文档介绍：A BUNDLE OF LETTERS
A BUNDLE OF
LETTERS
Henry James
1
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS
CHAPTER I
FROM MISS MIRANDA MOPE, IN PARIS, TO MRS. ABRAHAM
C. MOPE, AT BANGOR, MAINE.
September 5th, 1879.
My dear mother--I have kept you posted as far as Tuesday week last,
and, although my letter will not have reached you yet, I will begin another
before my news accumulates too much. I am glad you show my letters
round in the family, for I like them all to know what I am doing, and I
can't write to every one, though I try to answer all reasonable expectations.
But there are a great many unreasonable ones, as I suppose you know--not
yours, dear mother, for I am bound to say that you never required of me
more than was natural. You see you are reaping your reward: I write to you
before I write to any one else.
There is one thing, I hope--that you don't show any of my letters to
William Platt. If he wants to see any of my letters, he knows the right way
to go to work. I wouldn't have him see one of these letters, written for
circulation in the family, for anything in the world. If he wants one for
himself, he has got to write to me first. Let him write to me first, and then
I will see about answering him. You can show him this if you like; but if
you show him anything more, I will never write to you again.
I told you in my last about my farewell to England, my crossing the
Channel, and my first impressions of Paris. I have thought a great deal
about that lovely England since I left it, and all the famous historic scenes
I visited; but I e to the conclusion that it is not a country in which
I should care to reside. The position of woman does not seem to me at all
satisfactory, and that is a point, you know, on which I feel very strongly. It
seems to me that in England they play a very faded-out part, and those
with whom I conversed had a kind of depressed and humiliated tone; a
little dull, tame look, as if they were used to being snubbed and bullied,