Autograph letter signed : "Lamb House, Rye", to Dr. Baldwin, 1900 Dec. 4.

Thanking him for his letter and expressing his gratitude for his "cheering account of my brother" which "abides with me in spite of the fact that he & my sister-in-law appear to have had but little - of his condition, & of that of the weather - good news to send me since their arrival in Rome. On the other hand each of their communications exhales a sigh of gratitude over your being near them & this consciousness sustains more than I can tell you, my own too-frequently anxious thought of them. My one prayer is that they may appreciate your presence sufficiently to prolong to the very utmost of time their chance of profiting by it. I can't write to them again for a day or two - & will you therefore kindly mention to my brother that I have joyfully just received his announcement of the safe arrival of the box of books I sent him? They speak of you as in apparently excellent health & spirits, which I greatly rejoice to think of - But for God's sake, stay so! - it being within your control. How I envy you, on each return, the sense of re-patriation in Italy - & how charming to me is your account of your journey through Tuscany & Umbria! To hear of these things makes me rage anew that I seem to manage, as the years go by, to see less & less of the country I most adore. I shall have 'muffed' that in life, most damnably. I must put in a year or two yet. The only thing that consoles me is that my last impressions of Venice, Florence & Rome, have all been of the American deluge. To go from England to Italy for the Italian saturation & find so nightmarishly, the universal American presence confronting one, is the thing in life that gives one most the sense of defeat - & for me to say that (who have so many other senses of it) is much! But I shouldn't say it to you - who are the biggest magnet that draws the compatriot. Goodnight - it's 1 a.m., (as usual when I write) & I am yours always & ever Henry James.