Читать книгу The Letters of Henry James. Vol. II - Генри Джеймс, Henry Foss James - Страница 36

Lamb House, Rye.

Aug. 27, 1907.

My dear Gwenllian Palgrave,

It is quite horrid for me to have to tell you (and after a little delay caused by a glut of correspondence, at once, and a pressure of other occupations) that your gentle appeal, on your friend's behalf, in the matter of the "favourite quotation," finds me utterly helpless and embarrassed. The perverse collectress proposes, I fear, to collect the impossible! I haven't a favourite quotation—absolutely not: any more than I have a favourite day in the year, a favourite letter in the alphabet or a favourite wave in the sea! And the collectress, in general, has ever found me dark and dumb and odious, and I am too aged and obstinate and brutal to change! Such is the sorry tale I have to ask you all patiently to hear. I wish you were, or had been, coming over to see me from Canterbury—instead of labouring in that barren vineyard of other friendship. Do come without fail the next time you are there; and believe me your—and your sister's—very faithful even if very flowerless and leafless well-wisher from long ago,

HENRY JAMES.