The Letters of Henry James, Volume 1C. Scribner's sons, 1920 - Authors |
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34 De Vere admirable affectionate Alice American Arthur Christopher Benson artistic autumn beautiful believe bless Boston Bourget brother Charles Eliot Norton charming Colvin course Daisy Miller dear Grace dear Howells dear Louis dearest delightful Edmund Gosse England English everything exquisite fear feel genius George du Maurier give hand HENRY JAMES hope hour imagination interesting Italy kind Lady Lamb House late least less letter literary live London mean meanwhile mind Miss Grace Norton months mother never night novel one's Paris Paul Bourget perhaps play poor present Robert Louis Stevenson Rome seems seen sense Sidney Colvin sort speak stay summer talk tell thank thing tion touched town Vere Gardens volume vulgar W. D. Howells weeks whole wife William James winter wish words write
Popular passages
Page 215 - The whole odiousness of the thing lies in the connection between the drama and the theatre. The one is admirable in its interest and difficulty, the other loathsome in its conditions.
Page 204 - But oh yes, dear Louis, she is vile. The pretence of 'sexuality' is only equalled by the absence of it, and the abomination of the language by the author's reputation for style.
Page 128 - The condition of that body seems to me to be in many ways very much the same rotten and collapsible one as that of the French aristocracy before the revolution — minus' cleverness and conversation; or perhaps it's more like the heavy, congested and depraved Roman world upon which the barbarians came down.
Page 73 - That is getting to be my state of mind, and I am sometimes really appalled at the matter of course way of looking at the indigenous life and manners into which I am gradually dropping! I am losing my standard — my charming little standard that I used to think so high; my standard of wit, of grace, of good manners, of vivacity, of urbanity, of intelligence, of what makes an easy and natural style of intercourse!
Page 428 - a sort of" haunted by the conviction that the divine William is the biggest and most successful fraud ever practised on a patient world.
Page 146 - I have not the least hesitation in saying that I aspire to write in such a way that it would be impossible to an outsider to say whether I am at a given moment an American writing about England or an Englishman writing about America (dealing as I do with both countries,) and so far from being ashamed of such an ambiguity I should be exceedingly proud of it, for it would be highly civilized.
Page 109 - Zola; and there is nothing more interesting to me now than the effort and experiment of this little group, with its truly infernal intelligence of art, form, manner — its intense artistic life. They do the only kind of work, today, that I respect; and in spite of their ferocious pessimism and their handling of unclean things, they are at least serious and honest. The floods of tepid soap and water which under the name of novels are being vomited forth in England, seem to me, by contrast, to do...
Page 29 - ... Florence — Oxford — London — seem like little cities of pasteboard. I went reeling and moaning thro' the streets, in a fever of enjoyment. In the course of four or five hours I traversed almost the whole of Rome and got a glimpse of everything — the Forum, the Coliseum (stupendissimol), the Pantheon, the Capitol, St.
Page 303 - Of course I had, about my young woman, to take a very sharp line. The grotesque business I had to make her picture and the childish psychology I had to make her trace and present, were, for me at least, a very difficult job, in which absolute lucidity and logic, a singleness of effect, were imperative.
Page 53 - I have seen almost nothing of the literary fraternity, and there are fifty reasons why I should not become intimate with them. I don't like their wares, and they don't like any others; and besides, they are not accueillants.