Henry James Thought Oscar Wilde Was a Talentless Self-Promoter. Here s What Happened When The Two Met.
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On January 8, 1882, Henry James, visiting Washington from his home in London, wrote this in a letter to a friend in Britain:
I believe that Washington is the place in the world where money or the absence of it, matters least. It is very queer and yet extremely pleasant: informal, familiar, heterogeneous, good-natured, essentially social and conversational, enormously big and yet extremely provincial, indefinably ridiculous and yet eminently agreeable…. The sky is blue, the sun is warm, the women are charming, and at dinners the talk is always general.