Materialising tendencies

 I ended last year and started this one, reading The Selected Letters of Henry James, edited by Leon Edel.

I decided to share one of his letters here. Initially I thought I would share another one, but then, I stumbled (well came across it in its place in the chronology of letters) on this one and thought it would be better. I will write my impressions of the book, the letters and Henry James elsewhere (Jennifer, Reading). Here, I just want to share his letter, which was to the Deerfield Summer School. 

Some background: During the summer of 1889, James was invited to attend the Summer School at Deerfield, Massachusetts for a discussion of the art of the novel. He sent, instead, the following letter, which was read during the proceedings and later published in the New York Tribune (4 August 1889)

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To THE DEERFIELD SUMMER SCHOOL 

                                                                                                                                          [Summer 1889]

I am afraid I can do little more than thank you for your courteous invitation to be present at the sittings of your delightfully sounding school of romance, which ought to inherit happiness and honour from such a name. I am so very far away from you that I am afraid I can't participate very intelligently in your discussions, but I can only give them the furtherance of a dimly discriminating sympathy. I am not sure that I apprehend very well your apparent premise, 'the materialism of our present tendencies,' and I suspect that this would require some clearing up before I should be able (if even then) to contribute any suggestive or helpful word. To tell the truth, I can't help thinking that we already talk too much about  the novel, about and around it, in proportion to the quantity of it having any importance that we produce. What I should say to the nymphs and swains who propose to converse about it under the great trees at Deerfield is: "Oh, do something from your point of view; an ounce of example is worth a ton of form; do something with life. Any point of view is interesting that is a direct impression of life. You each have an impression coloured by your individual conditions; make that into a picture, a picture framed by your own personal wisdom, your glimpse of the American world. The field is vast, for study, for observation, for satire, for truth." I don't think I really do know what you mean by 'materializing tendencies' any more than I should do by 'spiritualizing' or 'etherealizing' or the imaginative, which is just as visible, and to paint it. I have only two little words for the matter remotely approaching to rule or doctrine; one is life and the other freedom. Tell the ladies and gentlemen, the ingenious inquirers, to consider life directly and closely, and not be put off with mean and puerile falsities, and be conscientious about it. It is infinitely large, various and comprehensive. Every sort of mind will find what it looks for in it, whereby the novel becomes truly multifarious and illustrative. That is what I mean by liberty; give it its head and let it range. If it is in a bad way, and the English novel is, I think, nothing but absolute freedom can refresh it and restore its self-respect. Excuse these raw brevities and please convey to your companions, my dear sir, the cordial good wishes of yours and theirs,

                                                                                                                                          Henry James