To Edmund Gosse.
The news of Stevenson's death in Samoa reached London at this moment, when H. J. was deeply occupied with the rehearsals of Guy Domville at the St. James's Theatre. "Jan. 5th" was to be the first night of the play.
34 De Vere Gardens, W.
Dec. 17th, 1894.
My dear Gosse,
I meant to write you to-night on another matter—but of what can one think, or utter or dream, save of this ghastly extinction of the beloved R.L.S.? It is too miserable for cold words—it's an absolute desolation. It makes me cold and sick—and with the absolute, almost alarmed sense, of the visible material quenching of an indispensable light. That he's silent forever will be a fact hard, for a long time, to live with. To-day, at any rate, it's a cruel, wringing emotion. One feels how one cared for him—what a place he took; and as if suddenly into that place there had descended a great avalanche of ice. I'm not sure that it's not for him a great and happy fate; but for us the loss of charm, of suspense, of "fun" is unutterable. And how confusedly and pityingly one's thought turns to those far-away stricken women, with their whole principle of existence suddenly quenched and yet all the monstrosity of the rest of their situation left on their hands! I saw poor Colvin to-day—he is overwhelmed, he is touching: But I can't write of this—we must talk of it. Yet these words have been a relief.
And I can't write, either, of the matter I had intended to—viz. that you are to rest secure about the question of Jan. 5th—I will do everything for you. That business becomes for the hour tawdry and heartless to me.
Yours always,
HENRY JAMES.
To Sidney Colvin.
H. J. unexpectedly found himself named by Stevenson as one of his executors; but this charge he felt it impossible to undertake, on account of his complete inexperience in matters of business. The last paragraph of this letter refers to a suggestion that the cabled news of Stevenson's death might prove to be mistaken.