To Dr. J. William White.
Dictated.
21 Carlyle Mansions,
Cheyne Walk, S.W.
March 2nd, 1914.
My dear J. William,
I won't pretend it isn't an aid and comfort to me to be able to thank you for your so brilliant and interesting overflow from Sumatra in this mean way—since from the point of view of such a life as you are leading nothing I could possibly do in my poor sphere and state would seem less mean than anything else, and I therefore might as well get the good of being legible. I am such a votary and victim of the single impression and the imperceptible adventure, picked up by accident and cherished, as it were, in secret, that your scale of operation and sensation would be for me the most choking, the most fatal of programmes, and I should simply go ashore at Sumatra and refuse ever to fall into line again. But that is simply my contemptible capacity, which doesn't want a little of five million things, but only requires [much] of three or four; as to which then, I confess, my requirements are inordinate. But I am so glad, for the world and for themselves, above all for you and Letitia, that many great persons, and especially you two, are constructed on nobler lines, with stouter organs and longer breaths, to say nothing of purses, that I don't in the least mind your doing such things if you don't; and most positively and richly enjoy sitting under the warm and fragrant spray of the enumeration of them. Keep it up therefore, and don't let me hear of your daring to skip a single page, or dodge a single prescription, of the programme and the dose!...
I am signing, with J. S. S., three hundred very fine photographs of the Portrait, ever so much finer still, that he did of me last summer, and which I think you know about—in order that they be sent to my friends, of whom you are not the least; so that you will find one in Rittenhouse Square on your return thither, if with the extraordinarily dissipated life you lead you do really get back. With it will wait on you probably this, which I hope won't be sent either to meet or to follow you; I really can't even to the extent of a letter personally participate in your dissipation while it's at its worst. How embarrassed poor Letitia must truly be, if she but dared to confess it, at finding herself so associated; for that is not her nature; my life here, had she but consented to share it, would be so much more congruous with that! I don't quite gather when you expect to reach these shores—since my brain reels at the thought of your re-embarking for them after you reach your own at the climax of your orgy. I realise all that these passions are capable of leading you on to, and therefore shall not be surprised if you do pursue them without a break—shall in fact even be delighted to think I may see you gloriously approach by just sitting right here at this window, which commands so the prospect. But goodbye, dear good friends; gather your roses while ye may and don't neglect this blighted modest old bud, your affectionate friend,
HENRY JAMES.
To Henry Adams.
The book sent to Mr. Adams was Notes of a Son and Brother, now just published.
21 Carlyle Mansions,
Cheyne Walk, S.W.
March 21, 1914.