* * * * * [Illustration: Francis James Child. Caricature from a Pocket Note-Book.] On getting back to Cambridge in the autumn, James moved his family into a house which he had just built in Irving Street--a street which had been newly opened through what used to be called Norton's Woods. He had planned this house with such eager interest in all its details that he had even designed doors and windows and had practically been his own architect with respect to everything except structural specifications. The result was a detached wooden house of pleasantly square outer appearance, covered with shingles which soon weathered brown, and having dark green trimmings. Inside there was one room which deserves particular mention. James loved to have "space" about him[93] and he planned a library that was the largest and sunniest room the house could provide. It was about 22-1/2 feet wide and 27 feet long. The walls were lined with book-shelves from floor to ceiling, except where James hung a portrait of his father over the open fireplace. On the southern side there was a triple window whose total width was nearly half the length of the room, and which let in a flood of sunlight. Through it one looked out upon a small lawn overhung by a large elm, and upon more grass and trees beyond. This was his study and living-room for the rest of his life. Here most of the Cambridge letters that follow may be assumed to have been written. * * * * * After James moved to 95 Irving Street, several people referred to in the letters became his very near neighbors. Josiah Royce, Francis J. Child, C. E. Norton, Miss Theodora Sedgwick were all within three minutes walk of his door. Miss Grace Norton lived across the way. _To Miss Grace Norton._ CAMBRIDGE, _Dec. 25, 1889_. DEAR MISS NORTON,--Will you accept, as a Christmas offering, the accompanying bottles of California Champagne, _extremely_ salubrious in its after-effects, quite as intoxicating, almost as good-tasting and only half as "cost-playful" as French Champagne--in short, a beverage which no household should be without. I should gladly have sought out something more sentimental,--though after a bottle or so, this seems rosy with sentiment,--but I have no gifts of invention in the _present_ line, and took something useful, merely to testify to the affection and admiration with which I am ever yours, WM. JAMES. _To Charles Eliot Norton._ Undated [1889].