Henry James
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276.22–23 of the Lieder or the Werther sort] Romantic and melancholic, as fitting the mood of German-language art song (Lieder) or, as in the case of the titular hero of Goethe’s novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774; The sorrows of young Werther), suicidal.
276.24–25 for an Uhland or a Heine] German poet Ludwig Uhland (1787–1862); German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine (1797–1856).
276.32–35 letter . . . commemorative purpose.] James freely edited the family letters included in Notes of a Son and Brother, sometimes rewriting, deleting, or adding passages. His nephew Henry James III objected, and James defended his practice (November 15–18, 1913): “when I laid hands upon the letters to use as so many touches and tones in the picture I frankly confess I seemed to see them in a better, or at all events in another light, here and there, than those rough and rather illiterate copies I had from you showed at their face value.” The issue remains controversial.
277.39 cocher] French: coachman.
279.20 Lord Macaulay] English historian, essayist, and poet Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859), author of Essays Critical and Historical (1843) and the widely read four-volume History of England (1849–55).
279.28–30 Mary Chaworth, Byron’s “first love,” . . . Mr. Musters] The fifteen-year-old George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824) fell in love with Mary Ann Chaworth (1786–1832), his neighbor in Nottinghamshire and a distant relation, during the summer of 1803. In 1805 she married John Musters.
280.3 “grey paper with blunt type”] From “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister” (1842), poem by English poet Robert Browning (1812–1889), lines 57–58: “my scrofulous French novel / On gray paper with blunt type!”
280.17 Ristori to play Mary Stuart] Ristori (see note 83.38–40) played the heroine of Maria Stuart (1801), historical drama by Schiller.
280.18 Jenny Wren] Character in Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend (1864–65), a dolls’ dressmaker.
282.18 Zoffingen group] In 1860 William James was elected to the Genevan section of the Zofingia Society, an academic student fraternity named for Zofingen, the village in north-central Switzerland where it was founded.
282.20 Mary Helen] James’s cousin Mary Helen James Grymes (1840–1881).
287.20 Mr. James T. Fields] James Thomas Fields (1817–1881), poet, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, 1861–1870, Boston’s most eminent publisher. He and his wife Annie Adams Fields (1834–1915), whom James remembered in a 1915 essay on them as equally “addicted to the cultivation of talk and wit,” held a regular salon on Charles Street.
288.1 parti-pris] French: preconceived view or bias.
289.2 gens] French: servants.
289.9–10 Edmond About and then in Alphonse Daudet] French novelist and journalist Edmond About (1828–1885), author of Le Roi des montagnes (The King of the Mountains, 1856); Daudet, see note 124.13–19.
289.31 Revue des Deux Mondes] French literary monthly, founded in Paris in 1829.
289.39 cadres] French: plans, outlines.
290.5 études de mœurs] French: studies of manners and morals
290.6 larbin] French: flunkey.
290.9 Petite Comtesse] Novel (1856; The little countess) by French novelist and playwright Octave Feuillet (1821–1890).
291.13 quatrième] Fourth floor above the ground floor.
291.15 façade of the new Louvre] As part of the expansion of the Louvre, 1852–57, under Napoléon III, new buildings were constructed along the rue de Rivoli.
291.21–22 statues of heroes, Napoleon’s young generals, Hoche, Marceau, Desaix or whoever] Three of the statues of eight French generals and marshals mounted on the Louvre’s Pavillon du Rohan: Louis Lazare Hoche (1768–1797), François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers (1769–1796), and Louis Charles Antoine Desaix (1768–1800).
292.24–25 William Hunt] See note 205.22.
293.22–23 Couture’s and Frère’s] See notes 205.15 and 205.27.
294.1 John La Farge] New York–born artist (1835–1910), a reader of Browning and Balzac. In the late 1870s he gave up painting for decorative work and suffered various reversals, including arrest in 1885 on bogus charges of grand larceny and, finally, mental collapse.
297.12 Lectures and Miscellanies James] Henry James Sr.’s Lectures and Miscellanies (1852).
297.14 Henry T. Tuckerman] American poet (1813–1871).
302.38 élèves] French: students.
303.4 Michael Angelo’s “Captive” in the Louvre] One of two sculptures by Michelangelo entitled Captive in the Louvre: The Dying Slave and The Rebellious Slave, both made for the tomb of Pope Julius II in 1513–16 (both have uplifted faces).
303.27 porte d’honneur] Main entrance (literally, door or gate of honor in French).
309.1–2 empressement] French: willingness, eagerness.
309.33–35 adorable Fromentin . . . “Dominique”] French artist, writer, and art critic Eugène Fromentin (1820–1876), who wrote about and painted pictures of his travels in North Africa. His novel Dominique was serialized in the Revue des Deux Mondes in 1862.
310.2 a Catholic college in Maryland] Mount St. Mary’s College.
310.9 Men and Women] Poetry collection (1855) by Robert Browning.
310.20 Eugénie Grandet] See note 193.15–17.
310.24–26 Mérimée . . . La Vénus d’Ille;] Short story (“The Venus of Ille,” 1837) by French writer Prosper Mérimée (1803–1870). James’s translation is not known to survive.
311.24 Haydon] See note 161.27.
312.17–18 profil perdu] French: “lost profile,” a pose in which the head is turned so that much if not all of the face is not visible.
312.26 raffiné] French: refined, cultivated.
316.37–39 commemorative cluster of La Farge’s earlier productions, gathered in on the occasion of his death] “La Farge Memorial Exhibition,” Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, January 1–31, 1911.
319.25 crânerie] French: pluck, daring, jauntiness.
320.27 Thomas Sargeant Perry] James first befriended Perry (1845–1928), who became a wide-ranging literary historian, translator, and academic, at the Rev. W. C. Leverett’s school in Newport.
322.29 excursions and alarms] Cf. English poet John Dryden (1631–1700) in his 1679 preface to Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida: “the latter part of the tragedy is nothing but a confusion of Drums and Trumpets, Excursions and Alarms.”
330.2–3 “on espère alors qu’on désespère toujours,”] French: one hopes even while one despairs (cf. Molière’s Le Misanthrope [1666], I.ii: “Belle Philis, on désespère, / Alors qu’on espère toujours”).
331.10–11 Poor Tom seems a-cold too.] Cf. Shakespeare, King Lear, III.iv.147: “Poor Tom’s a-cold.”
331.12 Professor Eliot, at the School] Charles William Eliot (1834–1926), chemistry professor and later president of Harvard.
331.23 Agassiz lecture (12 lectures on “Methods in Nat. Hist.”)] The lectures of Swiss-born naturalist Louis Agassiz (1807–1873) given at the Lowell Institute in Boston were collected as Methods of Study in Natural History (1863).
331.25–26 Professor F. J. Child] American scholar and folklorist Francis James Child (1825–1896), editor of English and Scottish Ballads (8 vols., 1857–58) and from 1876 the first professor of English at Harvard.
332.24 Jeffries Wyman’s lectures] American naturalist and anatomist Jeffries Wyman (1814–1874), professor of anatomy at Harvard.
332.26 nourris] French: stuffed with matter, substantial.
332.30 “crowded life”] Cf. Samuel Johnson, The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), lines 1–4: “Let observation with extensive view, / Survey mankind, from China to Peru; / Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife, / And watch the busy scenes of crowded life.”
332.33 native hue of resolution] Hamlet, III.i.83.
333.21–22 the “co-educational” school . . . established by Mr F. B. Sanborn at Concor
d, Massachusetts] Franklin Benjamin Sanborn (1831–1917), educator, biographer and abolitionist, an associate of John Brown (see note 38.30–31) who was invited to run the school by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
333.37 alas irreproducible.] The drawing was in fact included in both the American and English editions of Notes of a Son and Brother, and is in the present edition; see p. 335.
337.3 the Tappans’] The Boston home on Beacon Street of the family of William Aspinwall Tappan (1819–1905).
339.12–16 Commodores Perry . . . Benjamin Franklin.] On his father’s side, Perry was the grandson of Oliver Hazard Perry (1785–1819), the American naval officer who was the hero of the battle of lake Erie, September 10, 1813, and the grand-nephew of Matthew Perry (1794–1858), the American naval officer who led the expedition, 1852–54, that established commercial relations with Japan, which had been closed to the West. On his mother’s side, Perry was the great-great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin.
339.38 President Felton’s death . . . week] Harvard president Cornelius Felton (b. 1807), influential classical scholar, died on February 26, 1862.
340.2 Dr. Peabody’s] American clergyman and writer Andrew Preston Peabody (1811–1893), Harvard’s Plummer Professor of Christian Morals.
340.34–35 Ganot’s Physique] The physics textbook Traité élémentaire de physique expérimental et appliquée et de météorologie (1851) by French writer Adolphe Ganot (1804–1887), which went through many editions and was translated into English.
340.39 Charmante jeune fille] French: charming young girl.
341.15–31 Est-ce que . . . James William.] French: Do you ever dream of me as I dream of you?—oh I really don’t think so! many times each day the image of a kind of angel dressed in white with long black ringlets framing a face such that most mortals glimpse it only in their dreams, thrusts itself on my ravished senses; a tall slim creature who gets ready to go to bed in a little green room where the gas makes it look like daylight. Eh, yeah, yeah, yeah! It’s enough to make you die of grief. But I bet that even so not a single spark vibrates for me in the fibers of your callous heart. Alas, forgotten by my parents and my fellows, I see only, wherever I look, an abyss of despair, a black gulf peopled with demons that will sooner or later swallow me. You never write me except to extract from me luxury items. My vast mother hates me, only my brother remains attached to me, and more out of a spirit of opposition than anything else. My God, what will become of me? Anyway I will close this letter, which has grown so long in spite of me. Your brother, James William.
342.9 Wendell Phillips] American lawyer, orator, and abolitionist Wendell Phillips (1811–1884).
342.28 s’est promené à l’envi sur ma peau] French: strolled at will on my skin.
342.39–40 Governor Andrew] American lawyer and politician John Albion Andrew (1818–1867), governor of Massachusetts, 1861–66.
343.15–16 John Wilkes Booth, the “young American Roscius”] A member of the Booth theatrical family, actor John Wilkes Booth (1838–1865), later the assassin of President Lincoln, was lauded for his Shakespearean roles in the early 1860s. “Roscius” was a byword of praise for any successful actor, after the Roman actor Quintus Roscius Gallus (126?–62? B.C.E.).
343.19 Sévigné] Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Sévigné (1626–1696), celebrated for her prolific correspondence with her daughter, first published in 1725.
343.23 Jack Tar] Generic name for Royal Navy sailors.
347.36 Schiller’s Robbers] Schiller’s first play, Die Räuber (1781; The robbers).
350.12 Prof. Goodwin] American classicist William Watson Goodwin (1831–1912), professor of Greek.
350.13 the great Edward] American politician, diplomat, and Unitarian clergyman Edward Everett (1794–1865).
350.15 General Sickles] Daniel Edgar Sickles (1819–1914), a Democratic congressman from New York City, shot and killed Philip Barton Key (1818–1859), the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and the son of Francis Scott Key (1779–1843), author of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” in Washington on February 27, 1859, shortly after he learned that Key was having an affair with his wife. Sickles was acquitted of murder in April 1859, becoming the first defendant to successfully use the defense of temporary insanity in an American court. He later served as a Union general in the Civil War and lost a leg at Gettysburg.
353.1–5 Swedenborg’s works . . . Arcana Coelestia, Heaven and Hell] Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), Swedish theologian, philosopher, and mystic. The eight-volume treatise Arcana Cœlestia . . . (Heavenly Mysteries, 1749–58); Heaven and its Wonders and Hell From Things Heard and Seen (1758), commonly known as Heaven and Hell.
366.20–21 nihil in vita . . . quod non prius in intellectu] Latin: there is nothing in life not already in the mind (a scholastic maxim originating in Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Truth).
367.16–17 book, which Greeley announces] After he was given a copy of Thomas Carlyle’s Past and Present (1843) by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who had facilitated the publication of the book’s American edition by Little & Brown in May 1843, Horace Greeley (1811–1872) praised the book in the newspaper he owned and edited, the New-York Tribune.
367.35–39 Jonathan Edwards . . . Schelling] Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), New England clergyman and philosopher associated with the “Great Awakening”; German idealist philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854).
368.40 John Sterling] Scottish essayist and poet (1806–1844), the subject of Carlyle’s biography The Life of Sterling (1851).
369.16 Theodore Parker] American Unitarian minister, author, and abolitionist (1810–1860).
369.34 Mill] English Utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806–1873).
371.9 Balzac’s villes de province] Provincial towns as depicted in the novels and tales of Balzac.
372.6–7 an accident received in early youth] See note 145.20.
372.39 G.P.R. James] English novelist and diplomat George Payne Rainsford James (1799–1860; no relation), a prolific writer who immigrated to the U.S. in 1850; his works include Richelieu: A Tale of France (1829) and Ticonderoga, or The Black Eagle (1854).
373.38 de part et d’autre] French: on both sides.
374.16 Dr. J. J. Garth Wilkinson] English Swedenborgian writer and physician James John Garth Wilkinson (1812–1899).
374.23 Sir Benjamin] English public-health official, civil engineer and politician Benjamin Hall (1802–1867), president of the General Board of Health, 1854–55. The bell in the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, is named after him.
374.32 as a Niobe or as a Rachel] In Greek mythology, mother who grieves over the loss of all her children; the biblical figure of Rachel from the book of Genesis, who is said to be “weeping for her children” in Jeremiah 31:15 and Matthew 2:18.
374.33–35 much-enduring Hero is borne to the marble Invalides . . . Alma] Armand-Jacques Leroy de Saint-Arnaud (1798–1854), marshal of France, commanded French forces at the battle of Alma, September 20, 1854, an Anglo-French victory in the Crimean War. He died at sea nine days later and was buried at the Invalides in Paris.
375.11 Neuberg] German-born English businessman and man of letters Joseph Neuberg (1806–1867), who upon his retirement worked for Carlyle as a secretary and translated some of his work into German.
375.28 his recent pamphlet . . . Latter-Day-Tracts] Carlyle’s Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850).
377.19–20 even denied by such solemn pedants as Mr. Atkinson and Miss Martineau] The anti-religious book Letters on the Laws of Man’s Nature and Development (1851) was cast as a series of letters between English freethinker Henry George Atkinson (1812–1890), an advocate of mesmerism and phrenology, and English writer and activist Harriet Martineau (1802–1876).
378.5–6 Arthur Helps] English historian, playwright, and civil servant Edmund Arthur Helps (1813–1875), clerk of the Privy Council, 1860–75. James reviewed his Social Pressure in 1875.
379.17 acceuil] French: reception.
381.2 là-bas] French: over there.
381.23 Ellery Channing] William Ellery Channing (1817–1901), poet, nephew, and namesake of Unitarian theologian and social reformer William Ellery Channing (1780–1842).
381.37 John Forbes] French-born American railroad magnate and abolitionist John Murray Forbes (1813–1898).
382.4–5 Tommy Titmouse] Young hero of English children’s book (c. 1786), “a little boy, who became a great man by minding his learning, doing as he was bid, and being good-natured and obliging to every body.”
391.16 a joyful Nunc Dimittis] Luke 2:29, from the Vulgate: “Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine,” in the Book of Common Prayer: “Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.”
391.23–24 Hooper band] The family of American physician Robert William Hooper (1810–1885), including his daughter Marian (“Clover,” 1843–1885), photographer and friend of James, who in 1872 married the writer and historian Henry Adams (1838–1918).
394.7 bête] French: stupid.
394.15 en herbe] French: budding, in embryo.
395.23–24 that war keep smooth his wrinkled front] Cf. Richard III, I.i.9: “Grim-visaged War hath smooth’d his wrinkled front.”
395.24–25 They must fight in Italy] In 1860 the push for Italian unification was spurred on by the recent enlargement of Piedmont-Sardinia after the Franco-Austrian War (see note 263.25–28) and the conquering of Sicily and Naples by forces led by Italian nationalist soldier Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882).
396.37–39 barbaric yawp . . . not yet a “cosmos” as that gentleman avowedly is] See sections 52 and 24, respectively, of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” from Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855.
400.20 as Dryden says, or Collins] English poets John Dryden and William Collins (1721–1759); cf. Liberty (1735–36) by James Thomson (1700–1748), lines 614–16: “the savage crew, / That prowl amid the darkness they themselves / Have thrown around the laws.”