I have been twice to Mrs. Whitman's, once to a lunch and reception to the Bourgets a fortnight ago. Mrs. G----, it would seem, has kept them like caged birds (probably because they wanted it so); Mrs. B. was charming and easy, he ill at ease, refusing to try English unless compelled, and turning to _me_ at the table as a drowning man to a "hencoop," as if there were safety in the presence of anyone connected with you. I could do nothing towards inviting them, in the existent state of our ménage; but when, later, they come back for a month in Boston, I shall be glad to bring them into the house for a few days. I feel quite a fellow feeling for him; he seems a very human creature, and it was a real pleasure to me to see a Frenchman of B.'s celebrity _look_ as ill at ease as I myself have often _felt_ in fashionable society. They are, I believe, in Canada, and have only too much society. I shan't go to Chicago, for economy's sake--besides I _must_ get to work. But _everyone_ says one ought to sell all one has and mortgage one's soul to go there; it is esteemed such a revelation of beauty. People cast away all sin and baseness, burst into tears and grow religious, etc., under the influence!! _Some_ people evidently.... The people about home are very pleasant to meet.... Yours ever affectionately, WM. JAMES. END OF VOLUME I MCGRATH-SHERRILL PRESS GRAPHIC ARTS BLDG. BOSTON * * * * * Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: He tried to make up for the deficiences=>He tried to make up for the deficiencies "little genuises"=>"little geniuses" I am desirious of reading=>I am desirous of reading Et peut-on savoir jusqu'ou=>Et peut-on savoir jusqu'où Dés que ma santé=>Dès que ma santé Journal of Speculative Philsophy=>Journal of Speculative Philosophy end was apporaching until it was close at hand=>end was approaching until it was close at hand FOOTNOTES: [1] _Literary Remains of Henry James_, p. 151. [2] Henry James (in _A Small Boy and Others_, p. 5) says of Catherine Barber; "She represented for us in our generation the only English blood--that of both her own parents--flowing in our veins." She may well have seemed to her grandson to be of a different type from other members of the family, who were more recently, and doubtless obviously, Irish or Scotch; but the statement is incorrect. John Barber was the son of Patrick Barber, who came from Longford County, Ireland, about 1750 and settled at Neelytown near Newburgh (after having lived in New York City and Princeton) about 1764, and of Jannet Rhea (or Rea) whose parents were well-to-do people in old Shawangunk in 1790. Whatever may have been the previous history of the Rhea family, their name does not suggest an English origin. Both Patrick Barber and Matthew Rhea were pillars of Goodwill Presbyterian Church in Montgomery. [3] See _Literary Remains_, p. 149.