Feb. 7th, 1882.
My dear Charles,
Only a word to thank you very heartily for your little note of friendship, and to send you a grateful message, as well, from my father and sister. My mother's death is the greatest change that could befall us, but our lives are so full of her still that we scarcely yet seem to have lost her. The long beneficence of her own life remains and survives.
I shall see you after your return to Shady Hill, as I am to be for a good while in these regions. I wish to remain near my father, who is infirm and rather tottering; and I shall settle myself in Boston for the next four or five months. In other words I shall be constantly in Cambridge and will often look in at you. I hope you have enjoyed your pilgrimage.
Ever faithfully yours,
H. JAMES jr.
To Mrs. John L. Gardner.
The play referred to in this letter is doubtless the dramatic version of Daisy Miller; it remained unacted, but was published in America in 1883.
3 Bolton St., Piccadilly.
June 5th [1882].
My dear Mrs. Gardner,
A little greeting across the sea! I meant to send it as soon as I touched the shore; but the huge grey mass of London has interposed. I experience the need of proving to you that I missed seeing you before I left America—though I tried one day—the one before I quitted Boston; but you were still in New York, contributing the harmony of your presence and the melodies of your toilet, to the din of Wagnerian fiddles and the crash of Teutonic cymbals. You must have passed me in the train that last Saturday; but you have never done anything but pass me—and dépasser me; so it doesn't so much matter. That final interview—that supreme farewell—will however always be one of the most fascinating incidents of life—the incidents that didn't occur, and leave me to muse on what they might have done for us. I think with extraordinary tenderness of those two pretty little evenings when I read you my play. They make a charming picture—a perfect picture—in my mind, and the memory of them appeals to all that is most raffiné in my constitution. Drop a tear—a diminutive tear (as your tears must be—small but beautifully-shaped pearls) upon the fact that my drama is not after all to be brought out in New York (at least for the present).... It is possible it may see the light here. I am to read it to the people of the St. James's Theatre next week. Please don't speak of this. London seems big and black and horrible and delightful—Boston seems only the last named. You indeed could make it horrible for me if you chose, and you could also make it big; but I doubt if you could make it black. It would be a fair and glittering horror, suggestive of icicles and white fur. I wonder if you are capable of writing me three words? Let one of them tell me you are well. The second—what you please! The third that you sometimes bestow a friendly thought upon yours very faithfully,