To Arthur Christopher Benson

The following refers to a manuscript diary of Mr. Benson's and to the privately printed Letters and Journals of William Cory, author of Ionica.

34 De Vere Gardens, W.
September 25th, 1897.

My dear Arthur,

Send me by all means the Diary to which you so kindly allude—nothing could give me greater pleasure than to feel I might freely—and yet so responsibly—handle it. I hope it contains a record of your Hawarden talk—of which you speak.

I shall be very glad indeed of a talk with you about W. Cory—my impression of whom, on the book, you deepen—whenever anything so utterly unlikely as articulate speech between us miraculously comes to pass.—I am just drawing a long breath from having signed—a few moments since—a most portentous parchment: the lease of a smallish, charming, cheap old house in the country—down at Rye—for 21 years! (One would think I was your age!) But it is exactly what I want and secretly and hopelessly coveted (since knowing it) without dreaming it would ever fall. But it has fallen—and has a beautiful room for you (the "King's Room"—George II's—who slept there;) together with every promise of yielding me an indispensable retreat from May to October. I hope you are not more sorry to take up the load of life that awaits, these days, the hunch of one's shoulders than I am. You'll ask me what I mean by "life." Come down to Lamb House and I'll tell you. And open the private page, my dear Arthur, to yours very eagerly,

HENRY JAMES.