To Mrs. Hugh Bell

34 De Vere Gardens, W.
Jan. 8th [1891].

Dear Mrs. Bell,

Your most kind gratulatory note deserved an answer more gratefully prompt than this. But I extended my absence from town to a short visit at Cheltenham, and the whole thing was virtually, till yesterday, a complete extinction of leisure. Delightful of you to want "details." I think, if I were to inflict them on you, they would all be illustrative of the cheering and rewarding side of our feverish profession. The passage from knock-kneed nervousness (the night of the première, as one clings, in the wing, to the curtain rod, as to the pied des autels) to a simmering serenity is especially life-saving in its effect. I flung myself upon Compton after the 1st act: "In heaven's name, is it going?" "Going?—Rather! You could hear a pin drop!" Then, after that, one felt it—one heard it—one blessed it—and, at the end of all, one (after a decent and discreet delay) simpered and gave oneself up to courbettes before the curtain, while the applausive house emitted agreeable sounds from a kind of gas-flaring indistinguishable dimness and the gratified Compton publicly pressed one's hand and one felt that, really, as far as Southport could testify to the circumstance, the stake was won. Of course it's only Southport—but I have larger hopes, inasmuch as it was just the meagre provincial conditions and the limited provincial interpretation that deprived the performance of all adventitious aid. And when my hero and heroine and another friend supped with me at the inn after the battle, I felt that they were really as radiant as if we were carousing among the slain. They seem indeed wondrous content. The great feature of the evening was the way Compton "came out" beyond what he had done or promised at rehearsal, and acted really most interestingly and admirably—if not a "revelation" at any rate a very jolly surprise. His part is one in which I surmise he really counts upon making a large success—and though I say it who shouldn't, it is one of incontestable opportunities. However, all this is to come—and we stumble in judgment. Amen. Voilà, ma chère amie. You have been through all this, and more, and will tolerate my ingenuities....

All merriment to your "full house."

Yours most truly,
HENRY JAMES.