The details are all petty enough, but they proved how sincerely Mistral and his wife love their country and their surroundings and endeavor to ennoble them and make the most of them. After sitting at table and enjoying their hospitality, we went out again into the garden where Madame Mistral gathered “Nerto” (myrtle) for us, beside roses and other more beautiful but more formidable things. “Nerto” is the title of one of his last books (I hear) and the wife doubtless believed that we should cherish a branch of her myrtle especially in memory of the visit. She was quite right, but these things which are “to last”—how frail they are; the things that remain are those which are written on the heart.
We cannot forget these two picturesque beings standing in their garden, filling our hands with flowers and bidding us farewell. As we drove away into the sunny plain once more, we found it speaking to us with a voice of human kindness echoing from that poetic and friendly home. In a more personal vein, the address to Lamartine by Mistral expresses better his mood of the afternoon when we stood together looking at the bust and recalling each our personal remembrance of the man.
An excursion from London, on September 12, devoted to a day with Henry James, gave Mrs. Fields a memorable glimpse of the son of an old friend, and an honest pleasure in learning at first hand of his appreciation of Miss Jewett’s writings.
Monday, September 13, 1898.—We left London about 11 o’clock for Rye, to pass the day with Mr. Henry James. He was waiting for us at the station with a carriage, and in five minutes we found ourselves at the top of a silent little winding street, at a green door with a brass knocker, wearing the air of impenetrable respectability which is so well known in England. Another instant and an old servant, Smith (who with his wife has been in Mr. James’s service for 20 years), opened the door and helped us from the carriage. It was a pretty interior—large enough for elegance, and simple enough to suit the severe taste of a scholar and private gentleman.
Mr. James was intent on the largest hospitality. We were asked upstairs over a staircase with a pretty balustrade and plain green drugget on the steps; everything was of the severest plainness, but in the best taste, “not at all austere,” as he himself wrote us.
We soon went down again after leaving our hats, to find a young gentleman, Mr. McAlpine, who is Mr. James’s secretary, with him, awaiting us. This young man is just the person to help Mr. James. He has a bump of reverence and appreciates his position and opportunity. We sat in the parlor opening on a pretty garden for some time, until Mr. James said he could not conceive why luncheon was not ready and he must go and inquire, which he did in a very responsible manner, and soon after Smith appeared to announce the feast. Again a pretty room and table. We enjoyed our talk together sincerely at luncheon and afterward strolled into the garden. The dominating note was dear Mr. James’s pleasure in having a home of his own to which he might ask us. From the garden, of course, we could see the pretty old house still more satisfactorily. An old brick wall concealed by vines and laurels surrounds the whole irregular domain; a door from the garden leads into a paved courtyard which seemed to give Mr. James peculiar satisfaction; returning to the garden, and on the other side, at an angle with the house, is a building which he laughingly called the temple of the Muse. This is his own place par excellence. A good writing-table and one for his secretary, a typewriter, books, and a sketch by Du Maurier, with a few other pictures (rather mementoes than works of art), excellent windows with clear light, such is the temple! Evidently an admirable spot for his work.
Reduced facsimile of postscript of a letter from Henry James, expressing the intention, which he could not fulfill, to provide an Introduction to the “Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett”
After we returned to the parlor Mr. James took occasion to tell Sarah how deeply and sincerely he appreciated her work; how he re-reads it with increasing admiration. “It is foolish to ask, I know,” he said, “but were you in just such a place as you describe in the ‘Pointed Firs’?” “No,” she said, “not precisely; the book was chiefly written before I visited the locality itself.” “And such an island?” he continued. “Not exactly,” she said again. “Ah! I thought so,” he said musingly; and the language—“It is so absolutely true—not a word overdone—such elegance and exactness.” “And Mrs. Dennet—how admirable she is,” he said again, not waiting for a reply. I need not say they were very much at home together after this.