To Edward Marsh.
A copy of this letter was sent by Mr. Marsh to Rupert Brooke, then with the Dardanelles Expeditionary Force; it reached him two days before his death. The letter refers of course to his "1914" Sonnets. The line criticised in the first sonnet is: "And the worst friend and enemy is but death."
21 Carlyle Mansions,
Cheyne Walk, S.W.
March 28th, 1915.
Dear admirable Eddie!
I take it very kindly indeed of you to have found thought and time to send me the publication with the five brave sonnets. The circumstances (so to call the unspeakable matter) that have conduced to them, and that, taken together, seem to make a sort of huge brazen lap for their congruous beauty, have caused me to read them with an emotion that somehow precludes the critical measure, deprecates the detachment involved in that, and makes me just want—oh so exceedingly much—to be moved by them and to "like" and admire them. So I do greet them gladly, and am right consentingly struck with their happy force and truth: they seem to me to have come, in a fine high beauty and sincerity (though not in every line with an equal degree of those—which indeed is a rare case anywhere;) and this evening, alone by my lamp, I have been reading them over and over to myself aloud, as if fondly to test and truly to try them; almost in fact as if to reach the far-off author, in whatever unimaginable conditions, by some miraculous, some telepathic intimation that I am in quavering communion with him. Well, they have borne the test with almost all the firm perfection, or straight inevitability, that one must find in a sonnet, and beside their poetic strength they draw a wondrous weight from his having had the right to produce them, as it were, and their rising out of such rare realities of experience. Splendid Rupert—to be the soldier that could beget them on the Muse! and lucky Muse, not less, who could have an affair with a soldier and yet feel herself not guilty of the least deviation! In order of felicity I think Sonnet I comes first, save for a small matter that (perhaps superfluously) troubles me and that I will presently speak of. I place next III, with its splendid first line; and then V ("In that rich earth a richer dust concealed!") and then II. I don't speak of No. IV—I think it the least fortunate (in spite of "Touched flowers and furs, and cheeks!") But the four happy ones are very noble and sound and round, to my sense, and I take off my hat to them, and to their author, in the most marked manner. There are many things one likes, simply, and then there are things one likes to like (or at least that I do;) and these are of that order. My reserve on No. I bears on the last line—to the extent, I mean, of not feeling happy about that but before the last word. It may be fatuous, but I am wondering if this line mightn't have acquitted itself better as: "And the worst friend and foe is only death." There is an "only" in the preceding line, but the repetition is—or would be—to me not only not objectionable, but would have positive merit. My only other wince is over the "given" and "heaven" rhyme at the end of V; it has been so inordinately vulgarized that I don't think it good enough company for the rest of the sonnet, which without it I think I would have put second in order instead of the III. The kind of idea it embodies is one that always so fetches this poor old Anglomaniac. But that is all—and this, my dear Eddie, is all. Don't dream of acknowledging these remarks in all your strain and stress—that you should think I could bear that would fill me with horror. The only sign I want is that if you should be able to write to Rupert, which I don't doubt you on occasion manage, you would tell him of my pleasure and my pride. If he should be at all touched by this it would infinitely touch me. In fact, should you care to send him on this sprawl, that would save you other trouble, and I would risk his impatience. I think of him quite inordinately, and not less so of you, my dear Eddie, and am yours all faithfully and gratefully,
HENRY JAMES.
P.S. I have been again reading out V, to myself (I read them very well), and find I don't so much mind that blighted balance!
To Edward Marsh.
21 Carlyle Mansions,
Cheyne Walk, S.W.
March 30th, 1915.