TELEPHONE 2417 KENSINGTON.

21 CARLYLE MANSIONS
CHEYNE WALK
S.W.

Dec. 6th. 1915

Dear Mrs. Wharton,

I was so greatly relieved to get your telegram this morning and know definitely that you had had one at least of mine. I'm afraid the second Friday telegram will have alarmed you, but I hope you will have had the third, more reassuring one, by this time. On Friday we were all really expecting the end to be not far off, as Mr. James seemed to be passing into unconsciousness; but he has rallied considerably since, and Dr. Des Voeux tells me now that he will pull through now unless he has another stroke. One doesn't know, at this stage, how far he can really recover — the doctor is dubious about anything like complete recovery of movement, and considers the injury to the brain certain to leave it much impaired, and under these circumstances one can hardly wish his life to be much prolonged. Mr. James isn't himself aware of the seriousness of his illness. He knows that he had the slight stroke on Thursday morning, but not of the following one during the night, and he talks of work again. His mind seems very clear, considering the difficulties it must have to contend with. He even saw three people yesterday, but Dr. Des Voeux has forbidden him to see any more, which is a very good thing. It is really much too much effort for him to talk. I try not to go into his room myself unless he asks for me very insistently, because seeing and hearing me only troubles his mind with thoughts of his work and the people he wants me to write

to. Of course we cabled to his nephew in New York at once, and I hear from him today that his mother has already sailed for England. Probably Peggy will follow her as soon as she can. I shan't let Mr. James know that Mrs. James is on her way — the thought of her lonely crossing would worry him, but he will like to see her when she is here, and it will be the greatest relief for the household to be able to pass over the responsibilities that the situation produces such a large crop of to authoritative hands.

I don't really think it would be worth your while to come over now — Mr. James can't see any one for long, and though it is always the greatest pleasure he can have to see you, I think he would be dreadfully worried to think that you had come such a distance for such a very few moments of talk.

Please be assured, dear Mrs. Wharton, that I will always let you know immediately if there is any serious change, and will transmit any message Mr. James may want to send (at present he thinks that he will be well in a few days and that people won't have heard much of his illness and he certainly wouldn't worry you by sending any direct news from himself) and believe me

TELEPHONE 2417 KENSINGTON.

21 CARLYLE MANSIONS
CHEYNE WALK
S. W.

December 8th. 1915

My dear Mrs. Wharton,

Your so beautifully considerate letter came this morning, and
since then Mrs. Hunter has been round to see me. She had heard
nothing at all till today, as she was in Norfolk and the letter
I wrote to Hill was waiting for her in London with yours. She
is immediately telegraphing you not to come, but I feel sure that
you probably aren't thinking of doing so at present. I do so
understand and sympathise with your wish to have been here when
this thing happened; but now that it <u>has</u> happened the only thing
to be done is to keep Mr. James as quiet as possible. I had a
letter from Mr. Howard Sturgis this morning begging most earnestly
that visitors should be kept from Mr. James, and we are really
keeping everyone away until he demands to see them, which I hope
won't be for some time yet.

But do write to him — your letters are always a great joy
to him. I think you may quite safely seem to know that he has
had a slight stroke (he knows about the first one, but not that
it was followed by a second) — he told Mrs. Prothero to tell his
intimate friends that, and said at the time that it always made
complications not to tell the truth. But I think, if you don't
mind, that it would perhaps be as well if you didn't say anything
about having heard of it from me. No — on second thoughts I
don't think it will matter if he does know — I only thought for
the moment that it might lead him definitely to forbid my worrying

TELEPHONE 2417 KENSINGTON.

you, as he might think it, in future; but I don't really think he
will mind.

Yesterday when I saw him he seemed ever so much clearer in
his mind, and quite ready to be mildly interested in the messages
of affection and sympathy from his various friends. He was par-
ticularly himself in regard to a letter from Mr. Gosse, and told
me to say in my reply that his powers of recuperation were infinite!
He also composed a perfectly characteristic phrase for me to
cable to New York. He was very sleepy all this morning, and didn't
send for me till nearly luncheon time, when I was very sorry to
find him quite oblivious of everything but the effort to <u>farm</u> give
expression to the sensations of illness and convalescence. That
isn't very clear. What I mean is that he was intent on dictating
several laboriously composed sentences, quite long and punctuated,
describing his state of mind at the moment in regard to his illness.
That seems to me to be about the worst thing possible for his brain,
but it isn't possible, nor indeed desirable, to stop him, for he
only goes on worrying about the phrases and it must be some relief
to have them spoken and taken down and done with. But I'm very
sorry his mind is trying to force itself to such activities.

This is all there is to tell you today — and no doubt Mrs.

Hunter is writing too. She tells me she knows of an excellent
male nurse and is going to find out about him. I am sure Mr James
won't submit to his present female ministrants much longer!

TELEPHONE 2417 KENSINGTON.

December 12th. 1915.

Dear Mrs. Wharton,

Your letter of the 8th., came late last night. You will have
had three other letters and at least two telegrams from me since,
and I know Mrs. Hunter is telegraphing and writing as well. I wrote
yesterday, or was it the day before ? fully convinced that the end
was very near indeed. But apparently it isn't, and I'm glad for
Mrs. William James's sake, at any rate, that he will probably live
now at least till after she arrives tomorrow. Did I tell you that
she was coming in response to my cable of Friday week ? I think
it's very fine and spirited of her to set off, at her age and
practically alone ( a friend did happen, fortunately, to be crossing
by the same boat) across the winter Atlantic, at not more than 24
hours' notice. Why Harry James isn't coming himself I can't
imagine. I suppose he must have the very best of reasons for not
being able to do so, in the face of the very urgent and personally
addressed cable Miss Lily Norton and I sent him last Sunday. I
wasn't sure about whether Mr. James wouldn't be greatly disappoint-
ed by the arrival of his sister-in-law instead of his nephew, but
when Mrs. Hunter told him this morning that she was coming he seemed
to be very much pleased. I hope the fact will just drop into his
mind enough for it to be no shock when she comes. At present he is
perfectly capable of taking in who is talking to him or being spoken
about but has no consciousness of where he is -- or rather he has a
consciousness that he isn't in London, but is in an hotel somewhere,

TELEPHONE 2417 KENSINGTON.

we can't make out where. But Mrs. Hunter will be telling you about
her talk with him.

What I want to tell you particularly is the exact nature of the
disease, which the doctor has now been able to establish quite con-
clusively to be due to the heart condition. Two clots have been
formed within the last ten days — the first affected the right side
of the brain and the second the base of the right lung, setting up
embolic pneumonia. This is better today, and I suppose will get
better still. Dr Des Voeux considers there is no reason now why
he shouldn't pull through. But he has very little hope that the
paralysis will ever be any better. Paralysis due to clotting is,
he tells me, much less likely to disappear than that due to the
breaking of a blood-vessel in the brain. Since this is the case,
and there is so little hope of either the paralysed part of the body
recovering or the brain not being seriously damaged for future
mental activity, my own hope is that there will soon be some further
complication which he won't survive. I can't bear to contemplate
any dragging out of life for him under such conditions. As it is
it's almost more than I can bear to go into his room (as he so often
wants me to do) to take down from his dictation fragments of the
book he imagines himself to be writing. At the same time that it
is a heart-breaking thing to do, though, there is the extraordinary
fact that his mind does retain the power to frame perfectly

TELEPHONE 2417 KENSINGTON.

characteristic sentences — even whole pages of pure "Henry James" prose composition. At first I thought it might be bad for him, but I believe now that it really helps him to hear it being ticked off on the typewriter. He remains conscious of having done it and goes more easily to sleep afterwards. And the fragments he dictates do, in the queerest way, hang together — they seem to form part of a book he is writing in his mind about Bonaparte. He leaves huge gaps undictated, but everything somehow fits into the scheme. It's the most extraordinary thing to watch the bits falling together.

I shall always remember, dear Mrs. Wharton, that I can send for you at once if Mr. James wants you, and it's ever so kind of you to say you would come over to be a help to us all if needed. But I shan't dream of asking you to leave Hyères unless Mr. James wants to see you, though please be assured that I shall at once then.

Everyone is being so wonderfully kind. Mrs. Hunter has been the greatest support since she came up to town. And Mr. Percy Lubbock came in to see me the other day and was very helpful about the notice for the papers. I had heard that there was already something in the New York papers, so I thought we had better put something in the English "Times" ourselves instead of letting them get it in a roundabout way.

This is all till my next report.

TELEPHONE 2417 KENSINGTON.

December 14th. 1915

Dear Mrs. Wharton,

The bulletin today is fairly favourable — "condition slightly improved". The chief event has been Mrs. James's arrival. She got to London very late yesterday evening, not till nearly twelve o'clock, so she very sensibly went straight to her hotel and came on here this morning. Unfortunately Mr. James had not only been told (most tactfully and reassuringly by Mrs. Hunter) that she was coming, but had also been told, by a different person, that she was coming within a certain time, by train. It isn't to be wondered at, therefore, that when she didn't turn up last night he grew restless and uneasy. In fact he had a very bad night and is weak and tired today in proportion. But the pneumonia is clearing off and the doctor has ordered a little food for the first time for many days. The meeting with Mrs. James went off very well, and he has been much happier and quieter ever since, and not in the least worried about her voyage. He is perfectly clear now about personal identities but still refuses to entertain the idea that he is anywhere himself but in a third-rate hotel in Ireland. Thank goodness it might be a much worse delusion, and it will clear away as the pneumonia goes. It's just the ordinary type of feverish idea, not a bit like the distressing mental condition he was in last week. And his speech is quite clear now, so that there can't be much facial paralysis. The doctor thinks too, and

TELEPHONE 2417 KENSINGTON

the type of stuff he has been dictating in his delirium quite bears
out his theory, that the"intellectual"centres aren't much, or
even at all, damaged. And if that is the case he may yet have a
great deal to live for. That's the best hope we can have if he is
going to live. But my own belief is that he won't live very much
longer, and I think that is the opinion of his nurses.

In any case Mrs. James will stay near him now till the end, and
probably Peggy will come out to join her within a very short time.
It's a great relief to have her here and not feel responsible for
practically everything any longer. I don't mean that the nurses and
the servants haven't been angels of kindness and consideration, be-
cause they have; but I did feel very strongly that there should
be someone more than a mere hireling of a secretary (however devoted)
to apply to in emergencies of so grave an importance.

I'll write or telegraph again, of course, immediately if there
is any change for the worse; and in any case will send you a further
report before long.

TELEPHONE 2417 KENSINGTON.

December 17th. 1915.

Dear Mrs. Wharton,

I found your letter of the 15th., enclosing a note for Mr. James, when I got here this morning. I will guard the enclosure until he is either well enough to read it himself or would like it read to him, and in the meantime I will take the first opportunity of giving him your message. That will be a comfort and pleasure to him, and won't be the perplexity that messages from London friends are apt to prove. He is still in the same state of confusion as to locality which I wrote of two days ago, and doesn't like any suggestion that these people are really in London. That will probably clear with time — he must be pretty weak after ten days of starvation and several of fever, and one can't expect his mind to be itself at once. As to the general condition, the doctor seems to be satisfied and there are no fresh complications. Recovery, to whatever extent it may be looked for, is bound to be a long, dragged-out process and I'm afraid a terribly difficult one for him to bear. One can't look far ahead or see much ground for hopefulness — at least I can't. Mrs. James seems much better able to perform the act of faith; but I'm still too sorry that it didn't all end quickly and completely.

There was a most beautiful surprise waiting for me when I got home yesterday, in the shape of your "Fighting France", from Macmillans. I can't at all adequately tell you, dear Mrs. Wharton,

how greatly I appreciate your kind thought in sending me a copy.
Appreciation of its contents will begin at the first available
moment; and I quite hope, thanks to the relief of Mrs. James's
responsible presence here now, to be having available moments fairly
soon again.

Ever yours sincerely

TELEPHONE 2417 KENSINGTON.

December 21st. 1915.

Dear Mrs. Wharton,

There is nothing fresh exactly, no new complication or great
change of condition today. There is the conflicting evidence of
the nurses and the doctor — the nurse thinks Mr. James a good deal
weaker, the doctor reports the symptoms of this last pneumonic
state to be abating. One can only think that he isn't really worse,
though this extreme weakness will make it difficult for him to get
over the attack.

I'm afraid the whole struggle is just the
prolonged lingering of a naturally strong man — for his constitu-
tion is certainly strong and his recuperative powers have always
been great.

Mrs. James is equal to every emergency, though the strain and
worry tell on her. I think she had a very assured hope of his recov-
ering enough to enjoy life for several months, if not years, more
when she arrived, and it has come as a renewed shock to her that he
probably won't recover even partially. Peggy and possibly the
eldest son, Harry, will sail on Friday, and that will be a good thing
for their mother, even if Mr. James can't take any pleasure in seeing
them. I gave him your message, which greatly touched and pleased
him, but he isn't able to have the note yet. Yesterday his mind
was fairly clear in the evening, but today he is wandering a good
deal. Of course I will report again very soon.

Yours ever sincerely

TO LAWRENCE STREET
FROM HERE WALK
S.W.

December 22nd. 1915.

Dear Mrs. Wharton,

Yesterday evening Dr Des Voeux told us that there was some
fluid at the base of the right lung, which adds a further complication
to a case already pretty thoroughly involved in various directions.
I think the nurse had suspected pleurisy for a couple of days, but
there wasn't any certainty till yesterday. The worst of the pain
is over; he really sleeps most of the time, and if he does seem
restless and in pain he has an injection of morphia which relieves
him very quickly.

I saw Mr. James last night at about 10 o'clock for a few minutes.
He was pretty clear in his mind, except for a worry about the strange
place in which he found himself. And he asked me if I were in any
sort of communication with any of his friends. I repeated your
message to him, and told him there was the letter from you for him
to read or have read to him when he felt a little stronger. He
asked me to thank you very much. I can't give you the absolutely
exact verbatim report, but he said something very much like this.
"Please tell Mrs. Wharton that I thank her very much, and that for
the present, among these strange and difficult conditions, I leave
the answering of her enquiries to you. But tell her that I hope very
soon to get into closer relation with her." He had already asked,
when I told him of having had a letter from you, if I thought you
were aware of his state. It was a great comfort to him to know that
you were and that you had written, and I shall repeat it to him if I

I've begun with my bulletin, and now pass on to your letter
of the 19th., which came last night. I gave the little packets to
Kidd and Burgess, and both are intending to write their thanks for
your kind remembrance of them as soon as ever they have a moment
to do so. But their moments are very few, for they're both quite
invaluable in the sick room. Kidd seems to be the only person whose
suggestions of food Mr. James doesn't feel impelled to contradict,
and Burgess is called upon at all hours of the day and night to
help to move his master into an easier position, or even to get him
right out of bed. I'm afraid there is no real sign of a return of
power in the paralysed limbs. Luckily the nurses have both managed
to adapt themselves to their patient in a way that does real credit
to their intelligence, and I don't think he dislikes either of them
now.

I suppose, even at the best, it must be a long time before
he can have much intercourse with friends, but I feel quite sure
that when he _is_ allowed to it will be the greatest pleasure for him
to see you. I remember how much he looked forward to the vague
possibility of your coming over when he had had that touch of pleur-
isy two winters ago. And I hope you'll feel always quite sure
that I will let you know the very moment it seems advisable for you
to come -- for I certainly will.

TELEPHONE 2417 KENSINGTON.

December 26th. 1915.

Dear Mrs. Wharton,

I haven't written for a day or two just because there hasn't been anything fresh to tell you. Mr. James has slept a great deal in the day, under the influence of sleeping draughts and morphia injections which all take effect during the wrong part of the 24 hours, and has passed miserably restless nights. I haven't seen him to speak to since the night when he gave me that message for you. The only at all hopeful sign about his condition now is that there have been signs of movement, voluntary movement, in the fingers of the left hand. He does get a little stronger every day, and takes a little more nourishment in the shape of eggs and milk and meat juices. But as he slowly begins to realise his condition (I continuously don't think he is very conscious of it or his surroundings yet) he becomes more unhappy and creates more insuperable difficulties for his nurses and other surrounding people, which must, I'm afraid, almost inevitably increase rather than diminish as time goes on. If he goes on living he will have to face such terribly altered circumstances that it's really not possible to believe (not possible for me anyhow) that he can ever reconcile himself to them. He has been wheeled into the dining-room today, under the doctor's supervision, and is there now. When he has restless fits he wants to be lifted out of bed onto a chair every few minutes and the physical strain on the nurse and Burgess is very great. They hope that this

more complete change may soothe him for a longer time.

I wish there were anything better to tell you, and I shall
very gladly write at once when there is. But just now things look
very black. This increase of physical strength doesn't seem to be
accompanied by a corresponding return of mental power. The delirium,
during which he wanted to do literary work, is over, and his mind
is entirely occupied by the misery of the state in which he finds
himself. In that condition it isn't clear. He doesn't take in
or remember anything that is said unless it is often repeated and
even then it's all wiped out in five minutes. But this too may,
and probably to some extent will, pass.

Mrs. James is looking absolutely worn out with the strain. She
is up much too much in the night, and can't rest in the day. I shall
be very glad when Peggy is here to relieve her.

If I don't write for some days please take it that there isn't
any change. It's only our opinions that fluctuate from day to day,
and we haven't enough data yet to form any very solid ones.

TELEPHONE 2417 KENSINGTON.

December 28th. 1915.

Dear Mrs. Wharton,

I was fortunately prevented from yielding to the impulse to write to you yesterday, immediately after receiving your own letter of the 23rd., with its enclosure of the charming Belgian-worked collar — a decoration I shall wear with great pride and for which I thank you very much. When your letter arrived I had just been writing to Mrs. Hunter and Mr. Sturgis and a third report must have been couched in the same overwhelmingly gloomy terms as theirs were. It's difficult to keep one's judgment at all steady in the middle of the daily fluctuations of Mr. James's state and other people's opinions of it, and I haven't seen him myself, awake, since last Wednesday, I think it was. The day before yesterday was so bad — he was in such a difficult mental state and needed such unceasing physical motion (constant lifting from one chair to another) that the nurses and entire assisting household had completely collapsed by the evening and I'd found Kidd and Burgess each stretched almost flat in the kitchen and the nurse nearly hysterical and Mrs. James convinced that he could never be anything but a perfect wreck of his former self, mentally and morally, again. But that state didn't last. He had a fairly quiet day yesterday and a moderately quiet night, and this morning they have wheeled him into the sunny dining-room which is ever so much pleasanter a room than his dark northward

TELEPHONE 2417 KENSINGTON.

2

looking bedroom. He is so strong physically, in spite of all these
attacks, that it doesn't seem to tire him sitting up in a chair for
the greater part of the day. The nurses tell me, too, that there
are better signs of returning power in the left hand and leg, which
is all to the good. His ideas are still a good deal confused, and
I don't think he quite realises where he is, but that may very well
be partly due to the morphia he has been having till within the last
day or two. In any case we can only wait and hope that mental
power will slowly return. The doctor thinks it will return, and
that is the great thing. I don't think it would be a bit of good
for you to come over yet — he isn't seeing anyone and hasn't been
expressing any desire to see anyone beyond the circle of nurses and
doctor and general household ministrants. He has quite stopped
thinking about literary work, and with the cessation of that preoc-
cupation has, naturally, stopped wanting to see me at all. In fact
I feel extremely functionless just at present. I suppose that until
Peggy is over here and established I'd better go on hanging round, but
after that I shan't be anything but a quite useless expense. I imagine
that she and Mrs. James will both settle down in Chelsea for the rest
of Mr. James's life, and they are more than sufficient to manage
everything. It's almost too much even to hope that he can ever write
anything again -- his powers of doing that had been failing for some

time before these attacks, and even if he does ever want to his niece
entirely
is quite a practised typist and *quika* capable of doing the very small
amount of amanuensis work that would be needed. However, that
question will very likely solve itself easily and naturally in the
course of the next week or two when we know better how much recovery
can be hoped for. It is quite obvious that there will have to be a
permanent addition to the staff in the shape of a good strong nurse,
if not two nurses.

With ever so many thanks, dear Mrs. Wharton, again, for your
Christmas gift, and your so much too kind letter -- I wish I could
tell you better how great a help your letters and the constant
knowledge of your consideration and sympathy has been.