CAMBRIDGE, Aug. 8, 1874.
| MISS THEODORA SEDGWICK | ||
| to WILLIAM JAMES, Dr. | ||
| Aug. 6, to 1 Orchestra Seat in Hippodrome [Barnum's Circus] | $1.00 | |
| """2 carriage fares at 50c. | $1.00 | |
| """ 1 glass vanilla cream sodawater | $ .10 | |
| """ 1 plate of soup lost | $ .25 | |
| """ 4 hours time at 12½ cents | $ .50 | |
| """ Sundries | $ .05 | |
| Total | $2.90 | |
| Rec'd on account. $2.00 | ||
| WM. JAMES | ||
HONORED MISS,—I hope you will find the aforesaid charges moderate. When you transmit me the 90 cents still due, please send back at the same time whatever letters of mine you may still have in your possession, and the diamonds, silks, etc., which you may have at different times been glad to receive from me. Likewise both pieces of the collar stud I so recently lavished upon you. We can then remain as strangers.
I come of a race sensitive in the extreme; more accustomed to treat than to be treated, especially in this manner; and caring for its money as little as for its life. What wonder then that the mercenary conduct of One whom I have ever fostered without hope of pecuniary reward should work like madness in my brain?
On the point of closing I see with rapture that a way of accommodation is still open! O joy! The salmon, blackberries, etc., I consumed, had a market value. By charging me for the tea 90 cents, you will make the thing reciprocal, and I will call the account square. Perhaps even then the dreadful feeling of wounded pride and Barnum-born resentment may with time fade away. Amen. Respectfully yours,
W. J.
To Henry James.
CAMBRIDGE, Jan. [2], 1876.
...Your letter No. 2 speaking of your visit to Turguenieff was received by me duly and greatly enjoyed. I never heard you speak so enthusiastically of any human being. It is too bad he is to leave Paris; but if he gives you the "run" of Flaubert and eke George Sand, it will be so much gained. I don't think you know Miss A——, but if you did, you would thank me for pointing out to you the parallelism between her and George Sand which overwhelmed me the other day when I was calling on her, and she (who has just lost her sister B—— and had her father go through an attack of insanity) was snuggling down so hyper-comfortably into garrulity about B——, and her poor dead T—— and her dead mother, that I was fairly suffocated, just as I am by the comfort George Sand takes in telling you of the loves of servant men for ladies, and other things contra naturam.
Christmas passed off here in a rather wan and sallow manner. I got a gold scarf-ring from Mother and a gold watch-chain from Aunt Kate. Let me, by the way, advise you to get a scarf-ring; 't is one of the greatest inventions of modern times, in saving labor, silk and shirt fronts. Alice got a desk, and from me a Scotch terrier pup only seven weeks old, whom we call Bunch, who has almost doubled his size in a week, who is a perfect lion in determination and courage, and who don't seem to care a jot for any human society but that of Jane in the kitchen, whose person is, I suppose, pervaded by a greasy and smoky smell agreeable to his nostrils. He has a perfect passion for the dining-room; whenever he is left to himself, he travels thither and lies down under the table and takes no notice of you when you go to call him. He does not sleep half as much as Dido, never utters a sound when shut up for the night in the kitchen, and altogether fills us with a sort of awe for the Roman firmness and independence of his character. He is "animated" by a colliquative diarrhœa or cholera, which keeps us all sponging over his tracks, but which don't affect his strength or spirits a bit. He is in short a very queer substitute for poor, dear Dido....