will rush down to you for 24 hours. I will take the
early a.m. express from here, ["come" deleted] & come out to Skerryvore
as soon as I have lunched. I shall have to leave the next day early enough
to get back to London to keep a dinner engagement: but such a glimpse
will be, de part & d'autre, better than none )) & I am so pressed &
pushed just now, that I don't see when I should be able to make a longer
visit. I shall have much of the accounting with you. I will only come
if you are to be alone; will you kindly write me a line, or telegraph
me, as to this? I have interviewed Colvin, Mrs. Sitwell & Henley about
you, & the result tends to satisfy me. I salute your wife, tenderly
& am ever yours,

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S. & MRs. STEVENSON

London n.d.

Saturday a.m.

13, De Vere Mansions West,

[letterhead]

W.

Dear both of you!

I am too awfully delighted, & will, if humanly possible,
& I can get off another engagement, come in to embrace you this after-
noon. If not I ["fling" deleted] throw fiction to the dogs (I should
labour at it else) & look in tomorrow, the Sabbath, morn. Also to
Colvin's will I go tonight, in the hope of beholding some fraction or
refraction of you. I pray you are lusty & am ever the faithful

James

Your note has but this moment come in, forwarded from my old address.

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

London 16 July n.d.

July 16th

13, De Vere Mansions West,

[letterhead]

W.

My dear Robert Louis,

Since I wrote you 48 hours ago the tolls of London have wound
closer round me -- so that Tuesday next 20th is verily the 1st day I
can get off. But I will come by an early train on that day & spend the
rest of it & Wednesday with you. Hold fast till then & believe me ever your
ever delayed but never defeated

H. James

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

London 30 July [?1866]

July 30th

13, De Vere Mansions West,

[letterhead]

W.

My good Louis,

You obeyed an enlightened, as well as a humane, impulse in
sending a word of encouragement about the *Princess*. That the last part
should cause you to palpitate is more than I had hoped. I feared that
virtue had gone out of it. This gives me a certain trust that the re-
mainder may be, if not better, at least not essentially worse, than
these August pages -- & that I may dare to get into [?the next] part
without shipwreck -- or at any rate without loss of life. -- I have
[*sent* deleted] seen various reviews of your book & sent you one or
two. They are all admiratory in a high degree -- but they are but poorly
discriminatory or gustatory. Sale, however, is the contemporary critic.
I trust there has come further good news of Sam -- but I see no yacht on
the horizon. Many greetings to your good lady.

Ever your

Henry James

What I hear about *Kidnapped* is universal ecstacy.

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

London 5 November n.d. [1886]

Nov. 5th [1886]

34, De Vere Gardens,

[letterhead]

W.

My dear Robert Louis,

I must bid you good morning today & explain to you that I haven't abandoned you. I am not false not cold -- though I have a cold -- the first & the worst for the last two years! I called on you a week ago & you couldn't see me, & your wife was out. The following day I went to the country & remained 4 days -- then came back terrifically enrhumé -- as before mentioned. This made it impossible for me to approach you -- & since Wednesday I have given Bloomsbury a wide berth. I am better, but I am not well, not well enough to carry my baleful influence into your sensitive your [sic]. I shall not come near to till I am immaculate -- which will be by one of the very 1st days next week. Meanwhile I am sadly in the dark about you. I pray you may be not unpersperant -- thought I greatly fear such a day as this can have little good to say to you.

I am full of impatience for your news & perhaps after all shall try, this p.m. to see your wife to whom please give the very affectionate regards of

HENRY JAMES to P.L.S.

London 12 November n.d.

Addressed: *with parcel* / Robert Louis Stevenson, Esq/ c/o Sidney Colvin
esq./ *British Museum*.

Postmarks: none.

34 De Vere Gardens

Nov. 12th

My poor dear Louis,

Here are three books -- I give you the prémices of the yellow
covers: I haven't read them. Nevertheless I recommend them to you de con-
fiance -- that you will find them more or less beastly & clever. I scarcely
venture to bother you with any question about yourself, & will spare you,
as I am coming tomorrow to see your wife. Before long I hope you will
be able to take ten minutes of me without danger -- me who am so innocuous.
You don't lose much by your imprisonment in these days of mud & misery --
& as for forgetting you, the less we see you the more vivid you become.
Not that we give you up when we do see you -- only you are unextinguishable.
Be gently bitter -- & that is so much to the general good. You can work
for that even on your back, & for the particular satisfaction of your
very faithful friend

Henry James

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

London 1 December 1886

December 1st 1886.

34, De Vere Gardens,

[letterhead]

W.

My dear Louis,

The day you fled from London I presented myself at the Museum (a couple of hours after) & heard from the venerable George the recital of the gallant deed -- accompanied with a hundred vivid & natural details. It took away my breath, yet it warmed my heart, & the temperature of that organ has been rising steadily with the report that has since come to me of your having survived the adventure in better form than might have been feared. I am delighted to know it -- your wife has been so good as to write as much to my sister. For several days before your flight I was struggling to get at you -- but absence from town & the impenetrable air were effective obstacles. The day before, I started to reach you on foot -- but broke down in Piccadilly & only managed to grope my way home, fumbling & stumbling. On Saturday last I went to pay a visit to some friends (till Monday) who live near Southampton & I had a vision of coming over to Bournemouth from there, on my way back to town. But the vision melted in the light of three ["fa" deleted] reflections 1² that perhaps when I got there you wouldn't even be able to see me -- or to do so for more than ten minutes.

2º that your parents were there & you might easily be too ex-
hausted for other visitors.

2.

London 1 December 1886

that I go abroad tomorrow night & ["have been" deleted]
should be desperately occupied with 50 things I have to get done some-
how before my departure. -- Therefore, my dear Louis, I turn my back
(for a few months) on this bonny island without pressing, in farewell,
the hand of its most brilliant son. I am, however, to be gone such a
short time, that such a ceremony would be the mere wantonness of friend-
ship. It is much more to the point that I shall come & greet you as soon
as ever I return. May Heaven meanwhile have you in its most particular
keeping. While I am gone I hope to write the article in celebration of
your genius & virtue which I some time since promised the Century &
which I haven't performed hitherto because they ["some time sin" deleted]
told me at the time that much as they desired it they were not in a hur-
ry to use it. To this end my slender luggage is consist largely of
your precious volumes. Once the Century people receive my paper the
delight of it will lead them to use it on the spot. Meanwhile I fidget
with impatience for the recueil of short Tales -- I want to re-["whet"
deleted] moisten my whistle. ["(I suppose that should " deleted] I
expect infinite pleasure from the task. I do hope & pray that your escape
from the poison of Bloomsbury has given you a push. I put myself at the
feet of your wife & am ever affectionately

Henry James

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

Florence 19 December [?1886]

Villa Bricchiere, Bellosguardo. Florence

Dec. 19th

My dear Louis,

I wrote to you (a brief hasty scrawl -- before leaving England --
but this doesn't alter the fact that I must take another shot, or that
still more immitigable one that I am left to my rich native faculty
of conjecture as to how you may have been these last three weeks. I
pray the muses & all the mystic influences that shape good letters
(or rather that mainly don't, in these days,) that you may be holding
up your priceless head. I would give a great deal for three words --
even just 3 -- from your wife & votre subjet. I most intensely hope that
[sic] Skerryvore revisited has been about the right thing. I think of you
often -- your image flits in and out of the tortuous perforations that
pass for Florentine events. I am perched on a hill -- in a ghostly
old villa which a friend ["as"? deleted] has sublet me for a month --
above the "dome of Brunelleschi." I am re-reading you & re-loving you.
Would you very kindly forward the enclosed for me to W. Archer -- whom
I don't know but whom I have made bold to ask for a renseignement on the
subject ["copy" deleted] of that highly imaginative article he conse-
crated to you & me months ago & which I should like to look over again.
I don't know how else to come by ["it" deleted] the name & date of the
Magazine, and could you waft me -- or could you tell me -- -- ? I check
my sentence -- it is a crude attempt to ascertain when that volume of
your short Tales announced some time ago is really coming out. I want

Florence 19 December [?1886]

2.

to get hold of it for the thing I shall shortly write about you (I
am even now dipping my pen --) & yet I hate to wait for it. Bain
will send it to me when it comes out -- but if there be such a thing as
an advance copy Iain would grasp it. Are there good news from Cam --
& is your wife so as to be about [sic]? I invoke the almighty powers
to this end that your parents may have left Bournemouth. Excuse my
want of fashion. By asking these questions I seem to impose answers --
& I fain would illumine the darkness in which I sit. But above all,
my dear Louis, this conveys to you & your wife the very affectionate
remembrance of yours

very faithfully

Henry James

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

Florence 21 January [?1887]

Florence, Italy.
du

Hotel de Sud

January 21st

My dear Louis,

I am much ashamed of myself for not having thanked you
before this for your genial & char[m]ing note accompanying some of the
sheets of your too deplorably delayed volume of ["st"? deleted] _Tles_.
I have been waiting for more & the arrival of another batch of proofs
(that word is batch not botch) would have drawn eloquence from my lips.
The fact of the new volume hanging back so much has depressed me alto-
gether -- for I have much to taste of it before invoking, on your behalf,
the muse of appreciation. I have had to make up my mind at last that
I appreciate you enough without it, & have just begun my genial tribute
to your "exceptional powers." I shall finish it by the end of next week --
so for three impending days I shall really cohabit with you. Pray for
me -- that I don't offend you. If I do, it will only be by too thick a
buttering -- & yet I shall try to be not indecently greasy. I was charmed
by your account of the concussion between your high spirits & your wife's
moderate ones, & would have given much to assist at the debate, which
I should have endeavoured to keep within parliamentary limits. Surely
you have a right to a little spiritual cheer -- you who minister so to
that of others. (This is not a quotation from my article.) And on the
other hand, by the same logic, your wife makes others so happy that she

2.

Florence 21 January [?1887]

"has"? deleted] is entitled to make use herself of the misery that she saves them. That's the way I see it, my dear friends -- who are yet dearer friends, I am _sure_, to each other. I hear that you are having a bitter bad winter in your far away North, & I am wondering much what sort of a message it has had for you. I hope you haven't been be-frozen, after having been so befogged, & though not addicted to prayers I petition that at the present speaking you be at some tolerable pass. I shrink from the desperate course of pressing you to write, though it would agree with me wonderfully to have some clear idea about you. I would fain know of the parents -- & I would fain know of Sam. I hope that the latter had by this time received his supplies -- his pleasant conversation ought certainly to have supported him for a while. My stay in these countries threatens to lengthen itself -- & I am very willing. I have lent my rooms in London to my sister & if she keeps them a while I shall continue abroad. (I mean it will be a matter of some weeks.) I find Italy peaceful for writing -- so long as it's not about its bescribbled self. I get good mornings & sunny withal. I salute you both, & am ever my dear Louis, very faithfully yours, & your sterner consort's

Henry James

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

Florence 15 May [1947]

Villa Brichieri Colombi
Belbsguardo
Florence.

May
15th

My dear Louis

The announcement of your father's death comes to me this a.m.
in this place, & adds a sting ["the" deleted] a kind of shame I have
lately been feeling in regard to my long silence. I don't lose a moment
in sending you this reminder of the great interest I take in everything
that touches you. In this case I feel that you are touched nearly --
& in my present want of information about you my imagination takes
flight in various melancholy circles. I figure you much overturned in
every way -- & I send you, in the dark, my heartiest sympathy. I knew
your father well enough to feel what a sense of the collapse of things
the extinction of his immense vitality must have brought to you. I know
not whether he had (lately) been low, ill -- or only suddenly taken off,
but whatever the circumstances, they are sure, I fear, to have been rather
tragical. He remains in my mind as a wonderfully human figure, but with
his ["humanty"? deleted] humanity turned, at the time I knew him, alto-
gether to the tragic. You will miss him -- Such an exuberant nature as
his must have taken up a very large part in your life. But surely, even
more than you will miss him, you will rejoice in the stillness that has

2.

Florence 15 May [1997]

come over his storms -- & his death will be almost as great a rest for
you as it is to himself. May the rest for him, be deep! I think
with great sympathy of your poor mother -- whose occupation, ["every" deleted] verily, will be almost gone, & I hope, for her, as well as for you,
that the last of your father's life were not too distressing. --
Very truly I have lately been full of vain & baffled intentions of writing
to you. If I haven't done so, it is because my correspondence especially
when I am abroad, is a daily, weekly battle, which, on some part of the
field, I am always worsted. I pray, none the less, & have constantly /l
prayed, that you may have been in one of your less insupportable periods.
I am still in Italy - lingering & lingering, & likely to hang on another
month. I beg you to transmit to me some small scrap -- if only 10 words --
of self-revelation. Perhaps your wife will take pity on me, as I love
her. I am full of the hope she is well. I am in the dark about the
publication of the article in the *Century* -- & have only been able to
pray them on bended knees it be prompt. Heaven speed it! Ever, my dear
Louis, with a hearty handshake,

very faithfully yours

Henry James

P.S. a word to 34 De Vere Gardens is the best way to reach me as my address
is changeable here. I shall come & see you the moment I return to England.

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

Florence 16 May [1997]

Florence

May 16th

My dear Stevenson,

I find in my blotting book this a.m. the 2<sup>nd</sup> sheet of a letter I wrote you yesterday. You must have thought the 1<sup>st</sup> idiotic without it. I omitted it accidentally from the envelope. It takes with it, again, all my friendliest hopes & wishes to both of you, & my very particularly kindest regards to your mother. How do you bear Edinburgh -- & how did you get there? I bless you & am ever affectionately yours

Henry James

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

London 2 August n.d. [1887]

34 De Vere Gardens, W.

Aug. 2<sup>d</sup>

My dear Louis,

I left you on Sunday A.M. without a farewell, -- but I thought
it better to spare you that palaver, as there came a probability of my
seeing you so soon in town. I should have been very glad to stop over
yesterday -- but my time has been terribly ploughed into by fate -- & the
hours become too sordidly precious to me here. In short I had to come
back. This is to tell you that, in sorrow: and to relieve myself a little
further on the subject of the unspeakable Haggard. Since I saw you I
have finished Solomon & read half of "She". Ah, par example, c'est trop
fort -- & the "40<sup>th</sup> thousand" on the title page of my *She* moves to me
to a holy indignation [sic]. It isn't nice that anything so vulgarly
brutal should be the thing that succeeds most with the English of today.
More even than with the contemptible inexpensiveness of the whole thing
I am struck with the beastly bloodiness of it -- as it comes back to the
same thing -- the cheapness of the
*with which the genial nar-
ra[t]ive is bestrewn. Such perpetual killing & such perpetual ugliness!*
It is worth while to write a tale of fantastic adventure, with a funny
man&c, & pitched all in the slangiest key, to kill 20 000 men, as in Solo-
mon, in order to help your heroes on! In *She* the narrator
himself shoots through the back (I think) his faithful servant Mohommed

HENRY JAMES to P.L.S. [cont'd.]

London 2 August -u.d. [1887]

2.

to prevent his being boiled alive, & describes how he "leaped into
the air" like a buck ["to prevent his being" deleted] on receiving
the shot. He himself is addressed constantly by one of the personages
of the tale as "my Baboon"! Quel genre! They seem to me works in
which our race & our age make a very vile figure -- & they have unex-
pectedly depressed, so that we look to you for consolation,

P.S. I mean consolation *printed* - don't think of answering this.
I hope my visit didn't have a bad

[Oct 1887]

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.? [contd.]

n.d.

Fragment.

[The beginning of the letter is missing.]

...it so well as I. The others may think they do, but they don't. The *natural* classicism of the first pages of Underwoods is only equalled by their devilish art. Yes, I too am a devil, & I recognise my [*"fate" deleted*] mate. Let me not fear, but look forward with satisfaction & confidence to a considerable career of deviltry yet. My dear Stevenson, I delight in your literary sense -- it seems to me impossible to possess that pearl in greater perfection than you do. You [*"are" deleted*] have not only such poetic sensibility, but you're so monstrous clever. You're as knowing as you're genial *guoi!* I would give all my unpublished mss. to have written "sleeps in an antre of that alp!" -- and "what creeping custom of the land," & God's bright & intricate device of seasons," & twenty other things in these & other pieces. Bain tells me that the book is selling largely, & it is sufficiently evident. There was an utterance of T. Watts about it in the Athenaeum, which I took for granted Colvin sent you, & didn't send myself, because I think it hateful to receive anything of that kind twice over when one is expecting a *new* puff. It suggests a poverty of fame. --- Gosse has done you (the verses) in this month's *Longman* & will of course have sent you the periodical. I am ashamed to say I haven't hunted up Mr. Romeike yet -- but I will *se* about the business *incontinently*. I should have hated your interviewers if I hadn't despised 'em -- they did[*"n't" deleted*] you so very poorly -- I deplore none the less the fierce light that beats upon

2.

n.d.

Fragment.

the American steamboat-plank. It must make one want to land in the
water, so to speak. What a terrible <u>hot</u> country -- to go about with a
handscreen! Let me continue in this refrigerator -- in spite of Hughes-
Hallett -- having no stepdaughter. I write to you, but I think also
of your wife & mother: tell them they inhabit

[The remainder of the letter is missing.]

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

n.d.

Fragment.

[The main part of the letter is missing.]

P.S. Do you remember young Jack Chapman, who came to see you at Bournemouth & took you into the garden to read you a tale? Three months ago he *burnt* off, bodily, by holding it into the fire, his left hand, so that the arm has had to be amputated, to punish himself for having done something by which he considered that he had been slightly dishonoured. I don't know what this act was, but a friend of his, whom I lately saw in Florence, & [*whom* deleted] who did know, told me it was nothing of importance. The *trait* will strike Louis. He was found in a swoon, on the floor, with the consumed member -- Venice is, at this moment, [* deleted] a kind of effulgent steambath. But I am staying in a big, cool, marble-faced, frescoed palace, which some friends of mine [*of m* deleted] have bought & am very comfortable & content. Don't hate me for it!

H.J.

HENRY JAMES to P.L.S.

[?London] n.d. [?1887]

My dear Louis,

I could almost hate poor Roderick B. (in whom, at best, as in
all my past & shuffled off emanations & efforts, my interest is of the
slendrest,) for making you write so much more about him than about a
still more fascinating hero. If you had only given me a small instalment
of that romantic serial, the Mundane Situation of P.L.S.? My dear fellow,
you skip whole numbers at a time. Your correspondent wouldn't. I am
really delighted you can find something at this late day in that work
in which my diminutive muse first tried to elongate her little legs.
It is a task of considerable good faith, but I think of limited skill.
Besides, directly my productions are finished, ["them" deleted] or at
least thrust out to earn their living, they seem to me dead. They dwindle
when weaned -- removed from the parental breast & only to flourish, a
little, while imbibing the milk of my plastic care. None the less am
I stanched by your excellent & friendly words. Perhaps I am touched
even more by those you dedicate to the less favoured Portrait. My dear
Louis, I don't think I followed you here. Why does that work move you
to such scorn, since you can put up with Roderick, or with any of the
others? As they are, so it is [sic] & as it is, so they are. Before
my word, you are unfair to it -- & I scratch my head bewildered. 'Tis
surely a fanciful, ingenious, elaborate work -- with too many pages, but
with (I think) an interesting subject & a good deal of life & style.
There! All my works may be damnable, but I don't perceive the particular
damnability of this one. However, I feel as if it were almost gross to
defend myself -- for even your censure pleases & your restrictions refresh.

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.. [cont'd.]
[?London] n.d. [?1887]

2.

I have only this very received from "r. Bain your *Memories & Portraits* & I lick my chops in advance. It is very delectable, I can see, & it has the prettiest coat & face of any of your volumes. -- London is settling to its winter face & the cold fogs curtain us in. I see Colvin once in a while *dans le monde* which however I frequent less & less. My love to your wife & mother -- I miss you too sensibly. My greeting to the brave Lloyd.

Ever yours & very faithfully,

H. James

P.S. I am unspeakably vexed at the Century's long delay in printing my paper on you -- it is quite sickening. But I am helpless -- & they tell me it won't come out till *March* -- d-n 'em all. I am also sorry -- very - not to have any other prose ["morsels" deleted] specimens of my own genius to send you I have really written a good deal lately -- but the beastly periodicals hold them back. I can't make out why. But I trust the dance will begin before long, & that then you may glean some pleasure. I pray you, *do* write something yourself for one who *knows* & yet is famished: for there isn't a morsel here that will keep me alive. I won't question you -- twice vain -- but I wish I knew more about you. I want to *see* you -- where you live & *how* -- & the complexion of your days. But I don't know even the name of your habitat nor the date of your letter: neither were on the page. I bless you all the same.

December 5th, D.V. Gdns. W.

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

London 18 December n.d.

34 De Vere Gardens W.

December 18th

My dear Louis,

You are eminently accessible to any brilliant and accomplished young man, but I give this note of introduction to my young friend Owen Wister, who answers double to that description, just for the form & the lark. He will not be able to give you any late news of me, but I build hopes on his regaling me, after he has seen you, at your expense. I haven't the merit of sending him to you -- he arrives on the wings of his won admiration -- but I have that of giving him this push, with an eye to details intimes about your health & circumstances, trifles which your adventurous muses (you have 1/2 a dozen -- a shameless polygamy,) refuse to a friend who chemishes the record of domestic manners. The bearer of this is a grandson of dear friends of mine, & combates the best parts of American & English descent. His mother's mother is my valued & distinguished neighbour Mrs. Fanny Kemble -- his mother herself a beautiful & delightful lady, resident near Philadelphia, whom I hope you may some day know. But Owen Wister will speak for himself -- & you ought to have no fault to find with that, for he intimates to me that such as he is, you have had much to do with making him. Vale & valeat!

Ever faithfully yours.

Henry James

HENRY JAMES to P.L.S.

London 26 February 1888

34 De Vere Gdns

W.

Feb. 28th 1888

My bright particular Louis,

This is but a word to correct a piece of officious folly
in the note I despatched you a few days ago -- in re your coming in
at the Athenaeum. -- My remarks on the point of your not taking up the
privilege now unless you wished were simply the fruit of a sympathetic
imagination & intended to fall in ["with" deleted] conjecturally with
your own forcible view of the commodity of the case. The proof of this
is that having just learned from him of the Museum that you are disposed
to cull without delay the expectant flower (hooray!) I fly de ce nas
? to the august institution (not the Museum, but the other, the sane human,
archiepiscopal & nonagenarian collection) to figure as your seconder
the good Colvin being your proposer. The committee of course elects
you, but you have the form of a couple of backers. I am gladder to do
this than I ["am to write my" deleted] should be to endorse a cheque
for thousands. Vogue la galère! I send you by this post the initial
events of a little fiction in Macmillan, which is to run thro' six months
(in pitifully small mouthfuls or monthfuls.) In a day or two I will send
you a paper in the Fortnightly.

Ever yours

H. James

Read, if it comes in your way, a thing in
three *Atlantics* (March, April & May) called "The
Aspern Papers."

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

London 30 October 1891

34, De Vere Gardens. W. [letterhead]

Oct.
30th
1891.

My dear Louis,

My silences are hideous but remember I feel as if you were inaccessible to sound. Moreover it appears that my last letter, despatched many months ago, I admit, never reached you. But Colvin tells me that a post leaves tomorrow ["for" deleted] via San Francisco, and the effect of diminished remoteness from you is increased by the fact that I dined last night with Henry Adams, who told of his visits to you months and months ago. He re-created you, & your wife, for me a little, as living persons, -- fanned thereby the flame of my desire not to be forgotten of you & not to appear to forget you. (He lately arrived -- in Paris -- via New Zealand & Marseilles & has just come to London to learn that he can't go to China, as he had planned, through the closure, newly enacted & inexorable, of all but its outermost parts. He now talks of Central Asia, but can't find any one to go with him - least of all, alas, me. He is about to ship La Farge home -- now in Brittany with his French relations & whom I have not seen.) I feel as if I ought to make my letter a smoking porridge of news; but it's a bewilderment where to begin. Nothing, however, seems more foremost than that Colvin is really in a state of substantially recovered health. I dined with him a few days

2.

London 30 October 1891

since at the Athenaeum and he gave me a better impression than he had
["had" deleted] done for years. He has passed through black darkness --
& much prolonged; but I think he sees daylight & hears the birds sing.
That little black demon of a Kipling will have perhaps leaped upon your
silver strand ["time"? deleted] by the time this reaches you -- he publicly
left England to embrace you many weeks ago -- carrying literary genius
out of the country with him in his pocket. As you will quarrel with
him at an early day, for yourself, it is therefore not needful that I
should say more of him than that nature languishes since his departure
and art grunts & turns in her sleep. I am told you & Lloyd are ["both"
deleted] waking ["her"? deleted] them both up in *The Wrecker*, but I have
had the fortitude not to begin the Wrecker yet. I can't read you in snip-
pets & between the vulgar covers of magazines; but I am only biding my
time & snacking my lips. I am a baser cockney even than you left me, in-
asmuch as now I don't even go to Bournemouth. I have made, in a whole
year, but 2 absences from London -- one of 6 weeks last spring, in Paris,
& another of the same duration in the summer in Ireland, which has a
shabby foreign charm that touches me. Yet I'm afraid I have little to
show for such an adhesion to my chair -- unless it be holes in the seat
of my trousers. I have written & am still to write a goodish many short
tales -- but you are not to be troubled with them until they prop each
other up in a volume. I mean never to write another novel; I mean I have
solemnly dedicated myself to a masterly brevity. I have come back to it,
as to an early love. "La première politesse de l'écrivain," says lately

London 30 October 1891

3.

the exquisite Anatole France, "n'est-ce point d'être bref? La nouvelle suffit à tous. [that word is a new novel.] On peut y renfermer beaucoup de sens en peu de mots. Une nouvelle bien faite est le régal des connaisseurs & le contentement des difficiles. C'est [" " deleted] l'élixir et la quintessence. C'est l'onguent précieux." I quote him because it is very good. But you can ask Kipling. Excuse me for seeming to imply that one who has distilled the ointment as you have needs to ask anyone. I am too skeptical even to mention that I sent you ages ago The Tragic Muse -- so presumable is it that she neverreached you. I lately produced here a play -- a dramatization of my old novel *The American* (the thing was played last spring in various places in the country.) with circumstances of public humiliation which make it mainly count as an heroic beginning. The papers treated it without mercy, & it was -- by several of its interpreters -- wretchedly ill-played; also doubtless it betrays the inexperience of its author & suffers damnably from the straight-jacket of the non scenic book. But if I hadn't done, on solicitation this particular thing I shouldn't have begun ever at all; & if I hadn't begun, I shouldn't have the set purpose to show, henceforth, what flowers of perfection I presume to think I can pick from the brambles -- ah meagre vegetation! -- of the dramatic form. The play is in its fifth week -- & will probably traverse a goodish many others; - but it has been a time ( the first God knows!) when I have been on the whole glad you ["were" deleted] are not in England. Adams has made me see you a little - both, & I look to John La Farge to do so a little more. (He comes in a few days.) Colvin has read me your letters when he discreetly could & my life

4.

London 30 October 1891

has been a burden from fearing to unfold the Times every morning to
a perusal of Samoan convulsions. But apparently you survive, little
good as I get of it. We are all under water here -- it has rained hard
for 5 months -- & the British land is a waste of waters, as in the 1st
pages of geologies. I am consumed with catarrh & rheumatism & lumbago --
& when Adams talked to me last night of the tropics I could have howled
with baffled desire. My poor sister - slowly & serenely dying - is to[o]
ill for me to leave England at present: she has a house in London now.

I don't know whom to tell you about more that you would care to hear of.
Edmund Gosse has written a novel - as yet unpublished - which I wot
little of. Hall Caine has put forth a Scansogram to the enrichment, I
believe, of all concerned -- but I am not concerned. I will send you
the work as soon as it is reduced in bulk. The Frenchmen are passing
away -- Maupassant dying of locomotive paralysis, the fruit of fabulous
habits, I am told. Je n'en sais rien; but I shall miss him. Bourget
is married & will do good things yet -- I send you by this post his (to
me very exquisite, as perception & as expression - that is as literature)
Sensations d'Italie.) I saw Daudet last winter, more or less, in Paris,
who is also atteint de la moelle epimbre & writing about it in the shape
of a novel called La Douleur, which will console him by its sale. I greet
your wife, my dear Louis, most affectionately -- I speak to you too, dear
he[a]rt -- Louis, in every word I write. I desire to express the very
friendliest remembrances of your heroic mother -- who accounts for her
son, & still more wonderfully for her daughter in law -- grand young
stepson. My love to the gallant Lloyd. Vouchsafe me a page of prose &
believe me the joy that a statement that you bloom with a tropic luxuriance,

the system. An art of the
Each of Falesa come to me
an art brought to a perfection
a delight in the observed truth,
the modesty of nature, of the
narrator. Primitive man
does not interest me, I confess, as
much as civiliser - and yet he
does, when you write about him,
Hawthorn, a part of my impatience
for David Balfour to become
a book held in the hand and
carried by the eyes, springs
from the apprehension that

1893

JAMES TO STEVENSON

231

of yours with whom she was staying. It was a disappointment of magnitude, so pressingly am I disposed to question her. But the chance will come, as I learn with joy that she is to be here many months. It was only when I came back the other day that I could put my hand on the *Island Nights*, which by your generosity (please be tenderly thanked,) I found awaiting me on my table. They have for me all the same old charm, and I read them as fondly as an infant sucks a stick of candy. Fortunately, unlike the candy they are still there after sucking—to be freshly reabsorbed into the system. The art of *The Beach of Falesa* seems to me an art brought to a perfection and I delight in the observed truth, the modesty of nature, of the narrator. Primitive man doesn't interest me, I confess, as much as civilized—and yet he *does*, when you write about him. However, a part of my impatience for *David Balfour* to become a book held in the hand and caressed by the eyes, springs from the apprehension that...

For yourself, my dear Louis, I grasp your hand and am yours always,

HENRY JAMES.

Faithfullest remembrances to your wife and to Lloyd.

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.

London 8 June 1893

34, De Vere Gardens,

W.

[letterhead]

June 8th

1893

My dear Louis,

I send you by this post (June 10th via San Francisco, registered) 2 little volumes of tales that I have lately put forth -- all oldish things that have had their small dim hour in magazines, where, like faint glowworms in an obscure lane of literature, one or two of them may have chanced to glimmer up at you. I fear this glimmer will quite go out, however, in your tropical light. I cant tell you with what regret & sympathy I learned -- 2 days ago from Colvin -- that the light had lately been darkened to you by anxiety on the subject of your wife's health. I returned only a week since from 3 months on the continent (mainly in Paris,) -- this was the first news I had had of such a tribulation. Please believe, & ask Mrs. Stevenson to believe, in my very friendliest participation in it. Sad enough to me it sounds -- that off there in your lone immensities -- you should have such poignant aches to bear. But you are such a hero that you have taught the gods to treat you as one & to play on your pulses to the top of their unspeakable bent. By this time I trust they have learned that in such a game the last word is always yours & have turned their attention to victims more gratifying.

2.

London 8 June 1893

[A portion of the letter is missing.]

...fully gallant & brilliant. For myself I am doing work & following a homely plan which it will scarcely be decent to speak of even if they are successful. To do so at present would therefore be quite shameful. There is nothing for me but to pass for a while for a finished (in both senses of the term,) vulgarian. But I will send you a 3d little book by the next post. Vale. My kindest heartiest

HENRY JAMES to R.L.S.?

n.d.

Fragment.

[the beginning of the letter is missing.]

...it deals with more complicated folk. I have seen lately so few of your friends that my news of them is very *events*. Colvin looks & appears quite like himself of the untroubled years. I hear -- you have heard perhaps -- of his coming in for the ideal post (on the superannuation of ? ? Sir Fd W. Burton,) of director of the National Gallery. It would be to his friends as a personal happiness of their own were he to be appointed to it, but they can only hold their breath & hope, remembering uneasily that he has one or two formidable competitors. One, I believe, is Edward Poynter, R.A. Literature is thin or Kipling is silent. That is he *has* been -- at Brattleboro, Vermont (the strangest of all wife-beatings -- I mean beatings *by* the wife,) but I believe a book (of tales) comes out today. Bourget I haven't seen for a year; he has wintered in Greece & Lyria (where he still is -- at the French consulate at Beyrout,)

but he returns to Europe presently to embark in July for the United States of Chicago. I hope he now feels that he has achieved the cosmopolitan.

In Paris was nothing nutritive save the sonnets of Hérédia, which decided-ly I must send you: they are to me of a beauty so noble & a perfection so rare. They make the English muse (of the hour,) seem (strange combina-tion) both illiterate & dumb. (The book [I send] you also by this post.)

I saw Daudet -- who appears to be returning from the jaws of slow death -- getting *over* creeping paralysis. Meredith I saw 3 months ago -- with his charming *acceuil* his impenetrable shining scales, & the (to me) general

2.

n.d.

Fragment.

mystery of his perversity. that perversity is flowering, I believe,
into two soon-to-be published serials -- one in *Scribner*. He is won-

...me *feel* more than ever that a man's mind -- his talent -- is his experience. Ergo I want yours (ah, some of it -- not the pain!) -- & yet I want to keep my own as well -- as *with* the pain! Who shall choose? But experience settles it.

HENRY JAMES to MRS. STEVENSON

London n.d.

[Apr 1886?]

Monday p.m.

13, De Vere Mansions West,

W. [letterhead]

Dear Mrs. Stevenson,

Your note comes today but no sign from Colvin, & as ["I"deleted]
you give me no address, I can't get at you. I am delighted to know you
are in town, & shall send this to the Museum. Couldn't you come &
see me here tomorrow at 4? Or Thursday at 4? Wednesday I am terribly
taken. I propose this because it will give me the best chance to see
you alone -- & I hope that in your amiability you will be able to manage
it. I have 10 000 questions to ask you. Poor Valentine -- il ne man-
quait plus que ça! But I trust London mends her. I rejoice in your
last word -- that Louis & Sam are doing rather well. Do come if you
possibly can; & believe me ever faithfully

Henry James

Give me an address so that I may write to you direct!

HENRY JAMES to MRS. STEVENSOK

London n.d. [?18 April 1886]

Addressed: Mrs./Robert Louis Stevenson/Skerryvore/West Bournemouth
Postmarks: London.W/ D7/ Ap 19/ 86; Bournemouth/E/ Ap 19/ 86.

Sunday a.m.
13 De Vere Mansions West,
[letterhead]
W.

Dear Mrs. Stevenson,

I wrote to you yesterday ["at" deleted] and in the evening
(after dinner) went to see you at Fitzroy Square. (My note was only
to say I would come.) I was disappointed & disturbed at finding you
gone, or, rather, not so much at finding you gone as at ["walking"?
not
deleted] having seen you again before your flight. I cannot pretend
not to think Skerryvore, with its gardens & its sky, its sweet airs
& scents, & its corner of the c, better for you & the boy, than
the depressing dinginess of Fitzroy Square. This is a word of regret,
of greeting, of constant interest & sympathy. I wish you could tell
me if the last three days have brought forth anything -- & if so, what,
& what news comes from Louis, & what condition poor Sam is in. About
yourself I don't ["like" deleted] venture to ask you; you have, I fear,
scare/cely a self left to talk about. Do send me three words on a
card. When does Louis return to B. & were you able to see Playfair?
Any news of you will be a great relief to yours ever,

HENRY JAMES to MRS. STEVENSON

Paris

18 September n.d.

Paris, 29. Rue Cambre.

Sept. 18<sup>th</sup>

Dear Mrs. Stevenson

Your copious & charming letter was a real blessing. It has
enabled me to live your life over with you during the last weeks, ["&"  
deleted] to hang sympathetically over the couch of the wandering invalid,
to appreciate the length, & the breadth, of the bill at Exeter (I know
the hotel, confound it,) & in a word to adjust my person once more to
that friendly seat of honour at the fireside of Skerryvore. I see you
have both had some bad hours, but you ["are"? deleted] have both such
a talent for traversing your adventures & reserving yourselves for
new ones that when I next see you I expect all this to have taken its
place simply as a delightful fund of anecdotes & spice to conversation.
We shall carouse together again lustily, please God, nor ever look at
the clock. I hope you find cheer and comfort in being again under your
own rooftree. I have been in Paris only a week, but I am already very
bad with homesickness -- I languish for my dear dirty old London & find
that as I grow older the things of this quer country have less to say
to me than they used to. (The vittles are good -- too good -- but Paris
seems more than ever like a big modish bazaar which isn't doing a good
business. Tell your good husband, whose hands I press, that I dined 2
nights ago with a friend & Barbey d'Aureville & that I have in keeping
for him a picture of this latter inexpressible phenomenon -- ah, to whom

HENRY JAMES to MRS. STEVENSON [cont'd.]

2.

Paris 18 September n.d.

?

do you say it -- that the devil of the serial at one's back mortifies
the man & murders the artist? If some one would make me des rentes
I would write 20 lines a day. I shall subscribe to the Young Ladies
Journal having a secret weakness for that sort of literature. I am
glad ["to" deleted] you liked little Chapman -- he is very promising.
Say everything affectionate for me both to Robert Louis & to Mrs. de
Mat[t]os. I am very glad you have still her charming presence. Until
you next have mine, which doesn't however pretend to charm, believe me,
calling down blessings on your house,

Your very faithful friend

Henry James

HENRY JAMES to MRS. STEVENSON

London

28 July n.d.

54 De Vere Gardens W.

Thursday a.m.

Dear Mrs. Stevenson,

A single syllable to say that I will come down on Saturday
afternoon -- go to the Highcliffe Hotel -- & come down & see you as
early as possible in the evening. Excuse the reluctant brevity of

July 28th

HENRY JAMES to MRS. STEVENSON

London 11 August n.d.

54 De Vere Gardens.

W.

Aug. 11th

Dear Mrs. Louis,

I ought already to have thanked you for the beautiful photographs -- & Louis for the autograph affixed to the dim ethereal one, which looks like a sort of literary Odalisque. The reason of my brief delay is that I found on my return, the other day, that I had not a single one of my own remaining -- & I have been ashamed to write you only this confession of poverty. Likewise I don't know for the moment how to get another -- the last I had done (at Daves) were so bad that I don't like to revive them. Mrs. Procter has 2 of me -- & one of these she doesn't like. As soon as she comes back to town I shall try & extract the condemned one from her, & will send it to you. You won't hate it so much -- having feebler passions. How is the man of letters as the month goes on? I don't mean you to answer this idle inquiry -- idle, I mean in its consequences, not in its spirit -- for by waiting a little, in patience, I trust I shall soon see. I haven't seen Colvin -- I have been out of town again so much these last ten days. The portrait of Louis writing is really a rare perfection. Give the original a thousand friendships from me. I am going to look at your ship a few days hence -- to give it time to come in. If there is anything meanwhile that I can do for you, here, command

HENRY JAMES to MES. STEVENSON

London 17 August n.d.

34 De Vere Gardens, W.

August 17th

Dear Mrs. Stevenson,

I venture to trouble you with a line even at this moment when you have everything (presumably) to do, to ask you whether you are coming up here to sail -- as well as to say that I went to your ship today, & found (at the office) that she doesn't sail till Monday forenoon. They told me they had notified you of this change of time -- but I think it possible they haven't. Would you mind telegraphing me if you do come as planned, & when: I should take it as a great kindness. I have made an engagement to go out of town from Saturday to Monday, & shall modify it in order to see you -- if necessary. If you will send me a brief sixpenny despatch -- with a word as to how Louis is, I shall appreciate immensely the favour. I pray he be better & you not overdone.

P.S. after all I couldn't get on the "Ludgate Hill" -- she was standing away from the dock in such a manner as to be accessible only to her cargo in a crane & the captain & steward neither there. I shall probably go back.--

"My dear Fanny Stevenson;

"What can I say to you that will not seem cruelly irrevelant or vain? We have been sitting in darkness for nearly a fortnight, but what is our darkness to the extinction of your magnificent light? You will probably know in some degree what has happened to us - how the hideous news first came to us via Auckland, etc., and then how, in the newspapers, a doubt was raised about its authenticity - just enough to give one a flicker of hope; until your telegram to me via San Francisco - repeated also from other sources - converted my pessimistic convictions into the wretched knowledge. All this time my thoughts have hovered round you all, around you in particular, with a tenderness of which I could have wished you might have, afar-off, the divination. You are such a visible picture of desolation that I need to remind myself that courage, and patience, and fortitude are also abundantly with you. The devotion that Louis inspired - and of which all the air about you must be full - must also be much to you. Yet as I write the word, indeed, I am almost ashamed of it - as if anything could be 'much' in the presence of such an abysmal void. To have lived in the light of that splendid life, that beautiful, bountiful thing - only to see it from one moment to the other, converted into a fable as strange and romantic as one of his own, a thing that has been and has ended, in an anguish into which no one can enter fully and of which no one can drain the cup for you. You are nearest to the pain, because you were nearest the joy and the pride. But if it is anything to you to know that no woman was

["The beautiful, golden, and the beautiful, sad, are not the same.", "In the beginning, there was naught. Then, there was naught. And, then, there was naught. And,

["There have been times when I have felt that I was not alone in this, and I have often felt that I was not the only one who has felt it. I have often felt that I was not the only one who has felt it, and I have often felt that I was not the

The following letter is a typewritten copy by Sidney Colvin: It was found in the envelope accompanying it with the notation: "Henry James to F. V. de G. Stevenson on death of R.L.S. ( unpublished 2 copies )."

When Henry James wrote this letter to Fanny, he no doubt was sharing in the emotional mourning the literary world felt for Stevenson; it is surprising how much he says-- and how little. Regarding his friendship for Mrs. Stevenson, it may be well to quote from a letter of his published in his _LETTERS_, under date of June 26, 1902, to Gaillard T. Lapsley: "....I enolose one here (an introduction to Fanny Stevenson)-- but I must tell you that I feel myself to be launching it rather into the dark. That is, I have a fear that she is rather changed-- or rather exaggerated-- with time, illness etc.-- and that you may find her somewhat aged, queer, eccentric etc. .....Only remember this-- that she (with all deference to her) was never the person to have seen, it was R. L. S. himself..."

**************