To Madame Paul Bourget

The Awkward Age began to appear in Harper's Weekly on October 1, 1898. Madame Bourget had sent H. J. her translation into French of Mathilde Serao's Paese di Cuccagna.

Lamb House, Rye.
August 22nd, 1898.

Dear Madame Paul,

I rejoice in your charming letter and find it most kind. I wrote to Bourget four or five days ago, so that you are not without my news (unless my misconstruction of the name of your villa has deprived you,) and meanwhile it is an immense satisfaction to have something of the detail of yours. It rather sounds, indeed, as if it were summed up in the one word (con rispetto parlando) perspiration—but I doubt if the difference between Rye and Nauheim has been other than that of the frying-pan and the fire. Here we have very sufficiently fried, and I have been moved to see the finger of Providence in the large, fat, dirty index of the bouncing dame who, to your vision, pointed away from Watchbell St. I have said to myself on the torrid afternoons: "Les malheureux—boxed up with that staircase in that stuffiness—comment y eussent-ils survécu!" Such reflections are what has principally happened to me—except, thank heaven, to get on more or less with my novel, the serial publication of which begins, in New York, on October 1st. I hope with all my heart that, in spite of everything, you feel your cure to be deep-based and wide-striking.... I am distressed that "Maisie" hasn't yet reached you, and will immediately write to London to see how my publishers have envisagé the address I sent them. But I trust she may perhaps be in the act of arriving—now. It is a volume the merit of which is that the subject—and there is a subject—is, I think, exhaustively treated—over-treated, I dare say. But I feel it—suppose it—to be probably what I have done, in the way of meeting the artistic problem, of best. The elements, however, are none of the largest. Let me thank you more directly for the solid cadeau of your so accomplished translation. I am only waiting for the first cool day to begin it: I shrink a little, otherwise, under the dog-star, from Naples and the ardent Matilda. But you will neither of you lose by it.... My affectionate greeting to Bourget. Believe me, dear Madame Paul, yours very constantly,

HENRY JAMES.