Letters from the Palazzo Barbaro Page 9
Henry James
NOTES
1. James went briefly to Switzerland to see his brother William and his family. He returned to London due to his theatre engagements (Edel, The Middle Years, p.337).
2. John Addington Symonds (1840–1893), the British writer and art historian, the author of The History of the Renaissance in Italy (1875–1886). He died in Rome on April 19, 1893, after spending many years at Davos, because of his tubercolosis. An aesthete and a homosexual, his life is brilliantly reconstructed by Phyllis Grosskurth.
3. The volume of tales already sent could be The Real Thing, that was published in March 1893, and the promised one The Private Life, that came out on June 3, 1893.
XIX
To Ariana Curtis
July 14th [1893]
(Edel III)
2 Wellington Crescent
Ramsgate
Dear Mrs. Curtis.
I rejoiced to hear from you the other day, even though it was to gather that you have been under a misconception as regards what must have seemed to you an attitude (on my part) of really criminal levity on the subject of the beloved Venice. No such levity was intended; I haven’t been heartlessly toying with its affections; and the case is less hopeless, thank heaven, than you perhaps suppose. I expressed myself clumsily to Miss Woolson in appearing to intimate that I was coming there to “live.” I can only, for all sorts of practical reasons, live in London, and must always keep an habitation “mounted” there. But whenever I have been in Venice (especially the last two or three times), I have felt the all but irresistible desire to put my hand on some modest pied-à-terre there—modest enough to be compatible with the retention of my London place, which is rather expensive; and such as I might leave standing empty for months together—without scruple—in my absence, and deposit superfluous luggage in, when I wished to “visit” Italy. This humble dream I still cherish—but it is most vivid when I’m on the spot—i.e. Venice; it fades a little when I’m not there. The next time I am there I shall probably act in harmony with it—and then find myself unable (such are the tricks of fate) to occupy the place for a long time afterwards. But pazienza; and above all more thanks than I express to you for having taken an interest in the sordid little inquiry. I think it will be a part of the fun to pursue it myself on the spot; and as it would be a question of a lowly rental (£50 a year, I fear, is my limit—one can get a palatial country bower—with a garden—for that here), there will not be the same narrowness of choice as in the case of something smart. Basta—and again all thanks. I have the fondest hope of going to Italy next winter—but I am learning by stern experience not to make hard and fast plans. It is only the unexpected that happens—nevertheless I fear I shall never go to India. That is only the délassement of leisure and fortune. The most I can hope to do is to be there to send you off—with mingled reluctance and benedictions. But these things are vague. I am very sorry indeed Miss Woolson has trouble in finding a house, or a piano. But I had an idea she wanted—I think she does want—to abide for a winter experimentally, first, in a quartiere mobiliato1. I am far from the madding crowd,2 beside these sordid sands. There is a crowd, but it’s vulgar and comfortable, and the air is as destitute of an edge as the language of an h. How charming your young lovers, and what a pleasure to have such frames to offer to such tableaux! Yours dear Mrs. Curtis and the Paron’s always devotedly
Henry James
NOTES
1. Furnished flat.
2. An evident echo of the title of one of the novels of Thomas Hardy, on whom James wrote more than once.
XX
To Francis Boott
October 21st 1893
(Edel III)
34 De Vere Gardens
My dear Francis.
I have one of your gentle gossamer screeds again to thank you for. I enjoy the Tuscan tradition of letterpaper a shade less painfully as a reader than as a writer. Does Ann1 stuff it into the pockets of her little Bersaglieri? I am delighted the dear little boy has assumed his national costume. The wasted exiles on the Waltham road (those whom their situation piace poco) must snatch him up and embrace him. You wrote from the legendary Lenox, which (though I have seen Naples and survived) I am evidently destined to descend into the tomb without having beheld. I feel all the same as if I had been brought up on the glory of it by Mrs. Tappan2. Io so che sia morta, poveretta! I lately came home from a summer of British sea-sides, which are all right if one can choose them vulgar enough, for then they are delightfully full of people one doesn’t know (unless one is vulgar oneself, which of course may be). I am glad the sight of you in Cambridge has gilded again the Williams’ American fetters. They were here long enough for me to miss them now in their éloignement. But the London autumn is always convenient to me, and I shall support existence here until—some time in the spring, I may be free to peregrinate to “Tuscany”. I shall take Venetia by the way and pay a visit to our excellent friend Fenimore. She has taken, for the winter, Gen. de Horsey’s Casa Semitecolo3, near the Pal[azzo] Dario, and I believe is materially comfortable; especially as she loves Venice, for which small blame to her! But I figure her as extremely exhausted (as she always is at such times), with her writing and re-writing of her last novel—a great success, I believe, in relation to the particular public (a very wide American one) that she addresses. She is to have, I trust, a winter of bookless peace. The Curtises, you probably know, are just leaving for India (what ever-greenness!) and their withdrawal (as they have been most kind to her), will make the Venice winter rather bare, I fear. A’ propos of which things I hear that the bloated Rezzonico is offered for sale, with all Pen Browning’s hideous luxuries—except, I believe, the “Tuscan” model whom he has taken to his side in place of his truly unfortunate wife. For a poet’s double child (or a double poets’) he is singularly prosy. I rejoice in the good you tell me of Lizzie’s boy, and long for the day when I may take him by the hand. Shan’t you bring him over soon for indispensable initiations and pilgrimages? Give him, please, the love of one who loved his mother. I hope Duveneck’s admirable work is now adequately known. Does not a train of solicitation follow on this? I hope he is in some stable equilibrium; and send him cordial greetings. What will become of my books when you stop reading them? They will droop; but on the other hand the American home will bloom again. Spurn it—sacrifice me first. You wouldn’t scruple if you knew how I hate everything I’ve ever written. Stia bene. Yours, dear Francis, evermore
Henry James
NOTES
1. Ann, Mary Shenstone, the nanny of Francis Boott’s daughter, Lizzie, for forty years. She made a gift of a “bersagliere” uniform to Lizzie’s son, as recalled by Francis Boott in Recollections of Francis Boott for his Grandson F.B.D., Boston, The Southgate Press, 1912, p.59.
2. Caroline Sturgis Tappan (1819–1888), of Boston, a Transcendentalist poet and a friend of Margaret Fuller, and the old friend of Henry’s father and of Henry himself, who wrote of her, remembering her humour and intelligence, in Notes of a Son and Brother, as Edel mentions (Letters III, p.437).
3. The former Gothic Palazzo Orio, on the Grand Canal, near the Salute.
XXI
To Katherine de Kay Bronson
February 2nd 1894
(Edel III)
34 De Vere Gardens W.
Dear Katrina Bronson.
I have thought of you often ever since the horror of last week—and in writing to Edith [Bronson], which I have repeatedly done, have felt almost as if the words reached you as well. I came within an ace of seeing you, for I was twice on the very verge of rushing off to Italy. My first knowledge of Miss Woolson’s1 death was by a cable from her sister in New York telling me only that fact and asking me to go. I made instant preparation, but a few hours later heard, afresh—from New York—that Miss Carter2 was already on the spot—and then, before night, both from Miss Carter herself and from Baldwin, dissuasively in regard to coming. Later, I prepared to start for Rome—to her funeral—but at the very mo
ment heard, for the first time, of the unimagined and terrible manner of her death—which sickened and overwhelmed me so, on the spot, that I had no heart for the breathless, sleepless rush that I had before me to reach Rome in time. So I have been kept away from you—and I can’t, while the freshness of such a misery as it all must have been is in the air, feel anything but that Venice is not a place I want immediately to see. I had known Miss Woolson for many years and was extremely attached to her—she was the gentlest and tenderest of women, and full of intelligence and sympathy. But she was a victim to morbid melancholia, and one’s friendship for her was always half anxiety. The worst mine had ever made me fear, however, was far enough from the event of which you must still be feeling the inexpressible shock. It was an act, I am convinced, of definite, irresponsible, delirious insanity, determined by illness, fever as to its form, but springing, indirectly, out [of] a general depression which, though not visible to people who saw her socially, casually, had essentially detached her from the wish to live. But it is all too pitiful and too miserable to dwell on—too tragic and too obscure. You were so close to it that it must have filled all the air of your life for several days—and this publicity of misery, this outward horror and chiasso round her death, was the thing in the world most alien to her and most inconceivable of her—and therefore, to my mind, most conclusive as to her having undergone some violent cerebral derangement. Nothing could be more incongruous with the general patience, reserve and dainty dignity, as it were, of her life. Save her deafness, she had absolutely no definite or unusual thing (that I know of) to minister to her habitual depression; she was free, independent, successful—very successful indeed as a writer—and liked, peculiarly, by people who knew her. She had near relations who adored her and who were in a position to do much for her—especially as she was fond of them. But it was all reduced to ashes by the fact that a beneficent providence had elaborately constructed her to suffer. I can’t be sufficiently grateful that Edith had the blessed inspiration of placing with her that competent and excellent Miss Holas3. I have just had, from Rome, a long letter from Miss Carter—for whose nearness and prompt arrival I am also devoutly thankful. What she tells me is very interesting and touching, but it doesn’t penetrate the strange obscurity of so much of the matter. But that has indeed the im …4 distant date. Believe me meanwhile always affectionately yours
Henry James
NOTES
1. Constance Fenimore Woolson committed suicide on January 24, 1894, throwing herself out of the window.
2. Grace Carter, the cousin of Miss Woolson, arriving from Monaco (Edel, The Middle Years, p.357)
3. Maria Holas, a lady who gave Italian lessons to Mrs. Gardner and who was very helpful in general.
4. Part of the ms. is missing (Edel, Letters III, p.467).
XXII
To Katherine de Kay Bronson
Tuesday 20th March [1894]
(Edel III)
Grand Hôtel de Gênes:
Genoa
My dear Katrina B.
Will you render an old friend a very gentle service—such a service as may accelerate the hour at which he shall find himself at your feet? A combination of circumstances, some of which I would have wished other, but which I must accept (I am speaking of course quite apart from the question of inclination, and intense desire to see you),1 make it absolutely necessary I should be in Venice from the 1st April. This being the case, as I have work in hand, I must get into some quiet and comfortable material conditions—and I peculiarly detest the Venetian hotels: loathe in fact to be in a hotel, in Venice, even for a day. It occurs to me that the apartment occupied by Miss Woolson last summer before she went to Casa Semitecolo and which I believe she found very comfortable, may be free and obtainable—or if not the other set of rooms in the same house. But I have forgotten the address and don’t know the woman’s name. I only seem to remember vaguely that the house was Casa Biondetti2 and that it’s quite near where Paul Tilton used to live. The Hohenlohes, or some such people, had occupied the rooms before Miss Woolson. You will probably easily identify the place, and what service I ask of your great kindness is to go and see if one of the apartments is free. If so I think I should like to take it from Sunday or Monday next—for a month, with liberty to renew; that is if the woman will give it to me on the same terms on which she gave it to Miss Woolson and will cook for me as she did for her. (I have ceased, in my old age, to be able to prowl about for my food.) I don’t at all know what Miss W. paid—but I remember her mentioning in a letter that the padrona “did” for her very well. Should you be able to cause this inquiry to be made the day you receive this—and should you then be able to address me here a few lines of information? If dear Edith had got back I would appeal directly to her kindness in the matter—and her more violent activity. But I shall thank you with all my heart. It is delicious to me to think I shall see you, dear Katrina B., so very soon. I arrived here but a couple of days ago and shall be here till I go to Venice; where I trust I shall find you in all respects at your ease—or as much so as we worried mortals ever can be. I suppose Edith is well on her way home by this. I saw less of her in London than I desired, but I shall make it up in Casa Alvisi. I shall make everything up in Casa Alvisi. Casa Curtis, I suppose, is empty for another two or three weeks?—If Casa Biondetti (if that be its name) is all occupied, I will come on, at the same date, and simply go to the Britannia till I can find something—unless by chance you beneficently know and are able graciously to suggest, something like the place I speak of—and as good. A word from you at any rate will rejoice my heart and add wings to my approach. This place is charming and the sense of recovered Italy inexpressibly dear to me. There is nothing like it. Stia bene—sempre bene. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be able to try to say to you “à bientôt!” Yours, my dear old friend, very tenderly
Henry James
P.S. If by a miracle both the apartments should be free I should like, I think, the better one—if there is a difference, even if it be not the one Miss Woolson had.
NOTES
1. Parenthesis added (Edel, Letters III, p.469).
2. Casa Biondetti, on the Grand Canal, where the painter Rosalba Carriera had lived (as marked by a plaque). It is on the right of Palazzo Venier dai Leoni (The Guggenheim Collection), looking from the water.
XXIII
To Isabella Stewart Gardner
June 29th [1894]
(I.S.G.M. Ms.)
Venice, Casa Biondetti
Dearest Mrs. Gardner,
I tried to write to you yesterday from Asolo—for auld long syne; but the “view” got so between me and my paper that I couldn’t get round the purple mountains to dip my pen. I have just been spending three days there with Mrs. Bronson—alone with her and Edith—three days of great loveliness. In Venice I have been spending 3 months and I depart in less than a week. It breaks my heart to say it, but therefore I shall not be here when you hold sway at the Barbaro in September and October. I am not even very sure I shall ever be here again. Venice, to tell the truth, has been simply blighted, and made a proper little hell (I mean what I say!) by “people”! They have flocked here, these many weeks, in their thousands, and life has been a burden in consequence. The Barbaro is lovelier than ever—but what’s the use? I return to England sometime—early—in August—and hide behind a Swiss mountain till then. Shall you not be in London after I am back? I suppose you are, perversely, just arriving there now. Bien du plaisir! I shall follow you up—in imagination—the rest of the summer!
Yours most affectionately,
Henry James
XXIV
To Ariana Wormeley Curtis
20th April [1897]
(Dartmouth Ts.)
34, De Vere Gardens, W.
My dear Mrs. Curtis,
This is to thank you and D.S.C. as well (that appellation reminds me—very properly du reste—of L.S.D.) for two graceful tributes of these latter days. I am glad to know—very—that Osborne1 and h
is daughter have given you reassurance and have scoured the lagoon to their general benefit. As for mine—my general benefit, don’t pity me for my lame wrist, which is a combination of native imbecility and acquired rheumatism, but which is also what is called a blessing in disguise; inasmuch as it has made me renounce for ever the manual act, which I hate with all the hatred of a natural inaptitude, and have renounced for ever, to devote myself in every particular to dictation. The latter does not hamper me at all: in letters quite the reverse, and in commerce with the Muse so little that I foresee the day when it will be a pure luxury. I am practising it now at a rate that I must put forward as my excuse for delays from week to week to start for your parages. The absolute necessity of finishing a biggish job has held me; and another bribe has been these delicious Easter holidays, just, alas, closing, which, by making London a desert contribute to the holy calm and charm of the month of April. I fear I shall not get off before May 5th, which, alas, gives me the drawback of so reduced a time near you before the hot weather, which I bear in Italy so ill, begins to rage. I am afraid I shall be able to put in but three or four days in Venice and three or four days at Asolo—where my interest in the new property will be greater than my interest in the old scandals. I rejoice that you come early to England, and shall be back almost as soon as you arrive—that is in time to welcome you. I renew my thanks to L.S.D. for his kind note and beg that he will consider this small corner of the present a temporary acknowledgement of it. Poor Howard Potter, yes—I dined with him, at the Bayard’s-not many weeks previous, when I thought he looked ominously ill. Ce que c’est que de nous! I am delighted that I shall find Ralph in Venice. I too pause, en route, at the feet of the Ranee. I bless your house, and all that it contains—not least the ghost, or what prevails there of the presence, of the noble Pisani. There ought, for her, to be no decline, but a kind of swift immersion—into the Adriatic, say, of Almorò2 and his Doges. Yours, dear Mrs. Curtis, evermore,