Relationship With Henry James
In 1899 Andersen met Henry James the American expatriate writer. Although James was almost 30 years his senior the two developed a close relationship that was to last until James’ death in 1916. While the precise nature of the relationship is still unclear and may always be so—the two actually met on just a few occasions, and then for only brief periods of time—they exchanged numerous letters, which evidence a close, loving, homoerotic bond perhaps best illustrated by a letter from James to Andersen following the death of Andersen’s brother, dated February 9, 1902 where James wrote:
“The sense that I can’t help you, see you, talk to you, touch you, hold you close & long, or do anything to make you rest on my, & feel my deep participation – this torments me, dearest boy, makes my ache for you, & for myself; makes me gnash my teeth & groan at the bitterness of things. . . . This is the one thought that relieves me about you a little - & I wish you might fix your eyes on it for the idea, just, of the possibility. I am in town for a few weeks, but return to Rye April 1st, & sooner or later to have you there & do for you, to put my arm round you & make you lean on me as on a brother & a lover, & keep you on & on, slowly comforted or at least relieved of the bitterness of pain – this I try to imagine as thinkable, attainable, not wholly out of the question.’’
Despite such affection, James lost patience with Andersen when the sculptor tried to interest him in the grandiose plans for the "World City." In response to Andersen's request that James endorse such plans, the novelist wrote on September 4, 1913:
I simply loathe such pretentious forms of words as "World" anything—they are to me mere monstrous sound without sense. The World is a prodigious & portentous & immeasurable affair, & I can't for a moment pretend to sit in my little corner here & "sympathise with" proposals for dealing with it. It is so far vaster in its appalling complexity than you or me, or than anything we can pretend without the imputation of absurdity & insanity to do to it, that I content myself, & inevitably must (so far as I can do anything now) with living in the realities of things, with "cultivating my garden" (morally & intellectually speaking) & with referring my questions to a Conscience (my own poor little personal) less inconceivable than that of the globe.
In another letter of April 14, 1912 James warned Andersen that he was slipping into megalomania with his plans for the "World City."
Colm Toibin's 2004 novel, The Master, draws upon many sources to explore and give insight into beginnings of the James/Andersen relationship.
Read more about this topic: Hendrik Christian Andersen
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