Details
JAMES, HENRY. Autograph letter signed ("Henry James") to Edmund Gosse, Lamb House, Rye, 3 October 1899. 6 pages, 4to, parts written across.
QUINTESSENTIAL JAMES
"Very interesting & relieving your letter, in spite of its singularly sad & disconcerting news of your health, which dispels particularly indulged hopes, on my part, as to what Norway would have done for you. I counted on seeing you all resinous & rustling & robust, alas, alas, ce que c'est que de nous! You have my tenderest sympathy--& your wife has actually the same, for really, between ourselves, Eliza--! But I won't trust it to paper. What a hell of a time you must have had to begin to lose again your precious days, after returning from salutory leisure....But I hope...& trust you can find within yourself stores of enriching & fecundating impressions; it was too much Ibsen you had, clearly[.] What a dreadful victory for Clement Scott &c!...I am & have been putting in all the work I can: to which (among other conspiring forces) the suddenly-sprung-upon-me-purchase of this house....the pistol has been practically rather put to my head. My landlord died suddenly...& there are cogent reasons for safety & comfort. So, at last, I have had to take it -- ...& that is the order for my autumn, all. I must sit close & add up & scarce take a day away. But you will come down--in due course -- I simply assume that. Thanks for the Appleton--Flaubert remarks. Yes, them again. I'll do my 6,000 words for 30 (occult) with pleasure: only I must make this condition that if I should write my paper & deliver it any time from now, I get my money on delivery....I respond with wonder & compassion & all the justes sentiments to your vivid family piece--but am not sure my eyes don't attach themselves with most anxious intensity to the figure of Mrs. Gosse--the distracted centre of the composition. Give my love to her, please--& my blessing to all."
As an afterthought, he adds: "I can't write of the Stevenson-Sydney Colvin imbroglio (if it be one). I am too annoyed at having been against my will & with every effort not to be, more or less, though thank heaven but a little, drawn into it. Little as it is, I fear it has been enough to give offense to Colvin--who is wrong, wholly, to have taken any. But that will pass, I think, when I have seen him. I can't help making an 'Ouf' that the long-drawn question of the Biography drops--as a discussion. The last thing in the world I ever dreamed could come of it was that I should hurt him..."
James purchased Lamb House, where he had lived at a comfortable distance from London since the summer of 1898, after consultations with his brother William and other friends. The "Flaubert--Appleton" reference may be to the introduction James wrote for Madame Bovary, one of the series "A Century of French Romance," edited by Gosse. Published in England by Heinemann, the series was issued in America by Appleton & Co. (See Edel & Laurence B22b). The present letter is apparently unpublished, not in James, Letters, ed. L. Edel.
Provenance: James Gilvarry (sale, Christie's New York, 7 February 1986, lot 157).
QUINTESSENTIAL JAMES
"Very interesting & relieving your letter, in spite of its singularly sad & disconcerting news of your health, which dispels particularly indulged hopes, on my part, as to what Norway would have done for you. I counted on seeing you all resinous & rustling & robust, alas, alas, ce que c'est que de nous! You have my tenderest sympathy--& your wife has actually the same, for really, between ourselves, Eliza--! But I won't trust it to paper. What a hell of a time you must have had to begin to lose again your precious days, after returning from salutory leisure....But I hope...& trust you can find within yourself stores of enriching & fecundating impressions; it was too much Ibsen you had, clearly[.] What a dreadful victory for Clement Scott &c!...I am & have been putting in all the work I can: to which (among other conspiring forces) the suddenly-sprung-upon-me-purchase of this house....the pistol has been practically rather put to my head. My landlord died suddenly...& there are cogent reasons for safety & comfort. So, at last, I have had to take it -- ...& that is the order for my autumn, all. I must sit close & add up & scarce take a day away. But you will come down--in due course -- I simply assume that. Thanks for the Appleton--Flaubert remarks. Yes, them again. I'll do my 6,000 words for 30 (occult) with pleasure: only I must make this condition that if I should write my paper & deliver it any time from now, I get my money on delivery....I respond with wonder & compassion & all the justes sentiments to your vivid family piece--but am not sure my eyes don't attach themselves with most anxious intensity to the figure of Mrs. Gosse--the distracted centre of the composition. Give my love to her, please--& my blessing to all."
As an afterthought, he adds: "I can't write of the Stevenson-Sydney Colvin imbroglio (if it be one). I am too annoyed at having been against my will & with every effort not to be, more or less, though thank heaven but a little, drawn into it. Little as it is, I fear it has been enough to give offense to Colvin--who is wrong, wholly, to have taken any. But that will pass, I think, when I have seen him. I can't help making an 'Ouf' that the long-drawn question of the Biography drops--as a discussion. The last thing in the world I ever dreamed could come of it was that I should hurt him..."
James purchased Lamb House, where he had lived at a comfortable distance from London since the summer of 1898, after consultations with his brother William and other friends. The "Flaubert--Appleton" reference may be to the introduction James wrote for Madame Bovary, one of the series "A Century of French Romance," edited by Gosse. Published in England by Heinemann, the series was issued in America by Appleton & Co. (See Edel & Laurence B22b). The present letter is apparently unpublished, not in James, Letters, ed. L. Edel.
Provenance: James Gilvarry (sale, Christie's New York, 7 February 1986, lot 157).