21 Carlyle Mansions,
Cheyne Walk, S.W.
June 29th, 1915.
My dear Pinker,
I am glad to hear from you of the conditions in which the New York Tribune representative thinks there will be no difficulty over the fee for the article. I have in point of fact during the last three or four days considerably written one—concerning which a question comes up which I hope you won't think too tiresome. Making up my mind that something as concrete and "human" as possible would be my best card to play, I have done something about the British soldier, his aspect, temper and tone, and the considerations he suggests, as I have seen him since the beginning of the war in Hospital; where I have in fact largely and constantly seen him. The theme lends itself, by my sense, much; and I dare say I should have it rather to myself—though of course there is no telling! But what I have been feeling in the connection—having now done upwards of 3000 words—is that I should be very grateful for leave to make them 4000 (without of course extension of fee.) I have never been good for the mere snippet, and there is so much to say and to feel! Would you mind asking her, in reporting to her of what my subject is, whether this extra thousand would incommode them. If she really objects to it I think I shall be then disposed to ask you to make some other application of my little paper (on the 4000 basis;) in which case I should propose to the Tribune another idea, keeping it down absolutely to the 3000. (I'm afraid I can't do less than that.) My motive would probably in that case be a quite different and less "concrete" thing; namely, the expression of my sense of the way the Briton in general feels about his insulation, and his being in it and of it, even through all this unprecedented stress. It would amount to a statement or picture of his sense of the way his sea-genius has always encircled and protected him, striking deep into his blood and his bones; so that any reconsideration of his position in a new light inevitably comes hard to him, and yet makes the process the effective development of which it is interesting to watch. I should call this thing something like "The New Vision," or, better still, simply "Insulation": though I don't say exactly that. At all events I should be able to make something interesting of it, and it would of course inevitably take the sympathetic turn. But I would rather keep to the thing I have been trying, if I may have the small extra space....
Believe me yours ever,
HENRY JAMES.
To Frederic Harrison.
21 Carlyle Mansions,
Cheyne Walk, S.W.
July 3rd, 1915.
My dear Frederic Harrison,
I think your so interesting letter of the other day most kind and generous—it has greatly touched me. Mrs. Harrison had written me a short time before, even more movingly, and with equal liberality, and I feel my belated remembrance of you magnificently recognised. This has been a most healing fact for me in a lacerated world. How splendid your courage and activity and power, so continued, of production and attention! I am sorry to say I find any such power in myself much impaired and diminished—reduced to the shadow of what it once was. All relations are dislocated and harmonies falsified, and one asks one's self of what use, in such a general condition, is any direction of the mind save straight to the thing that most and only matters. However, it all comes back to that, and one does what one can because it's a part of virtue. Also I find one is the better for every successful effort to bring one's attention home. I have just read your "English" review of Lord Eversley's book on Poland, which you have made me desire at once to get and read—even though your vivid summary makes me also falter before the hideous old tragedy over which the actual horrors are being re-embroidered. I thank you further for letting me know of your paper in the Aberdeen magazine—though on reflection I can wait for it if it's to be included in your volume now so soon to appear—I shall so straightly possess myself of that. As to the U.S.A., I am afraid I suffer almost more than I can endure from the terms of precautionary "friendship" on which my country is content to remain with the author of such systematic abominations—I cover my head with my mantle in presence of so much wordy amicable discussing and conversing and reassuring and postponing, all the while that such hideous evil and cruelty rages. To drag into our European miseries any nation that is so fortunate as to be out of them, and able to remain out with common self-respect, would be a deplorable wish—but that holds true but up to a certain line of compromise. I can't help feeling that for the U.S. this line has been crossed, and that they have themselves great dangers, from the source of all ours, to reckon with. However, one fortunately hasn't to decide the case or appoint the hour—the relation between the two countries affects me as being on a stiff downward slope at the bottom of which is rupture, and everything that takes place between them renders that incline more rapid and shoves the position further down. The material and moral weight that America would be able to throw into the scale by her productive and financial power strikes me as enormous. There would be no question of munitions then. What I mean is that I believe the truculence of Germany may be trusted, from one month or one week to another now, to force the American hand. It must indeed be helpful to both of you to breathe your fine air of the heights. The atmosphere of London just now is not positively tonic; but one must find a tone, and I am, with more faithful thought of Mrs. Harrison than I can express, your and her affectionate old friend,
HENRY JAMES.