To Edmund Gosse.
Lamb House, Rye.
Sept. 16th [1901].
My dear Gosse,
I hurl this after you, there, for good luck, like the outworn shoe of ancient usage. Even a very, very old shoe will take you properly over Venice. I wrote a week ago to Mrs. Curtis about you, and you will doubtless hear from her, beckoningly, in respect to the ever-so-amiable Barbaro: an impression well worth your having. For the rest I commit you both, paternally, to Brown, to whose friendly memory I beg you to recall me. I wish I could assist at some of your raptures. Go to see the Tintoretto Crucifixion at San Cossiano—or never more be officer of mine. And, àpropos of master-pieces, read a thing called Venice in a thing called Portraits of Places by a thing called H. J., if you can get the book: I'm not sure if it's in Tauchnitz, but Mrs. Curtis may have the same. Brown certainly won't, though J. A. Symonds, in the only communication I ever got from him, told me he thought it the best image of V. he had ever seen made. This is the first time in my life, I believe, by the way, I ever indulged in any such—in any fatuous reference to a fruit of my pen. So there may be something in it. Drink deep, both of you, and come home remorselessly intoxicated, and reeking of the purple vine, to your poor old attached abstainer,
HENRY JAMES.
To Miss Jessie Allen.
The "hideous American episode" was the recent assassination of President McKinley, on which Mr. Roosevelt succeeded to the Presidency. The "heavenly mansion" was the Palazzo Barbaro (referred to in the preceding letter to Mr. Gosse), where H. J. had stayed in company with Miss Allen.
Lamb House, Rye.
September 19th, 1901.