The Letters of Henry James (Vol. II)

by Henry James

The "pamphlet" was his appeal on behalf of the American Volunteer Motor-Ambulance, included in Within the Rim.

21 Carlyle Mansions,
Cheyne Walk, S.W.
Jan. 25th, 1915.

Dearest Lily,

It has been of the greatest interest, it has been delightful, to me to receive to-night your so generous and informing letter. The poor little pamphlet for which you "thank" me is a helpless and empty thing—for which I should blush were not the condition of its production so legibly stamped upon it. You can't say things unless you have been out there to learn them, and if you have been out there to learn them you can say them less than ever. With all but utterly nothing to go upon I had to make my remarks practically of nothing, and that the effect of them can only be nil on a subscribing public which wants constant and particular news of the undertakings it has been asked to believe in once for all, I can but too readily believe. The case seems different here—I mean on this side of the sea—where scores and scores of such like corps are in operation in France—the number of ambulance-cars is many, many thousand, on all the long line—without its becoming necessary for them that their work should be publicly chronicled. I think the greater nearness—here—the strange and sinister nearness—makes much of the difference; various facts are conveyed by personal—unpublished—report, and these sufficiently serve the purpose. What seems clear, at all events, is that there is no devisable means for keeping the enterprise in touch with American sympathy, and I sadly note therefore what you tell me of the inevitable and not distant end. The aid rendered strikes me as having been of the handsomest—as is splendidly the case with all the aid America is rendering, in her own large-handed and full-handed way; of which you tell me such fine interesting things from your own experience. It makes you all seem one vast and prodigious workshop with us—for the resources and the energy of production and creation and devotion here are of course beyond estimation. I imagine indeed that, given your more limited relation to the War, your resources in money are more remarkable—even though here (by which I mean in England, for the whole case is I believe more hampered in France) the way the myriad calls and demands are endlessly met and met is prodigious enough. It does my heart good that you should express yourself as you do—though how could you do anything else?—on behalf of the simply sacred cause, as I feel it, of the Allies; for here at least one needs to feel it so to bear up under the close pressure of all that is so hideous and horrible in what has been let loose upon us. Much of the time one feels that one simply can't—the heart-breaking aspect, the destruction of such masses, on such a scale, of the magnificent young life that was to have been productive and prolific, bears down any faith, any patience, all argument and all hope. I can look at the woe of the bereft, the parents, the mothers and wives, and take it comparatively for granted—that is not care for what they individually suffer (as they seem indifferent themselves, both here and in France, in an extraordinarily noble way.) But the dead loss of such ranks upon ranks of the finest young human material—of life—that is an abyss into which one can simply gaze appalled. And as if that were not enough I find myself sickened to the very soul by the apparent sense of the louche and sinister figure of Mr. Woodrow Wilson, who seems to be aware of nothing but the various ingenious ways in which it is open to him to make difficulties for us. I may not read him right, but most of my correspondents at home appear to, and they minister to my dread of him and the meanness of his note as it breaks into all this heroic air.

But I am writing you in the key of mere lamentation—which I didn't mean to do. Strange as it may seem, there are times when I am much uplifted—when what may come out of it all seems almost worth it. And then the black nightmare holds the field again—and in fact one proceeds almost wholly by those restless alternations. They consume one's vital substance, but one will perhaps wear them out first. It touches me deeply that you should speak tenderly of dear old London, for which my own affection in these months s'est accrue a thousandfold—just as the same has taken place in my attachment for all these so very preponderantly decent and solid people. The race is worth fighting for, immensely—in fact I don't know any other for whom it can so much be said.... Well, go on working and feeling and believing for me, dear Lily, and God uphold your right arm and carry far your voice. Think of me too as your poor old aching and yet not altogether collapsing, your in fact quite clinging,

HENRY JAMES.

To Hugh Walpole.

Mr. Walpole was now serving with the Red Cross on the Russian front.

21 Carlyle Mansions,
Cheyne Walk, S.W.
February 14th, 1915.