Beschreibung:

JAMES, Henry. Autograph letter signed to Mrs. Janet Ross Villa Bric[c]chieri, Bellosquardo, "Thrusday 12th [April or May]" n.y. [1887?]. 4 pages, 8vo . Provenance : James Gilvarry (his sale Christie's New York, 7 February 1986, lot 148). "Welcome back to Castagnolo, bathtubs & prose -- if these things haven't become too tame for you, after your wide experience of archbishops, dancing vicars, signing barbers & bed-making faolini[?]. Your kind letter from Foggia was delightful & I was greatly honoured at your taking the trouble to write to me amid such a dearth of utensils. I hope the journey from that romantic centre was happily performed... I am very keen to hear your wondrous tale, & as you tell me you are burnt like a moor (besides the Calabrians thinking you so manlike) shall sit at your feet to listen as to Desdemona at Othello's... When I think that I too might have danced round you with the Vicars, seen the costumes at Monte S. Angelo, & hobnobbed with the nonagenarian Duke, I grind my teeth that I couldn't have accepted the Commendatore's invitation. But such is life. I shall console myself with battering you with exclamation points..." Janet Ross who lived at Castagnolo, was a "vigorous and active Scotswoman, who had been married to a man much older than herself (his name was Henry James Ross , she was a friend of Meredith and of Symonds, and had been painted by Watts and Leighton." When James visited her for three days at her villa she sang Italian songs, accompanying herself on the guitar. James described her as "awfully handsome, in a utilitarian kind of way -- an odd mixture of the British female and the dangerous woman -- a Bohemian with rules and accounts" (--Edel, Life, III, p. 20). Apparently unpublished, not in Letters, ed. Edel.