Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/169

 but really I don't know what has got into me. I 've lately learned terribly well how to do nothing. I 'm afraid to think how long it is since I wrote to my mother or to Mary. Heaven help them poor patient trustful creatures! I don't know how to tell you what I am doing or not doing. It seems all amusing enough while it lasts, but it would make a poor show as an apology and a still poorer as a boast. I found Baxter in Switzerland, or rather he found me, and he grabbed me by the arm and brought me here. I was walking twenty miles a day in the Alps, drinking milk in lonely chalets, sleeping as you sleep, and thinking it was all very good fun; but Baxter told me it would never do, that the Alps were 'damned rot,' that Baden-Baden was 'the cheese,' and that if I knew what was good for me I would come along with him. It is a wonderful place certainly, though, thank the Lord, Baxter departed last week, blaspheming horribly at trente-et-quarante. But you know all about it, and what one does — what one is liable to do. I 've succumbed, in a measure, to the liabilities, and I wish I had some one here to give me a kicking. Not you — you would kick me with your boots off; you 're too generous ever to do me any real good. What do you think of that for thanks? I 've fits of horrible homesickness for my studio, and I shall be devoutly grateful when the summer is over and I can go back and potter about there. I feel as if nothing but the chisel and a sledgehammer would satisfy me; as if in fact I could tear a figure straight out of the block even as Michael of old. 135