CAMBRIDGE, July 24, 1890.
My dear Mrs. Whitman,—How good a way to begin the day, with a letter from you, and a composition of yours to correct!
To take the latter first, I trembled a little when, after looking over the printed document, I found you beginning so sympathetically to stroke down Mr. Jay; but you made it all right ere the end. Since the movement is on foot, it is time that rational people like yourself should get an influence in it. I doubt whether the earth supports a more genuine enemy of all that the Catholic Church inwardly stands for than I do—écrasez l'infâme is the only way I can feel about it. But the concrete Catholics, including the common priests in this country, are an entirely different matter. Their wish to educate their own, and to do what proselytizing they can, is natural enough; so is their wish to get state money. "Destroying American institutions" is a widely different matter; and instead of this vague phrase, I should like to hear one specification laid down of an "institution" which they are now threatening. The only way to resist them is absolute firmness and impartiality, and continuing in the line which you point out, bless your 'art! Down with demagogism!—this document is not quite free therefrom....
As for the style, I see in it nothing but what is admirable. A pedant might object (near the end) to a drop of (even Huguenot) blood beating high; but how can I object to anything from your pen?
And now 10,000 thanks for your kind words about the proofs. The pages I sent you are probably the most continuously amusing in the book—though occasionally there is a passing gleam elsewhere. If there is aught of good in the style, it is the result of ceaseless toil in rewriting. Everything comes out wrong with me at first; but when once objectified in a crude shape, I can torture and poke and scrape and pat it till it offends me no more. I take you at your word and send you some more sheets—only, to get something pithy and real, I go back to some practical remarks at the end of a chapter on Habit, composed with a view of benefiting the young. May they accordingly be an inspiration to you!
Most of the book is altogether unreadable from any human point of view, as I feel only too well in my deluge of proofs. My dear wife will come down next week (I think) to help me through. Thank you once more, and believe me, with warm regards to your husband, Yours always,
WM. JAMES.
To W. D. Howells.
CHOCORUA, Aug. 20, 1890.
My dear Howells,—You've done it this time and no mistake! I've had a little leisure for reading this summer, and have just read, first your "Shadow of a Dream," and next your "Hazard of New Fortunes," and can hardly recollect a novel that has taken hold of me like the latter. Some compensations go with being a mature man, do they not? You couldn't possibly have done so solid a piece of work as that ten years ago, could you? The steady unflagging flow of it is something wonderful. Never a weak note, the number of characters, each intensely individual, the observation of detail, the everlasting wit and humor, and beneath all the bass accompaniment of the human problem, the entire Americanness of it, all make it a very great book, and one which will last when we shall have melted into the infinite azure. Ah! my dear Howells, it's worth something to be able to write such a book, and it is so peculiarly yours too, flavored with your idiosyncrasy. (The book is so d—d humane!) Congratulate your wife on having brought up such a husband. My wife had been raving about it ever since it came out, but I couldn't read it till I got the larger printed copy, and naturally couldn't credit all she said. But it makes one love as well as admire you, and so o'er-shadows the equally exquisite, though slighter "Shadow of a Dream," that I have no adjectives left for that. I hope the summer is speeding well with all of you. I have been in Cambridge six weeks and corrected 1400 pages of proof. The year which shall have witnessed the apparition of your "Hazard of New Fortunes," of Harry's "Tragic Muse," and of my "Psychology" will indeed be a memorable one in American Literature!! Believe me, with warm regards to Mrs. Howells, yours ever affectionately,