Beschreibung:

JAMES, Henry. Autograph letter signed to Frederic MacMillan, 20 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Mass., 17 November 1881. 4 pages, 8vo. Provenance : James Gilvarry (his sale Christie's New York, 7 February 1986, lot 145). JAMES CONFESSES HE IS HOMESICK FOR LONDON "Will you kindly direct a copy of the 'Portrait' to be sent to Baron Tauchnitz, Leipzig? Having paid this tribute to business, I may give you my greeting! Here I am... after a better voyage, better borne, than I hoped for & an absurd peregrination through the wilds of Canada in an attempt to find a short-cut from Rimonski, where the Canadian mails are landed (a day before you reach Quebec,) to the center of civilization (need I name Boston?) I don't recommend any one to come as I came... It is coming into the country by the back-door, or back window... I have been leading for the most part a quiet family life here at my fathers, but in a day or two I go... to Boston and then to New York and other places, where my existence will probably be more agitated. Every one is very loving (no visible hostility as yet,) or all my impressions are rose-coloured. The country seems greatly 'improved', it strikes one altogether as a 'big place', & has never appeared to me so agreeable. I have just come back from three days at Newport, which...seemed to me singularly lovely. And the skies, and the weather and the sunsets, and the 'sickle-pears' and various other little features, are such as I have long been a stranger to. I may confide to you however that I have always a secret sorrow gnawing at my vitals (homesickness for London is its name,) and that the next time I find myself rolling along in a hansom will be one of the happiest moments of my life. Let me anticipate it a little by hearing from you. Do up a little of London in letter-paper and post it to me...I hope the 'Lady' [ The Portrait of a Lady ] is doing well..." Apparently unpublished, not in Letters, ed. Edel.