34 De Vere Gardens, W.
Dec. 20th, '94.
My dear Colvin,
I didn't come, as I threatened, to see you this a.m.; because up to the time I was forced (early) to absent myself from home for several hours no sign had come from Edinburgh. On coming home at 4 o'clock, however, I found both a telegram and a letter from Mr. Mitchell. The telegram asked for a telegraphic Yea or Nay that might instantly be cabled to Baxter at Port Said. I immediately wired a profoundly regretful, but unconditional and insurmountable refusal. The absolute necessity of doing this has gathered still more overwhelming force since I saw you yesterday—if indeed there could have been any "still more" when the maximum had been so promptly reached. To ease still more (at all events) my conscience—though God knows it was, and is, easy!—I conferred last p.m. with a sage friend about the matter, and if I had been in the smallest degree unsettled some words he dropped about the pecuniary liability of executors, under certain new regulations (in regard to the Revenue &c.,) would sufficiently have fixed me. But in truth the question was not even one to talk of at all—even to the extent of asking for confirmations. I wish the thing could have been otherwise. But that is idle. So I have answered Mr. Mitchell's letter, by this evening's post, in a manner that leaves no doubt either of my decision or my sorrow. There may be something legal for me to do to be exonerated: I have inquired.
And meanwhile comes the torture of such phenomena as Dr. Balfour's letter in to-day's P.M.G.—a torture doubtless only meant (by a perverse Providence) to deepen the final pain. At any rate it is unsettling to the point of nervous anguish—or à peu près. But to whom do I say this? I don't like to think of your horrible worry—your all but damnable suspense. Don't answer this—or write me unless you particularly want to: I ache, in sympathy, under the letters, telegrams, complications of every sort you have to meet: that you may find strength to bear which is the hearty wish of yours, my dear Colvin, more than ever,
HENRY JAMES.
To Miss Henrietta Reubell.
34 De Vere Gardens, W.
December 31st, 1894.
Dear Miss Etta,
This is to wish you a brand-New Year, and to wish it very affectionately—and to wish it of not more than usual length but of more than usual fulness. I have had an unacknowledged letter from you longer than is decorous. But I have shown you ere this that epistolary decorum is a virtue I have ceased to pretend to. And during the last month I have not pretended to any other virtue either—save an endless patience and an heroic resignation, as I have been, and still am, alas, in the sorry position of having in rehearsal a little play—3 acts—which is to be produced on Saturday next, at the St. James's Theatre, as to which I beg you heartily to indulge for me, about 8.30 o'clock on that evening, in very fervent prayer. It is a little "romantic" play of which the action is laid (in England) in the middle of the last century, and it will be exquisitely mounted, dressed &c., and very creditably acted, as things go here. But rehearsal is an écœurment is the right spelling] and one's need of heroic virtues infinite. I have been in the breach daily for 4 weeks, and am utterly exhausted. To-night (the theatre being closed for the week on purpose) is the first dress rehearsal—which is here of course not a public, as in Paris, but an intensely private function—all for me, me prélassant dans mon fauteuil, alone, like the King of Bavaria at the opera. There are to be three nights more of this, to give them ease in the wearing of their clothes of a past time, and that, after the grind of the earlier work, is rather amusing—as amusing as anything can be, for a man of taste and sensibility, in the odious process of practical dramatic production. I may have been meant for the Drama—God knows!—but I certainly wasn't meant for the Theatre. C'est pour vous dire that I am much pressed and am only sending you mes vœux très-sincères in a shabbily brief little letter. There are a number of interesting things in your last to which I want to respond. I send you also by post 3 or 4 miserable little (old) views of Tunbridge Wells, which I have picked up in looking, at rare leisure moments, for one good one for you. I haven't, alas, found that; but I think I am on the track of it, and you shall have it as soon as it turns up. Accept these meanwhile as a little stop-gap and a symbol of my New Year's greeting.... I hope you are in good case and good hope. We are having here an excellent winter, almost fogless and generally creditable. Write me a little word of hope and help for the 5th; I shall regard it as a happy influence for yours forever,
HENRY JAMES.