I have had great pleasure of your last good letter and this is a word of fairly prompt reconnaissance. Your bewilderment over The Awkward Age doesn't on the whole surprise me—for that ingenious volume appears to have excited little but bewilderment—except indeed, here, thick-witted denunciation. A work of art that one has to explain fails in so far, I suppose, of its mission. I suppose I must at any rate mention that I had in view a certain special social (highly "modern" and actual) London group and type and tone, which seemed to me to se prêter à merveille to an ironic—lightly and simply ironic!—treatment, and that clever people at least would know who, in general, and what, one meant. But here, at least, it appears there are very few clever people! One must point with finger-posts—one must label with pancartes—one must explain with conférences! The form, doubtless, of my picture is against it—a form all dramatic and scenic—of presented episodes, architecturally combined and each making a piece of the building; with no going behind, no telling about the figures save by their own appearance and action and with explanations reduced to the explanation of everything by all the other things in the picture. Mais il parait qu'il ne faut pas faire comme ça: personne n'y comprend rien: j'en suis pour mes frais—qui avaient été considérables, très considérables! Yet I seem to make out you were interested—and that consoles me. I think Mrs. Brook the best thing I've ever done—and Nanda also much done. Voilà! Mitchy marries Aggie by a calculation—in consequence of a state of mind—delicate and deep, but that I meant to show on his part as highly conceivable. It's absolute to him that N. will never have him—and she appeals to him for another girl, whom she sees him as "saving" (from things—realities she sees). If he does it (and she shows how she values him by wanting it) it is still a way of getting and keeping near her—of making for her, to him, a tie of gratitude. She becomes, as it were, to him, responsible for his happiness—they can't (especially if the marriage goes ill) not be—given the girl that Nanda is—more, rather than less, together. And the finale of the picture justifies him: it leaves Nanda, precisely, with his case on her hands. Far-fetched? Well, I daresay: but so are diamonds and pearls and the beautiful Reubell turquoises! So I scribble to you, to be sociable, by my loud-ticking clock, in this sleeping little town, at my usual more than midnight hour.
...Well, also, I'm like you—I like growing (that is I like, for many reasons, being) old: 56! But I don't like growing older. I quite love my present age and the compensations, simplifications, freedom, independences, memories, advantages of it. But I don't keep it long enough—it passes too quickly. But it mustn't pass all (good as that is) in writing to you! There is nothing I shall like more to dream of than to be convoyed by you to the expositionist Kraals of the Savages and the haunts of the cannibals. I surrender myself to you de confiance—in vision and hope—for that purpose. Jonathan Sturges lives, year in, year out, at Long's Hotel, Bond St., and promises to come down here and see me, but never does. He knows hordes of people, every one extraordinarily likes him, and he has tea-parties for pretty ladies: one at a time. Alas, he is three quarters of the time ill; but his little spirit is colossal. Sargent grows in weight, honour and interest—to my view. He does one fine thing after another—and his crucifixion (that is big Crucifié with Adam and Eve under each arm of cross catching drops of blood) for Boston Library is a most noble, grave and admirable thing. But it's already to-morrow and I am yours always,
HENRY JAMES.
To H. G. Wells.
Lamb House, Rye.
November 20th, 1899.
My dear H. G. Wells,
You reduce me to mere gelatinous grovel. And the worst of it is that you know so well how. You, with a magnanimity already so marked as to be dazzling, sent me last summer a beautiful and discouraging volume which I never mastered the right combination of minutes and terms to thank you for as it deserved—and then, perfectly aware that this shameful consciousness had practically converted me to quivering pulp, you let fly the shaft that has finished me in the fashion to which I now so distressfully testify. It is really most kind and charming of you, and the incident will figure largely in all your eventual biographies: yet it is almost more than I can bear. Seriously, I am extremely touched by your great humanity in the face of my atrocious bad manners. I think the reason why I didn't write to thank you for the magnificent romance of three or four months ago was that I simply dreaded a new occasion for still more purple perjury on the subject of coming over to see you! I was—I am!—coming: and yet I couldn't—and I can't—say it without steeping myself afresh in apparent falsehood, to the eyes. It is a weird tale of the acharnement of fate against an innocent action—I mean the history of my now immemorial failure: which I must not attempt to tell you thus and now, but reserve for your convinced (from the moment it isn't averted) ear on the day, and at the very hour and moment, that failure is converted to victory. I AM coming. I was lately extremely sorry to hear that you have been somewhat unwell again—unless it be a gross exaggeration. Heaven send that same. I AM coming. I thank you very cordially for the two beautiful books. The new tales I have already absorbed and, to the best of my powers, assimilated. You fill me with wonder and admiration. I think you have too great an unawareness of difficulty—and (for instance) that the four big towns and nice blue foods and belching news-trumpets, etc., will be the least of the differences in the days to come.—But it's unfair to say that without saying a deal more: which I can't, and [which] isn't worth it—and is besides irrelevant and ungracious. Your spirit is huge, your fascination irresistible, your resources infinite. That is much more to the point. And I AM coming. I heartily hope that if you have been incommoded it is already over, and for a corrigible cause. I AM coming. Recall me, please, kindly to Mrs. Wells, and believe me (I AM coming,) very truly (and veraciously) yours,
HENRY JAMES.