Part of a collection of letters from Henry James to Dr. William W. Baldwin between 1887 and 1900 (MA 8732.1-75). This collection is part of a much larger collection of letters to Dr. Baldwin from authors, English royalty and other luminaries of the period, including Samuel Clemens, William Dean Howells, Sarah Orne Jewett, Henry Cabot Lodge, Booth Tarkington, Edith Wharton and Constance Fenimore Woolson. See MA 3564 for more information on the complete Baldwin collection.
Expressing his regret that Dr. and Mrs. Baldwin are unable to come to Vallombrosa; saying "But parents propose & little sons, with little stomachs, dispose. I congratulate you, however, heartily on escaping from the wicked-looking tissue of sallow air which, from these pure heights, we see every day hanging over Florence...Vallombrosa is so much to my taste (it is really enchanting) that I am staying to the 1st of August. On that day - today week, Friday next - I descend to Florence, & that night I go on to Venice to spend something less than a week;" adding that he will then go to England and hopes to be at home "by the 12th or 13th, & delighted to see you any day after that;" giving him his address at De Vere Gardens and asking "if you can give me a day or two notice - a telegram from anywhere will be all sufficient...Poor Taccini fades into a pathetic vision - like someone or something left behind at an inn where one has spent the night : unconscious he, however, of shrinking, in the wider prospect, to such a little (fat) dot;" adding that he will be at Palazzo Barbero in Venice for the first few days of August.