BIB_ID
382393
Accession number
MA 6091.3
Creator
James, Henry, 1843-1916.
Display Date
1896 Mar. 14.
Credit line
Gift of the Family of Carter Burden.
Description
1 item (4 p.) ; 17.6 cm
Notes
On stationery embossed with "34, De Vere Gardens. / W."
Part of a collection of eight letters from Henry James to Clement Shorter. Letters are described in individual records; see MA 6091 for more information.
Part of a collection of eight letters from Henry James to Clement Shorter. Letters are described in individual records; see MA 6091 for more information.
Provenance
Bookplate of Clement K. Shorter; inscribed to Leon Edel by Frederica and Harold Landon, 1959; signed by Leon Edel, 1959; The Carter Burden Collection of American Literature.
Summary
Thanking him for "a beautiful Omar Khayyam card"; writing, "It rolls over me in a wave of distracted suspicion that at Omar Khayyam dinners there may be ... speeches, and that one may be possibly expected to 'say a few words.' Therefore, charitably, let me say my few words now and here -- to the effect that I never, consentingly or wittingly, go to dinners where that custom prevails, that the mere thought of it fills me with terror and anguish, and that at the faintest symptom of being looked to to contribute anything but a charmed silence I have a trick for becoming undiscoverable on the spot."
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