21 Carlyle Mansions,
Cheyne Walk, S.W.
January 29th, 1914.
Dear Mr. Roughead,
I devoured the tender Blandy in a single feast; I thank you most kindly for having anticipated so handsomely my appetite; and I highly appreciate the terms in general, and the concluding ones in particular, in which you serve her up. You tell the story with excellent art and animation, and it's quite a gem of a story in its way, History herself having put it together as with the best compositional method, a strong sense for sequences and the proper march, order and time. The only thing is that, as always, one wants to know more, more than the mere evidence supplies—and wants it even when as in this case one feels that the people concerned were after all of so dire a simplicity, so primitive a state of soul and sense, that the exhibition they make tells or expresses about all there was of them. Dear Mary must have consisted but of two or three pieces, one of which was a strong and simple carnal affinity, as it were, with the stinking little Cranstoun. Yet, also, one would like to get a glimpse of how an apparently normal young woman of her class, at that period, could have viewed such a creature in such a light. The light would throw itself on the Taste, the sense of proportion, of the time. However, dear Mary was a clear barbarian, simply. Enfin!—as one must always wind up these matters by exhaling. I continue to have escaped a further sense of —— and as I think I have told you I cultivate the exquisite art of ignorance. Yet not of Blandy, Pritchard and Co.—there, perversely, I am all for knowledge. Do continue to feed in me that languishing need, and believe me all faithfully yours,
HENRY JAMES.
To Mrs. Wharton.
The two novels referred to in the following are M. Marcel Proust's Du Côté de chez Swann and M. Abel Bonnard's La Vie et l'Amour.
21 Carlyle Mansions,
Cheyne Walk, S.W.
February 25th, 1914.
Dearest Edith,
The nearest I have come to receipt or possession of the interesting volumes you have so generously in mind is to have had Bernstein's assurance, when I met him here some time since, that he would give himself the delight of sending me the Proust production, which he learned from me that I hadn't seen. I tried to dissuade him from this excess, but nothing would serve—he was too yearningly bent upon it, and we parted with his asseveration that I might absolutely count on this tribute both to poor Proust's charms and to my own. But depuis lors—! he has evidently been less "en train" than he was so good as to find me. So that I shall indeed be "very pleased" to receive the "Swann" and the "Vie et l'Amour" from you at your entire convenience. It is indeed beautiful of you to think of these little deeds of kindness, little words of love (or is it the other way round?) What I want above all to thank you for, however, is your so brave backing in the matter of my disgarnished gums. That I am doing right is already unmistakeable. It won't make me "well"; nothing will do that, nor do I complain of the muffled miracle; but it will make me mind less being ill—in short it will make me better. As I say, it has already done so, even with my sacrifice for the present imperfect—for I am "keeping on" no less than eight pure pearls, in front seats, till I can deal with them in some less exposed and exposing conditions. Meanwhile tons of implanted and domesticated gold &c. (one's caps and crowns and bridges being most anathema to Des Vœux, who regards them as so much installed metallic poison) have, with everything they fondly clung to, been, less visibly, eradicated; and it is enough, as I say, to have made a marked difference in my felt state. That is the point, for the time—and I spare you further details....
Yours de cœur,
HENRY JAMES.