A Bundle of Letters

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A BUNDLE OF LETTERS
by Henry James


CHAPTER I


FROM MISS MIRANDA MOPE, IN PARIS, TO MRS. ABRAHAM C. MOPE, AT BANGOR,
MAINE.

September 5th, 1879.

My dear mother--I have kept you posted as far as Tuesday week last, and,
although my letter will not have reached you yet, I will begin another
before my news accumulates too much. I am glad you show my letters round
in the family, for I like them all to know what I am doing, and I can't
write to every one, though I try to answer all reasonable expectations.
But there are a great many unreasonable ones, as I suppose you know--not
yours, dear mother, for I am bound to say that you never required of me
more than was natural. You see you are reaping your reward: I write to
you before I write to any one else.

There is one thing, I hope--that you don't show any of my letters to
William Platt. If he wants to see any of my letters, he knows the right
way to go to work. I wouldn't have him see one of these letters, written
for circulation in the family, for anything in the world. If he wants
one for himself, he has got to write to me first. Let him write to me
first, and then I will see about answering him. You can show him this if
you like; but if you show him anything more, I will never write to you
again.

I told you in my last about my farewell to England, my crossing the
Channel, and my first impressions of Paris. I have thought a great deal
about that lovely England since I left it, and all the famous historic
scenes I visited; but I have come to the conclusion that it is not a
country in which I should care to reside. The position of woman does not
seem to me at all satisfactory, and that is a point, you know, on which I
feel very strongly. It seems to me that in England they play a very
faded-out part, and those with whom I conversed had a kind of depressed
and humiliated tone; a little dull, tame look, as if they were used to
being snubbed and bullied, which made me want to give them a good
shaking. There are a great many people--and a great many things,
too--over here that I should like to perform that operation upon. I
should like to shake the starch out of some of them, and the dust out of
the others. I know fifty girls in Bangor that come much more up to my
notion of the stand a truly noble woman should take, than those young
ladies in England. But they had a most lovely way of speaking (in
England), and the men are _remarkably handsome_. (You can show this to
William Platt, if you like.)

I gave you my first impressions of Paris, which quite came up to my
expectations, much as I had heard and read about it. The objects of
interest are extremely numerous, and the climate is remarkably cheerful
and sunny. I should say the position of woman here was considerably
higher, though by no means coming up to the American standard. The
manners of the people are in some respects extremely peculiar, and I feel
at last that I am indeed in _foreign parts_. It is, however, a truly
elegant city (very superior to New York), and I have spent a great deal
of time in visiting the various monuments and palaces. I won't give you
an account of all my wanderings, though I have been most indefatigable;
for I am keeping, as I told you before, a most _exhaustive_ journal,
which I will allow you the _privilege_ of reading on my return to Bangor.
I am getting on remarkably well, and I must say I am sometimes surprised
at my universal good fortune. It only shows what a little energy and
common-sense will accomplish. I have discovered none of these objections
to a young lady travelling in Europe by herself of which we heard so much
before I left, and I don't expect I ever shall, for I certainly don't
mean to look for them. I know what I want, and I always manage to get
it.

I have received a great deal of politeness--some of it really most
pressing, and I have experienced no drawbacks whatever. I have made a
great many pleasant acquaintances in travelling round (both ladies and
gentlemen), and had a great many most interesting talks. I have
collected a great deal of information, for which I refer you to my
journal. I assure you my journal is going to be a splendid thing. I do
just exactly as I do in Bangor, and I find I do perfectly right; and at
any rate, I don't care if I don't. I didn't come to Europe to lead a
merely conventional life; I could do that at Bangor. You know I never
_would_ do it at Bangor, so it isn't likely I am going to make myself
miserable over here. So long as I accomplish what I desire, and make my
money hold out, I shall regard the thing as a success. Sometimes I feel
rather lonely, especially in the evening; but I generally manage to
interest myself in something or in some one. In the evening I usually
read up about the objects of interest I have visited during the day, or I
post up my journal. Sometimes I go to the theatre; or else I play the
piano in the public parlour. The public parlour at the hotel isn't much;
but the piano is better than that fearful old thing at the Sebago House.
Sometimes I go downstairs and talk to the lady who keeps the books--a
French lady, who is remarkably polite. She is very pretty, and always
wears a black dress, with the most beautiful fit; she speaks a little
English; she tells me she had to learn it in order to converse with the
Americans who come in such numbers to this hotel. She has given me a
great deal of information about the position of woman in France, and much
of it is very encouraging. But she has told me at the same time some
things that I should not like to write to you (I am hesitating even about
putting them into my journal), especially if my letters are to be handed
round in the family. I assure you they appear to talk about things here
that we never think of mentioning at Bangor, or even of thinking about.
She seems to think she can tell me everything, because I told her I was
travelling for general culture. Well, I _do_ want to know so much that
it seems sometimes as if I wanted to know everything; and yet there are
some things that I think I don't want to know. But, as a general thing,
everything is intensely interesting; I don't mean only everything that
this French lady tells me, but everything I see and hear for myself. I
feel really as if I should gain all I desire.

I meet a great many Americans, who, as a general thing, I must say, are
not as polite to me as the people over here. The people over
here--especially the gentlemen--are much more what I should call
_attentive_. I don't know whether Americans are more _sincere_; I
haven't yet made up my mind about that. The only drawback I experience
is when Americans sometimes express surprise that I should be travelling
round alone; so you see it doesn't come from Europeans. I always have my
answer ready; "For general culture, to acquire the languages, and to see
Europe for myself;" and that generally seems to satisfy them. Dear
mother, my money holds out very well, and it _is_ real interesting.




CHAPTER II


FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

September 16th.

Since I last wrote to you I have left that hotel, and come to live in a
French family. It's a kind of boarding-house combined with a kind of
school; only it's not like an American hoarding-house, nor like an
American school either. There are four or five people here that have
come to learn the language--not to take lessons, but to have an
opportunity for conversation. I was very glad to come to such a place,
for I had begun to realise that I was not making much progress with the
French. It seemed to me that I should feel ashamed to have spent two
months in Paris, and not to have acquired more insight into the language.
I had always heard so much of French conversation, and I found I was
having no more opportunity to practise it than if I had remained at
Bangor. In fact, I used to hear a great deal more at Bangor, from those
French Canadians that came down to cut the ice, than I saw I should ever
hear at that hotel. The lady that kept the books seemed to want so much
to talk to me in English (for the sake of practice, too, I suppose), that
I couldn't bear to let her know I didn't like it. The chambermaid was
Irish, and all the waiters were German, so that I never heard a word of
French spoken. I suppose you might hear a great deal in the shops; only,
as I don't buy anything--I prefer to spend my money for purposes of
culture--I don't have that advantage.

I have been thinking some of taking a teacher, but I am well acquainted
with the grammar already, and teachers always keep you bothering over the
verbs. I was a good deal troubled, for I felt as if I didn't want to go
away without having, at least, got a general idea of French conversation.
The theatre gives you a good deal of insight, and as I told you in my
last, I go a good deal to places of amusement. I find no difficulty
whatever in going to such places alone, and am always treated with the
politeness which, as I told you before, I encounter everywhere. I see
plenty of other ladies alone (mostly French), and they generally seem to
be enjoying themselves as much as I. But at the theatre every one talks
so fast that I can scarcely make out what they say; and, besides, there
are a great many vulgar expressions which it is unnecessary to learn. But
it was the theatre, nevertheless, that put me on the track. The very
next day after I wrote to you last I went to the Palais Royal, which is
one of the principal theatres in Paris. It is very small, but it is very
celebrated, and in my guide-book it is marked with _two stars_, which is
a sign of importance attached only to _first-class_ objects of interest.
But after I had been there half an hour I found I couldn't understand a
single word of the play, they gabbled it off so fast, and they made use
of such peculiar expressions. I felt a good deal disappointed and
troubled--I was afraid I shouldn't gain all I had come for. But while I
was thinking it over--thinking what I _should_ do--I heard two gentlemen
talking behind me. It was between the acts, and I couldn't help
listening to what they said. They were talking English, but I guess they
were Americans.

"Well," said one of them, "it all depends on what you are after. I'm
French; that's what I'm after."

"Well," said the other, "I'm after Art."

"Well," said the first, "I'm after Art too; but I'm after French most."

Then, dear mother, I am sorry to say the second one swore a little. He
said, "Oh, damn French!"

"No, I won't damn French," said his friend. "I'll acquire it--that's
what I'll do with it. I'll go right into a family."

"What family'll you go into?"

"Into some French family. That's the only way to do--to go to some place
where you can talk. If you're after Art, you want to stick to the
galleries; you want to go right through the Louvre, room by room; you
want to take a room a day, or something of that sort. But, if you want
to acquire French, the thing is to look out for a family. There are lots
of French families here that take you to board and teach you. My second
cousin--that young lady I told you about--she got in with a crowd like
that, and they booked her right up in three months. They just took her
right in and they talked to her. That's what they do to you; they set
you right down and they talk _at_ you. You've got to understand them;
you can't help yourself. That family my cousin was with has moved away
somewhere, or I should try and get in with them. They were very smart
people, that family; after she left, my cousin corresponded with them in
French. But I mean to find some other crowd, if it takes a lot of
trouble!"

I listened to all this with great interest, and when he spoke about his
cousin I was on the point of turning around to ask him the address of the
family that she was with; but the next moment he said they had moved
away; so I sat still. The other gentleman, however, didn't seem to be
affected in the same way as I was.

"Well," he said, "you may follow up that if you like; I mean to follow up
the pictures. I don't believe there is ever going to be any considerable
demand in the United States for French; but I can promise you that in
about ten years there'll be a big demand for Art! And it won't be
temporary either."

That remark may be very true, but I don't care anything about the demand;
I want to know French for its own sake. I don't want to think I have
been all this while without having gained an insight . . . The very next
day, I asked the lady who kept the books at the hotel whether she knew of
any family that could take me to board and give me the benefit of their
conversation. She instantly threw up her hands, with several little
shrill cries (in their French way, you know), and told me that her
dearest friend kept a regular place of that kind. If she had known I was
looking out for such a place she would have told me before; she had not
spoken of it herself, because she didn't wish to injure the hotel by
being the cause of my going away. She told me this was a charming
family, who had often received American ladies (and others as well) who
wished to follow up the language, and she was sure I should be delighted
with them. So she gave me their address, and offered to go with me to
introduce me. But I was in such a hurry that I went off by myself; and I
had no trouble in finding these good people. They were delighted to
receive me, and I was very much pleased with what I saw of them. They
seemed to have plenty of conversation, and there will be no trouble about
that.

I came here to stay about three days ago, and by this time I have seen a
great deal of them. The price of board struck me as rather high; but I
must remember that a quantity of conversation is thrown in. I have a
very pretty little room--without any carpet, but with seven mirrors, two
clocks, and five curtains. I was rather disappointed after I arrived to
find that there are several other Americans here for the same purpose as
myself. At least there are three Americans and two English people; and
also a German gentleman. I am afraid, therefore, our conversation will
be rather mixed, but I have not yet time to judge. I try to talk with
Madame de Maisonrouge all I can (she is the lady of the house, and the
_real_ family consists only of herself and her two daughters). They are
all most elegant, interesting women, and I am sure we shall become
intimate friends. I will write you more about them in my next. Tell
William Platt I don't care what he does.




CHAPTER III


FROM MISS VIOLET RAY, IN PARIS, TO MISS AGNES RICH, IN NEW YORK.

September 21st.

We had hardly got here when father received a telegram saying he would
have to come right back to New York. It was for something about his
business--I don't know exactly what; you know I never understand those
things, never want to. We had just got settled at the hotel, in some
charming rooms, and mother and I, as you may imagine, were greatly
annoyed. Father is extremely fussy, as you know, and his first idea, as
soon as he found he should have to go back, was that we should go back
with him. He declared he would never leave us in Paris alone, and that
we must return and come out again. I don't know what he thought would
happen to us; I suppose he thought we should be too extravagant. It's
father's theory that we are always running up bills, whereas a little
observation would show him that we wear the same old _rags_ FOR MONTHS.
But father has no observation; he has nothing but theories. Mother and
I, however, have, fortunately, a great deal of _practice_, and we
succeeded in making him understand that we wouldn't budge from Paris, and
that we would rather be chopped into small pieces than cross that
dreadful ocean again. So, at last, he decided to go back alone, and to
leave us here for three months. But, to show you how fussy he is, he
refused to let us stay at the hotel, and insisted that we should go into
a _family_. I don't know what put such an idea into his head, unless it
was some advertisement that he saw in one of the American papers that are
published here.

There are families here who receive American and English people to live
with them, under the pretence of teaching them French. You may imagine
what people they are--I mean the families themselves. But the Americans
who choose this peculiar manner of seeing Paris must be actually just as
bad. Mother and I were horrified, and declared that main force should
not remove us from the hotel. But father has a way of arriving at his
ends which is more efficient than violence. He worries and fusses; he
"nags," as we used to say at school; and, when mother and I are quite
worn out, his triumph is assured. Mother is usually worn out more easily
than I, and she ends by siding with father; so that, at last, when they
combine their forces against poor little me, I have to succumb. You
should have heard the way father went on about this "family" plan; he
talked to every one he saw about it; he used to go round to the banker's
and talk to the people there--the people in the post-office; he used to
try and exchange ideas about it with the waiters at the hotel. He said
it would be more safe, more respectable, more economical; that I should
perfect my French; that mother would learn how a French household is
conducted; that he should feel more easy, and five hundred reasons more.
They were none of them good, but that made no difference. It's all
humbug, his talking about economy, when every one knows that business in
America has completely recovered, that the prostration is all over, and
that immense fortunes are being made. We have been economising for the
last five years, and I supposed we came abroad to reap the benefits of
it.

As for my French, it is quite as perfect as I want it to be. (I assure
you I am often surprised at my own fluency, and, when I get a little more
practice in the genders and the idioms, I shall do very well in this
respect.) To make a long story short, however, father carried his point,
as usual; mother basely deserted me at the last moment, and, after
holding out alone for three days, I told them to do with me what they
pleased! Father lost three steamers in succession by remaining in Paris
to argue with me. You know he is like the schoolmaster in Goldsmith's
"Deserted Village"--"e'en though vanquished, he would argue still." He
and mother went to look at some seventeen families (they had got the
addresses somewhere), while I retired to my sofa, and would have nothing
to do with it. At last they made arrangements, and I was transported to
the establishment from which I now write you. I write you from the bosom
of a Parisian menage--from the depths of a second-rate boarding-house.

Father only left Paris after he had seen us what he calls comfortably
settled here, and had informed Madame de Maisonrouge (the mistress of the
establishment--the head of the "family") that he wished my French
pronunciation especially attended to. The pronunciation, as it happens,
is just what I am most at home in; if he had said my genders or my idioms
there would have been some sense. But poor father has no tact, and this
defect is especially marked since he has been in Europe. He will be
absent, however, for three months, and mother and I shall breathe more
freely; the situation will be less intense. I must confess that we
breathe more freely than I expected, in this place, where we have been
for about a week. I was sure, before we came, that it would prove to be
an establishment of the _lowest description_; but I must say that, in
this respect, I am agreeably disappointed. The French are so clever that
they know even how to manage a place of this kind. Of course it is very
disagreeable to live with strangers, but as, after all, if I were not
staying with Madame de Maisonrouge I should not be living in the Faubourg
St. Germain, I don't know that from the point of view of exclusiveness it
is any great loss to be here.

Our rooms are very prettily arranged, and the table is remarkably good.
Mamma thinks the whole thing--the place and the people, the manners and
customs--very amusing; but mamma is very easily amused. As for me, you
know, all that I ask is to be let alone, and not to have people's society
forced upon me. I have never wanted for society of my own choosing, and,
so long as I retain possession of my faculties, I don't suppose I ever
shall. As I said, however, the place is very well managed, and I succeed
in doing as I please, which, you know, is my most cherished pursuit.
Madame de Maisonrouge has a great deal of tact--much more than poor
father. She is what they call here a belle femme, which means that she
is a tall, ugly woman, with style. She dresses very well, and has a
great deal of talk; but, though she is a very good imitation of a lady, I
never see her behind the dinner-table, in the evening, smiling and
bowing, as the people come in, and looking all the while at the dishes
and the servants, without thinking of a _dame de comptoir_ blooming in a
corner of a shop or a restaurant. I am sure that, in spite of her fine
name, she was once a _dame de comptoir_. I am also sure that, in spite
of her smiles and the pretty things she says to every one, she hates us
all, and would like to murder us. She is a hard, clever Frenchwoman, who
would like to amuse herself and enjoy her Paris, and she must be bored to
death at passing all her time in the midst of stupid English people who
mumble broken French at her. Some day she will poison the soup or the
_vin rouge_; but I hope that will not be until after mother and I shall
have left her. She has two daughters, who, except that one is decidedly
pretty, are meagre imitations of herself.

The "family," for the rest, consists altogether of our beloved
compatriots, and of still more beloved Englanders. There is an
Englishman here, with his sister, and they seem to be rather nice people.
He is remarkably handsome, but excessively affected and patronising,
especially to us Americans; and I hope to have a chance of biting his
head off before long. The sister is very pretty, and, apparently, very
nice; but, in costume, she is Britannia incarnate. There is a very
pleasant little Frenchman--when they are nice they are charming--and a
German doctor, a big blonde man, who looks like a great white bull; and
two Americans, besides mother and me. One of them is a young man from
Boston,--an aesthetic young man, who talks about its being "a real Corot
day," etc., and a young woman--a girl, a female, I don't know what to
call her--from Vermont, or Minnesota, or some such place. This young
woman is the most extraordinary specimen of artless Yankeeism that I ever
encountered; she is really too horrible. I have been three times to
Clementine about your underskirt, etc.




CHAPTER IV


FROM LOUIS LEVERETT, IN PARIS, TO HARVARD TREMONT, IN BOSTON.

September 25th.

My dear Harvard--I have carried out my plan, of which I gave you a hint
in my last, and I only regret that I should not have done it before. It
is human nature, after all, that is the most interesting thing in the
world, and it only reveals itself to the truly earnest seeker. There is
a want of earnestness in that life of hotels and railroad trains, which
so many of our countrymen are content to lead in this strange Old World,
and I was distressed to find how far I, myself; had been led along the
dusty, beaten track. I had, however, constantly wanted to turn aside
into more unfrequented ways; to plunge beneath the surface and see what I
should discover. But the opportunity had always been missing; somehow, I
never meet those opportunities that we hear about and read about--the
things that happen to people in novels and biographies. And yet I am
always on the watch to take advantage of any opening that may present
itself; I am always looking out for experiences, for sensations--I might
almost say for adventures.

The great thing is to _live_, you know--to feel, to be conscious of one's
possibilities; not to pass through life mechanically and insensibly, like
a letter through the post-office. There are times, my dear Harvard, when
I feel as if I were really capable of everything--capable _de tout_, as
they say here--of the greatest excesses as well as the greatest heroism.
Oh, to be able to say that one has lived--_qu'on a vecu_, as they say
here--that idea exercises an indefinable attraction for me. You will,
perhaps, reply, it is easy to say it; but the thing is to make people
believe you! And, then, I don't want any second-hand, spurious
sensations; I want the knowledge that leaves a trace--that leaves strange
scars and stains and reveries behind it! But I am afraid I shock you,
perhaps even frighten you.

If you repeat my remarks to any of the West Cedar Street circle, be sure
you tone them down as your discretion will suggest. For yourself; you
will know that I have always had an intense desire to see something of
_real French life_. You are acquainted with my great sympathy with the
French; with my natural tendency to enter into the French way of looking
at life. I sympathise with the artistic temperament; I remember you used
sometimes to hint to me that you thought my own temperament too artistic.
I don't think that in Boston there is any real sympathy with the artistic
temperament; we tend to make everything a matter of right and wrong. And
in Boston one can't _live--on ne peut pas vivre_, as they say here. I
don't mean one can't reside--for a great many people manage that; but one
can't live aesthetically--I may almost venture to say, sensuously. This
is why I have always been so much drawn to the French, who are so
aesthetic, so sensuous. I am so sorry that Theophile Gautier has passed
away; I should have liked so much to go and see him, and tell him all
that I owe him. He was living when I was here before; but, you know, at
that time I was travelling with the Johnsons, who are not aesthetic, and
who used to make me feel rather ashamed of my artistic temperament. If I
had gone to see the great apostle of beauty, I should have had to go
clandestinely--_en cachette_, as they say here; and that is not my
nature; I like to do everything frankly, freely, _naivement, au grand
jour_. That is the great thing--to be free, to be frank, to be _naif_.
Doesn't Matthew Arnold say that somewhere--or is it Swinburne, or Pater?