... having been breathed out

At Cambridge, the most memorable event of the summer [1909] term was staged by Geoffrey [Keynes], now in his final year at Pembroke. He and two friends had invited the novelist Henry James to visit Cambridge, Henry James accepting, so Maynard [Keynes] informed Duncan [Grant], ‘in an enormous letter even more complicated than a novel…’ On Sunday 13 June 1909 Maynard gave a breakfast party for Henry James at King’s. It was not a success. He had invited, among others, Harry Norton, who responded to each remark with manic laughter. Henry James was not amused. Desmond MacCarthy found him sitting disconsolately over 'a cold poached egg bleeding to death’ surrounded by a respectful circle of silent undergraduates. However, the visit did produce a classic James remark. Told that the youth with fair hair who sometimes smiled was called Rupert Brooke, who also wrote poetry which was no good, Henry James replied, 'Well, I must say I am relieved, for with that appearance if he had also talent it would be too unfair.’

• Every single person in pre-WWI England wanted to bone Rupert Brooke.
• Horrible breakfast parties read about at second hand are almost as amusing as horrible dinner parties read about at second hand.
• The image of Henry James sitting disconsolately over a cold poached egg, surrounded by silent undergraduates while one lone man laughs manically, will be a balm to call upon in my darker moments.
• If that doesn’t cheer me up, imagining the complexity of James’s acceptance letter should do the trick.