Beschreibung:

JAMES, Henry. Autograph letter signed, to Louisa Loring, Cambridge, 7 December 1910. 4 pages, 8vo, on black-edged mourning stationery, with matching envelope addressed by James, lower edge lightly dampstained. Written shortly after the death of his brother. "Your letter is so beautiful, vivid & kind that I feel a great idiot not to say that I will go straight to the train on Friday. But alas, I am not in form for a visit... at present there is just that element of the unsteady, that ghost of the ill things that have been, in my state which makes me hug the shore a while longer or crouch by this absolutely safe fireside. But I shall grow bolder with a little more time... I haven't been able yet to muster pluck even to g out to Concord to tea & dine with my poor widowed sister-in-law there. I was to have gone to New Tork today... but backed out of it in abject fear, & am now so happy to be just here. The South must wait -- it will wait..."; Autograph letter signed to "my dear Katherine & my dear Louisa" [Loring], Chocorua, New Hampshire, "Friday," August [1910?]. 2 pages, 4to, first leaf partly dampstained. "Very good & touching to me your rapid words of welcome... My impressions here are clearing... & [I] look forward to a revival of old 'White Mountain' memories. Every impression has been kind to me but that of New York. What a horror there! Boston (Cambridge) 2 nights since was balm after that laceration..."; Autograph card signed to an unidentified correspondent, 3 Bolton St. [London], 8 February, n.y. 2 pages, small oblong. "If you have nothing better to do... & are not afraid of a tjte-'-tjte, will you dine with me... at the Reform Club, Pall Mall, at 8 o'clock? I shall have no one else, & you can give me news of N.Y. and your friend Garland..."; Autograph label signed, n.p., 12 December 1907. 1 page, a large oblong. Reading, in large letters, "Preface to the Spoils of Poynton/Henry James..." Provenance : James Gilvarry (his sale Christie's New York, 7 February 1986, lot 170). (4)