Wm & H'ry: Literature, Love, and the Letters Between Wiliam and Henry James (14 page)

ornery divinity—slowly
crescendoed
and then finally shook the room “like a rat by a terrier.” When it was

all over Wm accompanied a companion down into the

city. The damage was dreadful, but what was most no-

table was the order that prevailed among the survivors.

Even criminals, Wm claimed, had been solemnized

and inspired to virtue by the occasion. “I would n’t

have missed this Stanford experience for anything,” he

wrote H’ry, “because it has been so
vivid.
”

It was perhaps even more vivid for H’ry, who suf-

fered terribly (“I am . . . as limp & spent as if I had been hanging 14 days by my heels”) until word came that

Wm and Alice were safe. Nervous as he was, though, it’s

hard to imagine he would have missed the irony. Not

only had he coaxed a utopia out of Wm in the nick of

time, he had done so at almost the same moment he

proposed one of his own. Characteristically, Wm had

118

Hallman_firstpages5x.indd 118

9/4/12 6:26 PM

offered an actual solution to an actual disaster. H’ry’s

was wholly figurative.

“The Question of Our Speech,” which H’ry delivered

on a number of occasions during his travels for
The

American Scene
, painted a near-on apocalyptic view of the state of elocution. Language was itself a kind of

Jamesian heroine, a “transported maiden,” an “unres-

cued Andromeda,” and the state we found ourselves

in was one in which we were cut off from her, from

“her taste and her genius.” A world without correct

speech was “evil,” H’ry said, and “to accept that doom

[was] simply to accept the doom of the slovenly.” But

all was not lost. Contact and communication could of

course bring about the “happy state.” We did not have to

rely on inadequate instincts. Through an act of will we

could train ourselves, acquire a “second nature,” a more

“acute consciousness.” The better world was not lost:

Keep up your hearts, all the same, keep them up

to the pitch of confidence in that “second nature”

of which I speak; the perfect possession of this

highest of civilities, the sight, through the narrow

portal, of the blue horizon across the valley, the

wide fair country in which your effort will have

119

Hallman_firstpages5x.indd 119

9/4/12 6:26 PM

settled to the most exquisite of instincts, in which

you will taste all the savor of the gathered fruit,

and in which perhaps, at last,
then
, “in solemn

troops and sweet societies,” you may, sounding

the clearer notes of intercourse as only women

can, become yourselves models and missionaries,

perhaps a little even martyrs, of the good cause.

In 1, H’ry reviewed a newly published two-volume

set of Balzac’s letters. He was embarrassed by the

books. Balzac was coarse, driven by egotism, ungrace-

ful, and blind to all but his personal concerns and ambi-

tion. “The contents . . . are so private, so personal,” H’ry wrote, “that the generous critic constantly lays them

down with a sort of dismay, and asks himself in virtue

of what particular privilege or what newly discovered

principle it is, that he is thus burying his nose in them.”

Wm had an answer. In “Is Life Worth Living?” he

cited two good reasons for sick souls distracted by

thoughts of the abyss to plod along for at least another

twenty-four hours: the daily newspaper, and “to see . .

. what the next postman will bring.”

120

Hallman_firstpages5x.indd 120

9/4/12 6:26 PM

Letter writing could be a terrible burden, and both

brothers buckled under the strain of it.

Wm, in 13: “For three or 4 weeks in London I did

nothing
literally
nothing
, but write letters, day after day.”

H’ry, in 1: “I come back to life, as it were, to meet

a mountain of letters, & I have lost a whole month of time.”

Yet the only thing worse than their composition was

the wait to receive a letter.

Wm, in 1: “Verily, it is worthwhile pining for let-

ters for 3 weeks to know the exquisite joy of relief.”

H’ry, in 13: “What a poor business is writing after

all! Answer my letter nevertheless.”

The very best of Wm and H’ry’s letters contain nei-

ther news, nor gossip, nor arguments, nor drafts of

philosophies. They are self-portraits:

H’ry, in 10, from Great Malvern:

It’s a horrible afternoon—a piercing blast, a

driving snow storm & my spirits
à l’avenant
. I have had a cheery British fire made up in my dingy

British bedroom & have thus sate me down to this

ghastly mockery of a fraternal talk.

Wm, in 12, from southern Maine:

121

Hallman_firstpages5x.indd 121

9/4/12 6:26 PM

I write in the little parlor opposite the Office—

4:30 p.m.—the steady heavy roaring of the surf

comes through the open window borne by

the delicious salt breeze over the great bank of

stooping willows, field and fence. The little horse

chestnuts are as big, the cow with the board face

still crops the grass. The broad sky & sea are

whanging with the mellow light. All is as it was

& will be.

Like perfumed paper shipped to a long-dead lover,

even a letter addressed to another puffs up a whiff of

human frailty and warmth.

122

Hallman_firstpages5x.indd 122

9/4/12 6:26 PM

notes

I
,
II
,
III: The Correspondence of William James: William and
Henry
, Vols. 1–3 (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 12–14).

Writings –99: Writings –99
, William James (New York: Library of America, 12).

Writings 9–9: Writings 9–9
, William James (New York: Library of America, 1).

The Question: The Question of Our Speech and The Lesson of Balzac
, Henry James (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 105).

Wings: The Wings of the Dove
, Henry James (New York: Modern Library, 13).

To Whom It May Concern

“to anyone . . .”
Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph
Waldo Emerson
, ed. William H. Gilman (Cambridge,

Mass.: Harvard University Press, 10–12), vol. , p. 405

“Mr. James . . .”
I
, p. 1 (corrected slightly for punctuation)

“Sweet was . . .”
I
, p. 1

“my little array . . .”
I
, p. 2

“Drear and . . .”
I
, p. 1

123

Hallman_firstpages5x.indd 123

9/4/12 6:26 PM

“I’d give my . . .”
I
, p. 1

“Among the letters . . .”
I
, p. 

“What would n’t . . .”
I
, p. 30

“I’d give . . .”
I
,
p. 40

“I wish I . . .”
I
, p. 

“heaviest days . . .”
I
,
p. 2

“Oh call my brother . . .”
I
,
p. 1 (the poem is Felicia Dorothea Hermans’s “The Child’s First Grief ”)

“my in many . . .”
I
, p. 13

“Your letter . . .”
I
, p. 20

“I would give . . .”
I
, p. 3

“Would to God . . .”
II
,
p. 45

“I long to . . .”
II
, p. 111

“How I wish . . .”
II
, p. 41

“Within the last . . .”
III
, p.  (corrected slightly)

“formed part . . .”
II
, p. 20

“Where the river . . .”
The Poems of Matthew Arnold
,
–

(London: Oxford University Press, 10), p. 15

“And the width . . .”
II
, p. 20

“Oh for . . .”
III
, p. 411

“An immense . . .”
III
, p. 41

“I am more . . .”
I
,
p. 13

“[It] would . . .”
II
, p. 3

“There is
no . . .”
II
,
p. 44

“tired as . . .”
III
, p. 154

124

Hallman_firstpages5x.indd 124

9/4/12 6:26 PM

“A stage . . .”
I
,
p. 

“damnable nausea . . .”
I
, pp. 25–2

“consequently . . .”
I
,
p. 3

“you sweat . . .”
I
, p. 1

“my spirits . . .”
I
,
p. 11

“Have just . . .”
II
,
p. 21

“[This] is . . .”
II
, p 5

“the very blight . . .”
II
,
p. 5

“Painful boils . . .”
I
,
p. 

“Christian . . .”
III
, p. 12

“fill a day . . .”
III
,
p. 12

“It must seem . . .”
II
, p.
142

“in state of . . .”
II
,
p. 40

“put inside . . .”
I
,
p. 113

“I blush . . .”
I
,
p. 4

“
Never . . .”
I
,
p. 

“I may . . .”
I
,
p. 105

“Sighs . . .”
I
, p. 15

“violent . . .”
I
,
p. 10

“by the insertion . . .”
I
,
p. 10

“These reflections . . .”
I
,
p. 110 (slight editorial change omitted)

“moving . . .”
I
, p. 13

“But my diagnosis . . .”
III
,
p. 410

125

Hallman_firstpages5x.indd 125

9/4/12 6:26 PM

“If you wish . . .”
I
, p. 22

“It is a . . .”
I
,
p. 23

“the mask is . . .”
I
,
p. 2

“in the head . . .”
The Principles of Psychology
, vol. 1, William James (London: Macmillan, 11), p. 301

“I would give . . .”
I
,
p. 4

“Mysterious & . . .”
I
,
p. 20

“a procession . . .”
Writings –99
,
p. 11

“Our mental life . . .” Ibid., p. 

“fascinated by . . .”
II
,
p. 133

“Our minds are . . .” “The Hidden Self,” William James,

Scribner’s Magazine
,
no.  (March 10), p. 34

“Most of it . . .”
II
,
p. 150

“Consciousness, then . . .”
Writings –99
, p. 15

“debauch on . . .”
I
,
p. 21

“French literature . . .” “The Hidden Self,” William James,
Scribner’s Magazine
,
no.  (March 10), p. 32

“The notion of . . .”
Writings 9–9
, p. 

“blind to . . .”
Writings –99
,
p. 41

“the true philosophy . . .”
II
,
p. 33

“no man lives . . .” Stevenson’s essay is quoted at length in

“On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings,”
Writings

–99
, p. 4

“I believe . . .”
I
,
p. 203

“There seems . . .”
I
,
p. 210

“bloom with . . .”
I
,
p. 313

126

Hallman_firstpages5x.indd 126

9/4/12 6:26 PM

“read it with . . .”
I
,
p. 4

“the picture of . . .”
Complete Stories: –
,
Henry James (New York: Library of America, 1), p. 

“‘
étude
’
style . . .”
I
,
p. 2

“to adumbrate by . . .”
Writings –99
, pp. 4–4

“the lively . . .”
The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories
,
Henry James (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 12), p. liii

“He was conscious . . .”
The Tragic Muse
,
Henry James (New York: Penguin, 15), p. 1

“I still think . . .” “A Case of Automatic Drawing,” William James,
Popular Science Monthly
,
no. 4 (January 104), p. 200

“proceeds from . . .”
The Question
, p. 0

“I am reading . . .”
III
,
p. 210

“the stiff breeze . . .”
The Question
, p. 1

“the pride . . . ,” “hardly . . . curious . . .” Ibid., p. 0

“to say where . . .” Ibid., p. 3

“figures representing . . .” Ibid., p. 

“greater quantity . . .” Ibid., p. 3

“from their point . . .” Ibid., p. 

“the
image
. . .” Ibid., p. 1

“
how
we . . .” Ibid., p. 10

“into the . . .” Ibid., p. 

“We thus walk . . .” Ibid., pp. –0

“the mysterious . . .”
Writings –99
,
p. 4

“Your article . . .”
I
, p. 22

127

Hallman_firstpages5x.indd 127

9/4/12 6:26 PM

“dressed in cast . . .”
I
,
p. 20

“It is . . .” “Historical Novels,” Henry James,
Nation
,
August 15, 1, p. 12

“sweating fearfully . . .”
I
,
p. 1

“[He has] an extreme . . .”
I
,
p. 1

“outside of the . . . ,” “I’ve no doubt . . . ,”
“the one . . . ,”

“mere fact . . .”
I
,
p. 40

“higher and . . . ,” “vague tirade . . .”
I
,
p. 41

“the father . . .”
The Question
, p. 

“blasted artistic . . .”
I
,
p. 10

“a sort of . . .”
I
,
p. 2

“a dead . . .”
I
,
p. 21