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Title: The Letters of William James, Vol. 1
Author: James, William, 1842-1910
Language: English
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THE LETTERS OF WILLIAM JAMES
[Illustration: Photo of William James.]
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY ALICE BOUGHTON, NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 9, 1907]
THE LETTERS OF
WILLIAM JAMES
EDITED BY HIS SON
HENRY JAMES
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME I
[Illustration: colophon]
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS
BOSTON
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
HENRY JAMES
_To my Mother,
gallant and devoted ally
of my Father's most arduous
and happy years,
this collection of his letters
is dedicated._
PREFACE
WHETHER William James was compressing his correspondence into brief
messages, or allowing it to expand into copious letters, he could not
write a page that was not free, animated, and characteristic. Many of
his correspondents preserved his letters, and examination of them soon
showed that it would be possible to make a selection which should not
only contain certain letters that clearly deserved to be published
because of their readable quality alone, but should also include letters
that were biographical in the best sense. For in the case of a man like
James the biographical question to be answered is not, as with a man of
affairs: How can his actions be explained? but rather: What manner of
being was he? What were his background and education? and, above all,
What were his temperament and the bias of his mind? What native
instincts, preferences, and limitations of view did he bring with him to
his business of reading the riddle of the Universe? His own informal
utterances throw the strongest light on such questions.
In these volumes I have attempted to make such a selection. The task has
been simplified by the nature of the material, in which the most
interesting letters were often found, naturally enough, to include the
most vivid elements of which a picture could be composed. I have added
such notes as seemed necessary in the interest of clearness; but I have
tried to leave the reader to his own conclusions. The work was begun in
1913, but had to be laid aside; and I should regret the delay in
completing it even more than I do if it were not that very interesting
letters have come to light during the last three years.
James was a great reader of biographies himself, and pointed again and
again to the folly of judging a man's ideas by minute logical and
textual examinations, without apprehending his mental attitude
sympathetically. He was well aware that every man's philosophy is biased
by his feelings, and is not due to purely rational processes. He was
quite incapable himself of the cool kind of abstraction that comes from
indifference about the issue. Life spoke to him in even more ways than
to most men, and he responded to its superabundant confusion with
passion and insatiable curiosity. His spiritual development was a matter
of intense personal experience.
So students of his books may even find that this collection of informal
and intimate utterances helps them to understand James as a philosopher
and psychologist.
I have not included letters that are wholly technical or polemic. Such
documents belong in a study of James's philosophy, or in a history of
its origin and influence. However interesting they might be to certain
readers, their appropriate place is not here.
A good deal of biographical information about William James, his brother
Henry, and their father has already been given to the public; but
unfortunately it is scattered, and much of it is cast in a form which
calls for interpretation or amendment. The elder Henry James left an
autobiographical fragment which was published in a volume of his
"Literary Remains," but it was composed purely as a religious record. He
wrote it in the third person, as if it were the life of one "Stephen
Dewhurst," and did not try to give a circumstantial report of his youth
or ancestry. Later, his son Henry wrote two volumes of early
reminiscences in his turn. In "A Small Boy and Others" and "Notes of a
Son and Brother" he reproduced the atmosphere of a household of which
he was the last survivor, and adumbrated the figures of Henry James,
Senior, and of certain other members of his family with infinite
subtlety at every turn of the page. But he too wrote without much
attention to particular facts or the sequence of events, and his two
volumes were incomplete and occasionally inaccurate with respect to such
details.
Accordingly I have thought it advisable to restate parts of the family
record, even though the restatement involves some repetition.
Finally, I should explain that the letters have been reproduced
_verbatim_, though not _literatim_, except for superscriptions, which
have often been simplified. As respects spelling and punctuation, the
manuscripts are not consistent. James wrote rapidly, used abbreviations,
occasionally "simplified" his spelling, and was inclined to use capital
letters only for emphasis. Thus he often followed the French custom of
writing adjectives derived from proper names with small letters--_e.g._
french literature, european affairs. But when he wrote for publication
he was too considerate of his reader's attention to distract it with
such petty irregularities; therefore unimportant peculiarities of
orthography have generally not been reproduced in this book. On the
other hand, the phraseology of the manuscripts, even where grammatically
incomplete, has been kept. Verbal changes have not been made except
where it was clear that there had been a slip of the pen, and clear what
had been intended. It is obvious that rhetorical laxities are to be
expected in letters written as these were. No editor who has attempted
to "improve away" such defects has ever deserved to be thanked.
Acknowledgments are due, first of all, to the correspondents who have
generously supplied letters. Several who were most generous and to whom
I am most indebted have, alas! passed beyond the reach of thanks. I wish
particularly to record my gratitude here to correspondents too numerous
to be named who have furnished letters that are not included. Such
material, though omitted from the book, has been informing and helpful
to the Editor. One example may be cited--the copious correspondence with
Mrs. James which covers the period of every briefest separation; but
extracts from this have been used only when other letters failed. From
Dr. Dickinson S. Miller, from Professor R. B. Perry, from my mother,
from my brother William, and from my wife, all of whom have seen the
material at different stages of its preparation, I have received many
helpful suggestions, and I gratefully acknowledge my special debt to
them. President Eliot, Dr. Miller, and Professor G. H. Palmer were,
each, so kind as to send me memoranda of their impressions and
recollections. I have embodied parts of the memoranda of the first two
in my notes; and have quoted from Professor Palmer's minute--about to
appear in the "Harvard Graduates' Magazine." For all information about
William James's Barber ancestry I am indebted to the genealogical
investigations of Mrs. Russell Hastings. Special acknowledgments are due
to Mr. George B. Ives, who has prepared the topical index.
Finally, I shall be grateful to anyone who will, at any time, advise me
of the whereabouts of any letters which I have not already had an
opportunity to examine.
H. J.
_August, 1920._
CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION 1-30
_Ancestry--Henry James, Senior--Youth--Education--Certain
Personal Traits._
II. 1861-1864 31-52
_Chemistry and Comparative Anatomy in the Lawrence
Scientific School._
LETTERS:--
To his Family 33
To Miss Katharine Temple (Mrs. Richard Emmet) 37
To his Family 40
To Katharine James Prince 43
To his Mother 45
To his Sister 49
III. 1864-1866 53-70
_The Harvard Medical School--With Louis Agassiz
to the Amazon._
LETTERS:--
To his Mother 56
To his Parents 57
To his Father 60
To his Father 64
To his Parents 67
IV. 1866-1867 71-83
_Medical Studies at Harvard._
LETTERS:--
To Thomas W. Ward 73
To Thomas W. Ward 76
To his Sister 79
To O. W. Holmes, Jr. 82
V. 1867-1868 84-139
_Eighteen Months in Germany._
LETTERS:--
To his Parents 86
To his Mother 92
To his Father 95
To O. W. Holmes, Jr. 98
To Henry James 103
To his Sister 108
To his Sister 115
To Thomas W. Ward 118
To Thomas W. Ward 119
To Henry P. Bowditch 120
To O. W. Holmes, Jr. 124
To Thomas W. Ward 127
To his Father 133
To Henry James 136
To his Father 137
VI. 1869-1872 140-164
_Invalidism in Cambridge._
LETTERS:--
To Henry P. Bowditch 149
To O. W. Holmes, Jr., and John C. Gray, Jr. 151
To Thomas W. Ward 152
To Henry P. Bowditch 153
To Miss Mary Tappan 156
To Henry James 157
To Henry P. Bowditch 158
To Henry P. Bowditch 161
To Charles Renouvier 163
VII. 1872-1878 165-191
_First Years of Teaching._
LETTERS:--
To Henry James 167
[Henry James, Senior, to Henry James] 169
To his Family 172
To his Sister 174
To his Sister 175
To his Sister 177
To Henry James 180
To Miss Theodora Sedgwick 181
To Henry James 182
To Henry James 183
To Charles Renouvier 186
VIII. 1878-1883 192-222
_Marriage--Contract for the Psychology--European
Colleagues--Death of his Parents._
LETTERS:--
To Francis J. Child 196
To Miss Frances R. Morse 197
To Mrs. James 199
To Josiah Royce 202
To Josiah Royce 204
To Charles Renouvier 206
To Charles Renouvier 207
To Mrs. James 210
To Mrs. James 211
To Henry James 217
To his Father 218
To Mrs. James 221
IX. 1883-1890 223-299
_Writing the "Principles of Psychology"--Psychical
Research--The Place at Chocorua--The Irving
Street House--The Paris Psychological Congress
of 1889._
LETTERS:--
To Charles Renouvier 229
To Henry L. Higginson 233
To Henry P. Bowditch 234
To Thomas Davidson 235
To G. H. Howison 237
To E. L. Godkin 240
To E. L. Godkin 240
To Shadworth H. Hodgson 241
To Henry James 242
To Shadworth H. Hodgson 243
To Carl Stumpf 247
To Henry James 250
To W. D. Howells 253
To G. Croom Robertson 254
To Shadworth H. Hodgson 256
To his Sister 259
To Carl Stumpf 262
To Henry P. Bowditch 267
To Henry James 267
To his Sister 269
To Henry James 273
To Charles Waldstein 274
To his Son Henry 275
To his Son Henry 276
To his Son William 278
To Henry James 279
To Miss Grace Norton 282
To G. Croom Robertson 283
To Henry James 283
To E. L. Godkin 283
To Henry James 285
To Mrs. James 287
To Miss Grace Norton 291
To Charles Eliot Norton 292
To Henry Holt 293
To Mrs. James 294
To Henry James 296
To Mrs. Henry Whitman 296
To W. D. Howells 298
X. 1890-1893 300-348
_The "Briefer Course" and the Laboratory--A
Sabbatical Year in Europe._
LETTERS:--
To Mrs. Henry Whitman 303
To G. H. Howison 304
To F. W. H. Myers 305
To W. D. Howells 307
To W. D. Howells 307
To Mrs. Henry Whitman 308
To his Sister 309
To Hugo Münsterberg 312
To Henry Holt 314
To Henry James 314
To Miss Grace Ashburner 315
To Henry James 317
To Miss Mary Tappan 319
To Miss Grace Ashburner 320
To Theodore Flournoy 323
To William M. Salter 326
To James J. Putnam 326
To Miss Grace Ashburner 328
To Josiah Royce 331
To Miss Grace Norton 335
To Miss Margaret Gibbens 338
To Francis Boott 340
To Henry James 342
To François Pillon 343
To Shadworth H. Hodgson 343
To Dickinson S. Miller 344
To Henry James 346
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
William James _Frontispiece_
Henry James, Sr., and his Wife 8
William James at eighteen 20
Pencil Sketch: _A Sleeping Dog_ 52
Pencil Sketch from a Pocket Note-Book: _A Turtle_ 66
Pencil Sketch: _Retreating Figure of a Man_ 83
William James at twenty-five 86
Pencil Sketches from a Pocket Note-Book 108
Pencil Sketch: _An Elephant_ 139
Francis James Child 291
DATES AND FAMILY NAMES
1842. January 11. Born in New York.
1857-58. At School in Boulogne.
1859-60. In Geneva.
1860-61. Studied painting under William M. Hunt in Newport.
1861. Entered the Lawrence Scientific School.
1863. Entered the Harvard Medical School.
1865-66. Assistant under Louis Agassiz on the Amazon.
1867-68. Studied medicine in Germany.
1869. M.D. Harvard.
1873-76. Instructor in Anatomy and Physiology in Harvard College.
1875. Began to give instruction in Psychology.
1876. Assistant Professor of Physiology.
1878. Married. Undertook to write a treatise on Psychology.
1880. Assistant Professor of Philosophy.
1882-83. Spent several months visiting European universities
and colleagues.
1885. Professor of Philosophy. (Between 1889 and 1897 his
title was Professor of Psychology.)
1890. "Principles of Psychology" appeared.
1892-93. European travel.
1897. Published "The Will to Believe and other Essays on
Popular Philosophy."
1899. Published "Talks to Teachers," etc.
1899-1902. Broke down in health. Two years in Europe.
1901-1902. Gifford Lectures. "The Varieties of Religious Experience."
1906. Acting Professor for half-term at Stanford University.
(Interrupted by San Francisco earthquake.)
1906. Lowell Institute lectures, subsequently published as
"Pragmatism."
1907. Resigned all active duties at Harvard.
1908. Hibbert lectures at Manchester College, Oxford;
subsequently published as "A Pluralistic Universe."
1910. August 26. Died at Chocorua, N.H.
(See Appendix in volume II for a full list of books by William
James, with their dates.)
William James was the eldest of five children. His brothers and sister,
with their dates, were: Henry (referred to as "Harry"), 1843-1916; Garth
Wilkinson (referred to as "Wilky"), 1845-1883; Robertson (referred to as
"Bob" and "Bobby"), 1846-1910; Alice, 1848-1892.
He had five children. Their dates and the names by which they are
referred to in the letters are: Henry ("Harry"), 1879; William
("Billy"), 1882; Hermann, 1884-1885; Margaret Mary ("Peggy," "Peg"),
1887; Alexander Robertson ("Tweedie," "François"), 1890.
THE LETTERS OF
WILLIAM JAMES
THE LETTERS OF
WILLIAM JAMES
I
INTRODUCTION
_Ancestry--Henry James, Senior--Youth--Education--Certain Personal
Traits_
THE ancestors of William James, with the possible exception of one pair
of great-great-grandparents, all came to America from Scotland or
Ireland during the eighteenth century, and settled in the eastern part
of New York State or in New Jersey. One Irish forefather is known to
have been descended from Englishmen who had crossed the Irish Channel in
the time of William of Orange, or thereabouts; but whether the others
who came from Ireland were more English or Celtic is not clear. In
America all his ancestors were Protestant, and they appear, without
exception, to have been people of education and character. In the
several communities in which they settled they prospered above the
average. They became farmers, traders, and merchants, and, so far as has
yet been discovered, there were only two lawyers, and no doctors or
ministers, among them. They seem to have been reckoned as pious people,
and several of their number are known to have been generous supporters
of the churches in which they worshiped; but, if one may judge by the
scanty records which remain, there is no one among them to whom one can
point as foreshadowing the inclination to letters and religious
speculation that manifested itself strongly in William James and his
father. They were mainly concerned to establish themselves in a new
country. Inasmuch as they succeeded, lived well, and were respected, it
is likely that they possessed a fair endowment of both the imagination
and the solid qualities that one thinks of as appropriately combined in
the colonists who crossed the ocean in the eighteenth century and did
well in the new country. But, as to many of them, it is impossible to do
more than presume this, and impossible to carry presumption any farther.
The last ancestor to arrive in America was William James's paternal
grandfather. This grandfather, whose name was also William James, came
from Bally-James-Duff, County Cavan, in the year 1789. He was then
eighteen years old. He may have left home because his family tried to
force him into the ministry,--for there is a story to that effect,--or
he may have had more adventurous reasons. But in any case he arrived in
a manner which tradition has cherished as wholly becoming to a first
American ancestor--with a very small sum of money, a Latin grammar in
which he had already made some progress at home, and a desire to visit
the field of one of the revolutionary battles. He promptly disposed of
his money in making this visit. Then, finding himself penniless in
Albany, he took employment as clerk in a store. He worked his way up
rapidly; traded on his own account, kept a store, traveled and bought
land to the westward, engaged as time went on in many enterprises, among
them being the salt industry of Syracuse (where the principal
residential street bears his name), prospered exceedingly, and amassed a
fortune so large, that after his death it provided a liberal
independence for his widow and each of his eleven children. The
imagination and sagacity which enabled him to do this inevitably
involved him in the public affairs of the community in which he lived,
although he seems never to have held political office. Thus his name
appears early in the history of the Erie Canal project; and, when that
great undertaking was completed and the opening of the waterway was
celebrated in 1823, he delivered the "oration" of the day at Albany. It
may be found in Munsell's Albany Collections, and considering what were
the fashions of the time in such matters, ought to be esteemed by a
modern reader for containing more sense and information than "oratory."
He was one of the organizers and the first Vice-President of the Albany
Savings Bank, founded in 1820, and of the Albany Chamber of
Commerce,--the President, in both instances, being Stephen Van
Rensselaer. When he died, in 1832, the New York "Evening Post" said of
him: "He has done more to build up the city [of Albany] than any other
individual."
Two portraits of the first William James have survived, and present him
as a man of medium height, rather portly, clean-shaven, hearty,
friendly, confident, and distinctly Irish.
Unrecorded anecdotes about him are not to be taken literally, but may be
presumed to be indicative. It is told of him, for instance, that one
afternoon shortly after he had married for the third time, he saw a lady
coming up the steps of his house, rose from the table at which he was
absorbed in work, went to the door and said "he was sorry Mrs. James was
not in." But the poor lady was herself his newly married wife, and cried
out to him not to be "so absent-minded." He discovered one day that a
man with whom he had gone into partnership was cheating, and immediately
seized him by the collar and marched him through the streets to a
justice. "When old Billy James came to Syracuse," said a citizen who
could remember his visits, "things went as _he_ wished."
In his comfortable brick residence on North Pearl Street he kept open
house and gave a special welcome to members of the Presbyterian
ministry. One of his sons said of him: "He was certainly a very easy
parent--weakly, nay painfully sensitive to his children's claims upon
his sympathy." "The law of the house, within the limits of religious
decency, was freedom itself."[1] Indeed, there appears to have been only
one matter in which he was rigorous with his family: his Presbyterianism
was of the stiffest kind, and in his old age he sacrificed even his
affections for what he considered the true faith. Theological
differences estranged him from two of his sons,--William and Henry,--and
though the old man became reconciled to one of them a few days before
his death, he left a will which would have cut them both off with small
annuities if its elaborate provisions had been sustained by the Court.
In 1803 William James married (his third wife) Catherine Barber,[2] a
daughter of John Barber, of Montgomery, Orange County, New York. The
Barbers had been active people in the affairs of their day. Catherine's
grandfather had been a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and her
father and her two uncles were all officers in the Revolutionary Army.
One of the uncles, Francis Barber, had previously graduated from
Princeton and had conducted a boarding-school for boys at
"Elizabethtown," New Jersey, at which Alexander Hamilton prepared for
college. During the war he rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, was
detailed by Washington to be one of Steuben's four aides, and performed
other staff-duties. John, Catherine's father, returned to Montgomery
after the Revolution, was one of the founders of Montgomery Academy, an
associate judge of the County Court, a member of the state legislature,
and a church elder for fifty years. In Henry James, Senior's,
reminiscences there is a passage which describes him as an old man, much
addicted to the reading of military history, and which contrasts his
stoicism with his wife's warm and spontaneous temperament and her
exceptional gift of interesting her grandchildren in conversation.[3]
In the same reminiscences Catherine Barber herself is described as
having been "a good wife and mother, nothing else--save, to be sure, a
kindly friend and neighbor" and "the most democratic person by
temperament I ever knew."[4] She adopted the three children of her
husband's prior marriages and, by their own account, treated them no
differently from the five sons and three daughters whom she herself
bore and brought up. She managed her husband's large house during his
lifetime, and for twenty-seven years after his death kept it open as a
home for children, and grandchildren, and cousins as well. This "dear
gentle lady of many cares" must have been a woman of sound judgment in
addition to being an embodiment of kindness and generosity in all
things; for admiration as well as affection and gratitude still attend
her memory after the lapse of sixty years.
The next generation, eleven in number as has already been said,[5] may
well have given their widowed mother "many cares." It had been the
purpose of the first William James to provide that his children (several
of whom were under age when he died) should qualify themselves by
industry and experience to enjoy the large patrimony which he expected
to bequeath to them, and with that in view he left a will which was a
voluminous compound of restraints and instructions. He showed thereby
how great were both his confidence in his own judgment and his
solicitude for the moral welfare of his descendants. But he accomplished
nothing more, for the courts declared the will to be invalid; and his
children became financially independent as fast as they came of age.
Most of them were blessed with a liberal allowance of that combination
of gayety, volubility, and waywardness which is popularly conceded to
the Irish; but these qualities, which made them "charming" and
"interesting" to their contemporaries, did not keep them from
dissipating both respectable talents and unusual opportunities. Two of
the men--William, namely, who became an eccentric but highly respected
figure in the Presbyterian ministry, and Henry of whom more will be
said shortly--possessed an ardor of intellect that neither disaster nor
good fortune could corrupt. But on the whole the personalities and
histories of that generation were such as to have impressed the boyish
mind of the writer of the following letters and of his younger brother
like a richly colored social kaleidoscope, dashed, as the patterns
changed and disintegrated, with amusing flashes of light and occasional
dark moments of tragedy. After they were all dead and gone, the memory
of them certainly prompted the author of "The Wings of a Dove" when he
described Minny Theale's New York forebears as "an extravagant,
unregulated cluster, with free-living ancestors, handsome dead cousins,
lurid uncles, beautiful vanished aunts, persons all busts and curls," to
have known whom and to have belonged to whom "was to have had one's
small world-space both crowded and enlarged."
It is unnecessary, however, to pause over any but one member of that
generation.
* * * * *
Henry James, the second son of William and Catherine, was born in 1811.
He was apparently a boy of unusual activity and animal spirits, but at
the age of thirteen he met with an accident which maimed him for life.
He was, at the time, a schoolboy at the Albany Academy, and one of his
fellow students, Mr. Woolsey Rogers Hopkins, wrote the following account
of what happened. (The Professor Henry referred to was Joseph Henry,
later the head of the Smithsonian Institute.)
"On a summer afternoon, the older students would meet Professor Henry in
the Park, in front of the Academy, where amusements and instruction
would be given in balloon-flying, the motive power being heated air
supplied from a tow ball saturated with spirits of turpentine. When one
of these air-ships took fire, the ball would be dropt for the boys, when
it was kicked here and there, a roll of fire. [One day when] young James
had a sprinkling of this [turpentine] on his pantaloons, one of these
balls was sent into the open window of Mrs. Gilchrist's stable. [James],
thinking only of conflagration, rushed to the hayloft and stamped out
the flame, but burned his leg."
The boy was confined to his bed for the next two years, and one leg was
twice amputated above the knee. He was robust enough to survive this
long and dire experience of the surgery of the eighteen-twenties, and to
establish right relations with the world again; but thereafter he could
live conveniently only in towns where smooth footways and ample
facilities for transportation were to be had.
In 1830 he graduated from Union College, Schenectady, and in 1835
entered the Princeton Theological Seminary with the class of '39. By the
time he had completed two years of his Seminary course, his discontent
with the orthodox dispensation was no longer to be doubted. He left
Princeton, and the truth seems to be that he had already conceived some
measure of the antipathy to all ecclesiasticisms which he expressed with
abounding scorn and irony throughout all his later years.
[Illustration: Henry James, Sr., and his Wife.]
In 1840 he married Mary Walsh, the sister of a fellow student at
Princeton, who had shared his religious doubts and had, with him, turned
his back on the ministry and left the Seminary. She was the daughter of
James and Mary (Robertson) Walsh of New York City, and was thus
descended from Hugh Walsh, an Irishman of English extraction who came
from Killingsley,[6] County Down, in 1764, and settled himself finally
near Newburgh, and from Alexander Robertson, a Scotchman who came to
America not long before the Revolution and whose name is borne by the
school of the Scotch Presbyterian Church in New York City. Mary Walsh
was a gentle lady, who accommodated her life to all her husband's
vagaries and presided with cheerful indulgence over the development of
her five children's divergent and uncompromising personalities. She
lived entirely for her husband and children, and they, joking her and
teasing her and adoring her, were devoted to her in return. Several
contemporaries left accounts of their impressions of her husband without
saying much about her; and this was natural, for she was not
self-assertive and was inevitably eclipsed by his richly interesting
presence. But it is all the more unfortunate that her son Henry, who
might have done justice, as no one else could, to her good sense and to
the grace of her mind and character, could not bring himself to include
an adequate account of her in the "Small Boy and Others." To a reader
who ventured to regret the omission, he replied sadly, "Oh! my dear
Boy--that memory is too sacred!" William James spoke of her very seldom
after her death, but then always with a sort of tender reverence that he
vouchsafed to no one else. She supplied an element of serenity and
discretion to the councils of the family of which they were often in
need; and it would not be a mistake to look to her in trying to account
for the unusual receptivity of mind and æsthetic sensibility that marked
her two elder sons.
During the three or four years that followed his marriage Henry James,
Senior, appears to have spent his time in Albany and New York. In the
latter city, in the old, or then new, Astor House, his eldest son was
born on the eleventh of January, 1842. He named the boy William, and a
few days later brought his friend R. W. Emerson to admire and give his
blessing to the little philosopher-to-be.[7] Shortly afterwards the
family moved into a house at No. 2 Washington Place, and there, on April
15, 1843, the second son, Henry, came into the world. There was thus a
difference of fifteen months in the ages of William and the younger
brother, who was also to become famous and who figures largely in the
correspondence that follows.
William James derived so much from his father and resembled him so
strikingly in many ways that it is worth while to dwell a little longer
on the character, manners, and beliefs of the elder Henry James. He was
not only an impressive and all-pervading presence in the early lives of
his children, but always continued to be for them the most vivid and
interesting personality who had crossed the horizon of their experience.
He was their constant companion, and entered into their interests and
poured out his own ideas and emotions before them in a way that would
not have been possible to a nature less spontaneous and affectionate.
His books, written in a style which "to its great dignity of cadence and
full and homely vocabulary, united a sort of inward palpitating human
quality, gracious and tender, precise, fierce, scornful, humorous by
turns, recalling the rich vascular temperament of the old English
masters rather than that of an American of today,"[8] reveal him richly
to anyone who has a taste for theological reading. His philosophy is
summarized in the introduction to "The Literary Remains," and his own
personality and the very atmosphere of his household are reproduced in
"A Small Boy and Others," and "Notes of a Son and Brother." Thus what it
is appropriate to say about him in this place can be given largely in
either his own words or those of one or the other of his two elder sons.
The intellectual quandary in which Henry James, Senior, found himself in
early manhood was well described in letters to Emerson in 1842 and 1843.
"Here I am," he wrote, "these thirty-two years in life, ignorant in all
outward science, but having patient habits of meditation, which never
know disgust or weariness, and feeling a force of impulsive love toward
all humanity which will not let me rest wholly mute, a force which grows
against all resistance that I can muster against it. What shall I do?
Shall I get me a little nook in the country and communicate with my
_living_ kind--not my talking kind--by life only; a word perhaps of that
communication, a fit word once a year? Or shall I follow some commoner
method--learn science and bring myself first into man's respect, that I
may thus the better speak to him? I confess this last theory seems rank
with earthliness--to belong to days forever past.... I am led, quite
without any conscious wilfulness either, to seek the _laws_ of these
appearances that swim round us in God's great museum--to get hold of
some central _facts_ which may make all other facts properly
circumferential, and _orderly_ so--and you continually dishearten me by
your apparent indifference to such law and central facts, by the
dishonor you seem to cast on our intelligence, as if it stood much in
our way. Now my conviction is that my intelligence is the necessary
digestive apparatus for my life; that there is _nihil in vita_--worth
anything, that is--_quod non prius in intellectu_.... Oh, you man
without a handle! Shall one never be able to help himself out of you,
according to his needs, and be dependent only upon your fitful
tippings-up?"[9]
To a modern ear these words confess not only the mental isolation and
bewilderment of their author, but also the rarity of the atmosphere in
which his philosophic impulse was struggling to draw breath. Like many
other struggling spirits of his time, he fell into a void between two
epochs. He was a theologian too late to repose on the dogmas and beliefs
that were accepted by the preceding generation and by the less critical
multitude of his own contemporaries. He was, in youth, a skeptic--too
early to avail himself of the methods, discoveries, and perspectives
which a generation of scientific inquiry conferred upon his children.
The situation was one which usually resolved itself either into
permanent skepticism or a more or less unreasoning conformity. In the
case of Henry James there happened ere long one of those typical
spiritual crises in which "man's original optimism and self-satisfaction
get leveled with the dust."[10]
While he was still struggling out of his melancholy state a friend
introduced him to the works of Swedenborg. By their help he found the
relief he needed, and a faith that possessed him ever after with the
intensity of revelation.
"The world of his thought had a few elements and no others ever troubled
him. Those elements were very deep ones and had theological names." So
wrote his son after he had died.[11] He never achieved a truly
philosophic formulation of his religious position, and Mr. Howells once
complained that he had written a book about the "Secret of Swedenborg"
and had _kept it_. He concerned himself with but one question, conveyed
but one message; and the only business of his later life was the
formulation and serene reutterance, in books, occasional lectures, and
personal correspondence, of his own conception of God and of man's
proper relation to him. "The usual problem is--given the creation to
find the Creator. To Mr. James it [was]--given the Creator to find the
creation. God is; of His being there is no doubt; but who and what are
we?" So said a critic quoted in the Introduction to the "Literary
Remains," and William James's own estimate may be quoted from the same
place (page 12). "I have often," he wrote "tried to imagine what sort of
a figure my father might have made, had he been born in a genuinely
theological age, with the best minds about him fermenting with the
mystery of the Divinity, and the air full of definitions and theories
and counter-theories, and strenuous reasoning and contentions, about
God's relation to mankind. Floated on such a congenial tide, furthered
by sympathetic comrades, and opposed no longer by blank silence but by
passionate and definite resistance, he would infallibly have developed
his resources in many ways which, as it was, he never tried; and he
would have played a prominent, perhaps a momentous and critical, part in
the struggles of his time, for he was a religious prophet and genius, if
ever prophet and genius there were. He published an intensely positive,
radical, and fresh conception of God, and an intensely vital view of our
connection with him. And nothing shows better the altogether lifeless
and unintellectual character of the professional theism of our time,
than the fact that this view, this conception, so vigorously thrown
down, should not have stirred the faintest tremulation on its stagnant
pool."
The reader will readily infer that there was nothing conventional, prim,
or parson-like about this man. The fact is that the devoutly religious
mind is often quite anarchic in its disregard of all those worldly
institutions and conventions which do not express human dependence on
the Creator. Henry James, Senior, dealt with such things in the most
allusive and paradoxical terms. "I would rather," he once ejaculated,
"have a son of mine corroded with all the sins of the Decalogue than
have him perfect!" His prime horror, writes Henry James, was of prigs;
"he only cared for virtue that was more or less ashamed of itself; and
nothing could have been of a happier whimsicality than the mixture in
him, and in all his walk and conversation, of the strongest instinct for
the human and the liveliest reaction from the literal. The literal
played in our education as small a part as it perhaps ever played in
any, and we wholesomely breathed inconsistency and ate and drank
contradictions.... The moral of all was that we need never fear not to
be good enough if we were only social enough; a splendid meaning indeed
being attached to the latter term. Thus we had ever the amusement, since
I can really call it nothing less, of hearing morality, or moralism, as
it was more invidiously worded, made hay of in the very interest of
character and conduct; these things suffering much, it seemed, by their
association with conscience--the very home of the literal, the haunt of
so many pedantries."[12]
The erroneous statement that has become current, and that describes
Henry James, Senior, as a Swedenborgian minister, is a rich absurdity to
anyone who knew him or his writings. Not only had the churches in
general sold themselves to the devil, in his view, but the arch-sinners
in this respect were the Swedenborgian congregations, for they, if any,
might be expected to know better. A letter which he wrote to the editor
of the "New Jerusalem Messenger," in 1863, illustrates this and tells
more about him than could ten pages of description:
DEAR SIR,--You were good enough, when I called on you at Mr.
Appleton's request in New York, to say among other friendly things
that you would send me your paper; and I have regularly received it
ever since. I thank you for your kindness, but my conscience
refuses any longer to sanction its taxation in this way, as I have
never been able to read the paper with any pleasure, nor therefore
of course with any profit. I presume its editorials are by you, and
while I willingly seized upon every evidence they display of an
enlarged spirit, I yet find the general drift of the paper so very
poverty-stricken in a spiritual regard, as to make it absolutely
the least nutritive reading I know. The old sects are notoriously
bad enough, but your sect compares with these very much as a heap
of dried cod on Long Wharf in Boston compares with the same fish
while still enjoying the freedom of the Atlantic Ocean. I remember
well the manly strain of your conversation with me in New York, and
I know therefore how you must suffer from the control of persons so
unworthy as those who have the property of your paper. Why don't
you cut the whole concern at once, as a rank offence to every human
hope and aspiration? The intercourse I had some years since with
the leaders of the sect, on a visit to Boston, made me fully aware
of their deplorable want of manhood; but judging from your paper,
the whole sect seems spiritually benumbed. Your mature men have an
air of childishness and your young men have the aspect of old
women. I find it hard above all to imagine the existence of a
living woman in the bounds of your sect, whose breasts flow with
milk instead of hardening with pedantry. I know such things are of
course, but I tell you frankly that these are the sort of questions
your paper forces on the unsophisticated mind. I really know
nothing so sad and spectral in the shape of literature. It seems
composed by skeletons and intended for readers who are content to
disown their good flesh and blood, and be moved by some ghastly
mechanism. It cannot but prove very unwholesome to you spiritually,
to be so nearly connected with all that sadness and silence, where
nothing more musical is heard than the occasional jostling of bone
by bone. Do come out of it before you wither as an autumn leaf,
which no longer rustles in full-veined life on the pliant bough,
but rattles instead with emptiness upon the frozen melancholy
earth.
Pardon my freedom; I was impressed by your friendliness towards me,
and speak to you therefore in return with all the frankness of
friendship.
Consider me as having any manner and measure of disrespect for your
ecclesiastical pretensions, but as being personally, yours
cordially,
H. JAMES.[13]
A diary entry made by his daughter Alice has fortunately been preserved.
"A week before Father died," says this entry, "I asked him one day
whether he had thought what he should like to have done about his
funeral. He was immediately very much interested, not having apparently
thought of it before; he reflected for some time, and then said with the
greatest solemnity and looking so majestic: 'Tell him to say only this:
"Here lies a man, who has thought all his life that the ceremonies
attending birth, marriage and death were all damned non-sense." Don't
let him say a word more!'"
Henry James, Senior, lived entirely with his books, his pen, his
family, and his friends. The first three he could carry about with him,
and did carry along on numerous restless and extended journeys. From
friends, even when he left them on the opposite side of the ocean, he
was never quite separated, for he always maintained a wide
correspondence, partly theological, partly playful and friendly. He was
so sociable and so independent and lively a talker, that he entered into
hearty relations with interesting people wherever he went. Thackeray was
a familiar visitor at his apartment in Paris when his older children
were just old enough to remember, and his recollections of Carlyle and
Emerson will reward any reader whose appetite does not carry him as far
as the theological disquisitions. "I suppose there was not in his day,"
said E. L. Godkin, "a more formidable master of English style."[14] In
his conversation the winning impulsiveness of both his humor and his
indignation appeared more clearly even than in his writing. He loved to
talk, not for the sake of oppressing his hearer by an exposition of his
own views, but in order to stir him up and rouse him to discussion and
rejoinder. At home he was not above espousing the queerest of opinions,
if by so doing he could excite his children to gallop after him and ride
him down. "Meal-times in that pleasant home were exciting. 'The adipose
and affectionate Wilky,' as his father called him, would say something
and be instantly corrected or disputed by the little cock-sparrow Bob,
the youngest, but good-naturedly defend his statement, and then Henry
(Junior) would emerge from his silence in defence of Wilky. Then Bob
would be more impertinently insistent, and Mr. James would advance as
Moderator, and William, the eldest, join in. The voice of the Moderator
presently would be drowned by the combatants and he soon came down
vigorously into the arena, and when, in the excited argument, the
dinner-knives might not be absent from eagerly gesticulating hands, dear
Mrs. James, more conventional, but bright as well as motherly, would
look at me, laughingly reassuring, saying, 'Don't be disturbed; they
won't stab each other. This is usual when the boys come home.' And the
quiet little sister ate her dinner, smiling, close to the combatants.
Mr. James considered this debate, within bounds, excellent for the boys.
In their speech singularly mature and picturesque, as well as vehement,
the Gaelic (Irish) element in their descent always showed. Even if they
blundered, they saved themselves by wit."[15] It was certainly to their
father's talk, to the influence of his "full and homely" idiom, and to
the attention-arresting whimsicality and humor with which he perverted
the whole vocabulary of theology and philosophy, that both William and
Henry owed much of their own wealth of resource in ordinary speech. They
used often to exaggerate their father's tricks of utterance, for he
would have been the last man to refuse himself as a whetstone for his
children's wit, and the business of outdoing the head of the family in
the matter of language was an exercise familiar to all his sons.[16]
Whoever knew them will remember that their everyday diction displayed a
natural command of such words and figures as most men cannot use
gracefully except when composing with pen in hand.
Finally, with respect to the constancy of Henry James, Senior's,
presence in the lives of his children, it should be made clear that he
never had any "business" or profession to interfere with "his almost
eccentrically home-loving habit." During the years of moving about
Europe, during the quiet years in Newport, the family was thrown upon
its inner social resources. The children were constantly with their
parents and with each other, and they continued all their lives to be
united by much stronger attachments than usually exist between members
of one family.
* * * * *
William James never acknowledged himself as feeling particularly
indebted to any of the numerous schools and tutors to whom his father's
oscillations between New York, Europe, and Newport confided him. He was
sent first to private schools in New York City; but they seem to have
been considered inadequate to his needs, for he was not allowed to
remain long in any one. Nor were the changes any less frequent after the
family moved to Europe (for the second time since his birth) in 1855. He
was then thirteen years old. The exact sequence of events during the
next five years of restless movement cannot be determined now, but the
important points are clear. The family, including by this time three
younger brothers and a younger sister as well as a devoted maternal
aunt, remained abroad from 1855 to 1858. London, Paris,
Boulogne-sur-Mer, and Geneva harbored them for differing periods. In
London and Paris governesses, tutors, and a private school of the sort
that admits the irregularly educated children of strangers visiting the
Continent, administered what must have been a completely discontinuous
instruction. In Boulogne, William and his younger brother Henry
attended the _Collège_ through the winter of 1857-58. This term at the
_Collège de Boulogne_, during which he passed his sixteenth birthday,
was his earliest experience of thorough teaching, and he once said that
it gave him his first conception of earnest work. Then, after a year at
Newport, there was another European migration--this time to Geneva for
the winter of 1859-60. There William was entered at the "Academy," as
the present University was still called. He subsequently described
himself as having reached Geneva "a miserable, home-bred, obscure little
ignoramus." During the following summer he was sent for a while to
Bonn-am-Rhein, to learn German. Some Latin, mathematics to the extent of
the usual school algebra and trigonometry, a smattering of German and an
excellent familiarity with French--such, in conventional terms, was the
net result of his education in 1859. He tried to make up for the
deficiencies in his schooling, and as occasion offered he picked up a
few words of Greek, attained to a moderate reading knowledge of Italian,
and a quite complete command of German. But these came later.
[Illustration: William James at eighteen.
From a Daguerreotype.]
He seldom referred to his schooling with anything but contempt, and
usually dismissed all reference to it by saying that he "never had any."
But, as is often the case with even those boys who follow a regular
curriculum, his amusements and excursions beyond the bounds of his
prescribed studies did more to develop him appropriately than did any of
his schoolmasters. An interest in exact knowledge showed itself early.
He once recalled a trivial incident which illustrates this, though he
apparently remembered it because he realized, young as he was when it
occurred, that it grew out of a real difference between the cast of his
mind and the cast of Henry's. As readers of the "Small Boy" will
remember, Henry, at the ordinarily "tough" age of ten, was already
animated by a secret passion for authorship, and used to confide his
literary efforts to folio sheets, which he stored in a copy-book and
which he tried to conceal from his tormenting brother. But William came
upon them, and discovered that on one page Henry had made a drawing to
represent a mother and child clinging to a rock in the midst of a stormy
ocean and that he had inscribed under it: "The thunder roared and the
lightning followed!" William saw the meteorological blunder immediately;
he fairly pounced upon it, and he tormented the sensitive romancer about
it so unmercifully that the occasion had to be marked by punishments and
the inauguration of a maternal protectorate over the copy-book. About
four years later, when he was fifteen years old, his father bought a
microscope to give him at Christmas. William happened upon the bill for
it in advance, and was hardly able to contain his excitement until
Christmas day, so portentous seemed the impending event. Apparently no
similar experience ever equalled the intensity of this one. He doubtless
made as good use of the instrument as an unguided boy could. But though
his proclivities were generously indulged, they were never trained. At
Geneva he began to study anatomy, but there was no regular instruction
in osteology; so he borrowed a copy of Sappey's "Anatomie" and got
permission to visit the Museum and there examine the human skeleton by
himself.
Clearly, there was profit for him also in the restlessness which
governed his father's movements and which threw the boy into quickening
collision with places, people, and ideas at a rate at which such
contacts are not vouchsafed to many schoolboys. From so far back as his
nineteenth year (there is no evidence to go by before that) William was
blessed with an effortless and confirmed cosmopolitanism of
consciousness; and he had attained to an acquaintance with English and
French reviews, books, paintings, and public affairs which was
remarkable not only for its happy ease, but, in one so young, for its
wide range. The letters which follow show clearly with what expert
observation he responded, all his life, to changes of scene and to the
differences between peoples and environments. The fascination of these
differences never failed for him when he traveled, and his letters from
abroad give such voluminous proof of his own addiction to what he
somewhat harshly called "the most barren of exercises, the making of
international comparisons," that the problem of the editor is to control
rather than to emphasize the evidence. He began young to be a wide
reader; soon he became a wide reader in three languages. Above all, he
was encouraged early to trust his own impulse and pursue his own bent.
Probably his active and inquiring intelligence could not have been
permanently cribbed and confined by any schooling, no matter how narrow
and rigorous. But, as nothing was to be more remarkable about him in his
maturity than the easy assurance with which he passed from one field of
inquiry to another, ignoring conventional bounds and precincts, never
losing his freshness of tone, shedding new light and encouragement
everywhere, so it is impossible not to believe that the influences and
circumstances which combined in his youth fostered and corroborated his
native mobility and detachment of mind.
Meanwhile he had one occupation to which no reference has yet been made,
but to which he thought, for a while, of devoting himself wholly,
namely, painting. He began to draw before he had reached his 'teens.
Henry James said: "As I catch W. J.'s image, from far back, at its most
characteristic, he sits drawing and drawing, always drawing, especially
under the lamp-light of the Fourteenth Street back parlor; and not as
with a plodding patience, which I think would less have affected me, but
easily, freely, and, as who should say, infallibly: always at the stage
of finishing off, his head dropped from side to side and his tongue
rubbing his lower lip. I recover a period during which to see him at all
was so to see him--the other flights and faculties removed him from my
view."[17] What was an idle amusement in New York became, when the boy
was transferred to foreign places and cut off from other amusements, a
sharpener of observation and a resource for otherwise vacant hours. For
when the family of young Americans reached St. John's Wood, London, and
then moved to the Continent, the two elder boys found little to do at
first except to wander about "in a state of the direst propriety,"
staring at street scenes, shop-windows, and such "sights" as they were
old enough to enjoy, and then to buy "water-colors and brushes with
which to bedaub eternal drawing blocks." In Paris William had better
lessons in drawing than he had ever had elsewhere, and it seems fair to
say that he made good use of his opportunity to educate his eye; saw
good pictures; sketched and copied with zest; and began to show great
aptitude in his own "daubings." From Bonn, later still, he wrote to his
Genevese fellow student Charles Ritter: "Je me suis pleinement décidé à
éssayer le métier de peintre. En un an ou deux je saurais si j'y suis
propre ou non. Si c'est non, il sera facile de reculer. Il n'y a pas sur
la terre un objet plus déplorable qu'un méchant artiste."[18]
He applied himself with energy to art for the following year at
Newport, working daily in the studio of William Hunt, along with his
stimulating young friend, John La Farge. To what good purpose he had
drawn and painted from boyhood, and to what point he trained his gift
that winter, cannot now be measured and defined in words. Paper and
canvas are the proof of such things, which must be seen rather than
described; and unfortunately only one canvas and very few drawings have
been preserved. In the "Notes of a Son and Brother," several random
sketches are reproduced which will say much to the discerning critic.
The one canvas that at all indicates the climax of his artistic effort,
the beautiful and simple portrait of his cousin Katharine Temple, is
also reproduced in the "Notes"; but a small half-tone gives, alas! only
an inadequate impression of the quality of the painting. The sketches
which are included in the following pages will give an idea of the
felicity of his hand, and of his talent for seeing the living line
whenever he made sketches or notes from life. He threw these scraps off
so easily, valuing them not at all, that few were kept. Then, before a
year had passed (that is to say, in 1861), he had decided not to be a
painter after all. Thereafter what was remarkable was just that he let
so genuine a talent remain completely neglected. Except to record an
observation in the laboratory, to explain the object under discussion to
a student, or to amuse his children, he soon left pencil and brush quite
untouched.
* * * * *
The photographs of James reproduced in this book are all excellent
"likenesses," and one, with his colleague, Royce, caught an attitude
which suggests the alertness that marked his bearing. He was of medium
height (about five feet eight and one-half inches), and though he was
muscular and compact, his frame was slight and he appeared to be
slender in youth, spare in his last years. His carriage was erect and
his tread was firm to the end. Until he was over fifty he used to take
the stairs of his own house two, or even three, steps at a bound. He
moved rapidly, not to say impatiently, but with an assurance that
invested his figure with an informal sort of dignity. After he strained
his heart in the Adirondacks in 1899 he had to habituate himself to a
moderate pace in walking, but he never learned to make short movements
and movements of unpremeditated response in a deliberate way. When he
drove about the hilly roads of the Adirondacks or New Hampshire, he was
forever springing in and out of the carriage to ease the horses where
the way was steep. (Indeed it was so intolerable to him to sit in a
carriage while straining beasts pulled it up grade, that he lost much of
his enjoyment of driving when he could no longer walk up the hills.)
Great was his brother Henry's astonishment at Chocorua, in 1904, to see
that he still got out of a "democrat wagon" by springing lightly from
the top of the wheel. His doctors had cautioned him against such sudden
exertions; but he usually jumped without thinking.
In talking he gesticulated very little, but his face and voice were
unusually expressive. His eyes were of that not very dark shade whose
depth and color changes with alterations of mood. Mrs. Henry Whitman,
who knew him well and painted his portrait, called them "irascible blue
eyes." He talked in a voice that was low-pitched rather than deep--an
unforgettably agreeable voice, that was admirable for conversation or a
small lecture-room, although in a very large hall it vibrated and lacked
resonance. His speech was full of earnest, humorous and tender cadences.
James was always as informal in his dress as the occasion permitted. The
Norfolk jacket in which he used to lecture to his classes invariably
figured in college caricatures--as did also his festive neckties. But
there was nothing that disgusted him more than a "loutish" carelessness
about appearances. A friend of old days, describing a first meeting with
him in the late sixties ejaculated, "He was the _cleanest_-looking
chap!" There seemed to be no flabby or unvitalized fibre in him.
People and conversation excited him--if too many, or too long-continued,
to the point of irritation and exhaustion. If, as was sometimes the
case, he was moody and silent in a small company, it was a sign that he
was overworked and tired out. But when he was roused to vivacity and
floated on the current of congenial discussion, his enunciation was
rapid, with occasional pauses while he searched for the right word or
figure and pursed his lips as though helping the word to come. Then he
talked spontaneously, humorously, and often extravagantly, just as he
will appear to have written to his correspondents. Sometimes he was
vehement, but never ponderous; and he never made anyone, no matter how
humble, feel that he was trying to "impress." Men and women of all sorts
felt at ease with him, and anybody who, in Touchstone's phrase,[19] had
any philosophy in him, was soon expounding his private hopes, faiths,
and skepticisms to James with gusto. He was, distinctly, not a man who
required a submissive audience to put him in the vein. A kind of
admiring attention that made him self-conscious was as certain to reduce
him to silence as a manly give and take was sure to bring him out. It
never seemed to occur to him to debate or talk for victory. In Faculty
meetings he spoke seldom, and he spent very little time on his
feet--except as called upon--when professional congresses or conferences
were thrown open to discussion. Similarly, he was seldom at his best at
large dinners or formal occasions. His best talk might have been
described by a phrase which he used about his father. It was pat and
intuitive and had a "smiting" quality. He was never guilty of abusing
anecdote,--that frequent instrument of social oppression,--but he loved
and told a good story when it would help the discussion along, and
showed a fair gift of mimicry in relating one.[20]
Once, in the early days of their acquaintance, François Pillon, who knew
how affectionately James was attached to Harvard University and
Cambridge and who assumed that he was a New Englander, asked him about
the Puritans. James launched upon a vivacious sketch of their sombre
community, and when he had finished Pillon ejaculated with mingled
solicitude and astonishment: "Alors! pas un seul bon-vivant parmi vos
ancêtres!" The story of the solemn-minded student who stemmed the full
tide of a lecture one day by exclaiming, "But, Doctor, Doctor!--to be
serious for a moment--," is already well known.
But what counted for the charm and effect of James's conversation more
than all else was his lively interest in his interlocutor and in every
fresh idea that developed in talk with him. He made the other man feel
that he had no desire to pigeon-hole him and dismiss him from further
consideration, but that he rejoiced in him as a fellow creature, unique
like himself and forever fascinating. "How delicious," he cried, "is the
fact that you can't cram individuals under cut-and-dried heads of
classification!" He fell instinctively into the other man's mental
stride while he drew him out about his age, occupation, history, family
circumstances, theories, prejudices, and peculiarities. He abounded in
sympathy and even enthusiasm for the other's personal aims and peculiar
ideals.
His first reaction to a new scene or to fresh contact with a foreign
people was apt to be one of admiration. "How jolly it looks!" he would
exclaim, "and how superior in such and such ways to that last!" "How
_good_ they seem!" "How sound and worthy to be given its chance to
develop is such a civilization!" Restlessness, discriminating moods, and
a longing for the "simplifications" of home soon followed; but even when
restlessness and homesickness became acute, their effect was not
permanent. He was no sooner back in his own home than the peculiar
virtues of the place and people from whom he had fled shone again as
unique and precious to the universe. It was good that there should be
one Oxford, and that it should cling to every ancient peculiarity
without surrendering to the spirit of the age--and good too that there
should be one Chautauqua!
For James was perennially "keen" about new things and future things,
about beginnings and promises. His mind looked forward eagerly. Youth
never bored him. Anything spontaneous, young, or original was likely to
excite him. And then he would pour out expressions of approval and
acclaim. Brilliant students and young authors were often "little
geniuses"; he guessed that they would "produce something very big before
long"; they had already arrived at "an important vision," or had "driven
their spear into the Universe where its ribs are short"; they were going
to make "perhaps the most original contribution to philosophy that
anyone had made for a generation."
It must be admitted that his recognition would occasionally have had a
happier effect had it been less encouraging. But he enjoyed being
generous and hated to spoil a gift of praise by "stingy"
qualifications. He might have said that the great point was not to let
any unique virtue in a man evaporate or be wasted. At any rate, he said,
that should be seen to in a university. He was quite unconventional in
recognizing originality, and preferred all the risks involved in hailing
potentialities that might never come to fruition, to a policy of playing
safe in his estimates. Yet on the whole he very seldom "fooled himself."
Few men who have possessed a comparable gift of discovering special
virtues in different individuals have combined with it so just a sense
of what could not be expected of those same individuals in the way of
other virtues.
But there would be danger of misunderstanding if this trait were
mentioned without an important qualification. The reader will do well,
in interpreting any judgment of James's to consider whether the book, or
theory, or man under consideration was new and unrecognized, or was
already established and secure of a place in men's esteem. In the former
case, especially if there was anything in the situation to appeal to
James's natural "inclination to succor the under-dog," his praise was
likely to be extravagantly expressed and his reservations were apt to be
withheld. In the latter case he was no less certain to give free rein to
his critical discernment. Men who knew him as a teacher are likely to
remember how he encouraged them in their efforts on the one hand, and on
the other how stimulating to them and enlarging to their mental horizons
were his free and often destructive comments upon famous books and
illustrious men.
As a teacher at Harvard for thirty-five years, he influenced the lives
and thoughts of more than a generation of students who sat in his
classes. To many of them he was an adviser as well as a teacher, and to
some he was a lifelong friend. Such was the character of his books and
public discourses that people of all sorts and conditions from outside
the University came to him or wrote to him for encouragement and
counsel. The burden of his message to all was the bracing text which he
himself loved and lived by--"Son of man, stand upon thy feet and I will
speak unto thee." He never tried to win disciples, to compel allegiance
to his own doctrines, or to found a school. But he taught countless
young men to love philosophy, and helped many a troubled soul besides to
face the problems of the universe in an independent and gallant spirit.
He helped them by example as well as by precept, for it was plain to
everyone who knew him or read him that his genius was ardently
adventurous and humane.
II
1861-1864
_Chemistry and Comparative Anatomy in the Lawrence Scientific School_
IN the autumn of 1861 James turned to scientific work, and began what
was to become a lifelong connection with Cambridge and Harvard
University by registering for the study of chemistry in the Lawrence
Scientific School. Among the students who were in the School in his time
were several who were to be his friends and colleagues in later
years--Nathaniel S. Shaler, later Professor of Geology and Dean of the
Scientific School, Alexander Agassiz, engineer, captain of industry,
eminent biologist, and organizer of the museum that his father had
founded, the entomologist Samuel H. Scudder, F. W. Putnam, who
afterwards became Curator of the Peabody Museum of Ethnology and
Anthropology, and Alpheus Hyatt, the palæontologist, who was Curator of
the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy at Harvard for many years before his
death in 1902. The chemical laboratory of the school had just been
placed under the charge of Charles W. Eliot,--in 1869 to become
President Eliot,--who writes: "I first came in contact with William
James in the academic year 1861-62. As I was young and inexperienced, it
was fortunate for me that there were but fifteen students of chemistry
in the Scientific School that year, and that I was therefore able to
devote a good deal of attention to the laboratory work of each student.
The instruction was given chiefly in the laboratory and was therefore
individual. James was a very interesting and agreeable pupil, but was
not wholly devoted to the study of Chemistry. During the two years in
which he was registered as a student in Chemistry, his work was much
interfered with by ill-health, or rather by something which I imagined
to be a delicacy of nervous constitution. His excursions into other
sciences and realms of thought were not infrequent; his mind was
excursive, and he liked experimenting, particularly novel
experimenting.... I received a distinct impression that he possessed
unusual mental powers, remarkable spirituality, and great personal
charm.[21] This impression became later useful to Harvard University."
Henry James published many of the few still existing letters which
William wrote during this time in his "Notes of a Son and Brother."
Three of them are among the first six selected for inclusion here. The
fun and extravagance of these early letters is so full of an intimate
raillery that they should be read in their context in that book, where
the whole family has been made to live again. The first of the letters
that follow was written a few weeks after the opening of the autumn term
in which James began his course in chemistry. The son of Professor
Benjamin Peirce (the mathematician) of whom it makes mention was the
brilliant but erratic Charles S. Peirce, to whom other references appear
in later letters, and whose name James subsequently associated with his
pragmatism. "Harry," "Wilky" and "Bobby" will be recognized as William's
younger brothers. Wilky was at the Sanborn School in Concord, thirteen
miles away. Bobby was in Newport, under the parental roof at 13 Kay
Street. The Emerson referred to was R. W. Emerson's son, Edward W.
Emerson, and "Tom" Ward, the Thomas W. Ward of a lifelong friendship and
of several later letters and allusions.
_To his Family._
CAMBRIDGE, _Sunday Afternoon, Sept. 16, 1861_.
DEAREST FAMILY,--This morning, as I was busy over the tenth page of a
letter to Wilky, in he popped and made my labor of no account. I had
intended to go and see him yesterday, but concluded to delay as I had
plenty of work to do and did not wish to take the relish off the visits
by making them frequent when I was not home-sick. Moreover, Emerson and
Tom Ward were going on, and I thought he would have too much of a good
thing. But he walked over this morning with, or rather without them, for
he went astray and arrived very hot and dusty. I gave him a bath and
took him to dinner and he is now gone to see [Andrew?] Robeson and
Emerson. His plump corpusculus looks as always. He says it is pretty
lonely at Concord and he misses Bob's lively and sportive wiles very
much in the long and lone and dreary evenings, tho' he consoles himself
by thinking he will have a great time at study. I have at last got to
feel quite settled and homelike. I write in my new parlor whither I
moved yesterday. You have no idea what an improvement it is on the old
affair, worth double the price, and the little bedroom under the roof
is perfectly delicious, with a charming outlook upon little backyards
with trees and pretty old brick walls. The sun is upon _this_ room from
earliest dawn till late in the afternoon--a capital thing in winter.
I like Mrs. Upham's very much. Dark, aristocratic dining-room, with
royal cheer--"fish, roast-beef, veal-cutlets or pigeons?" says the
splendid, tall, noble-looking, white-armed, black-eyed Juno of a
handmaid as you sit down. And for dessert, a choice of three, _three_ of
the most succulent, unctuous (no, not unctuous, unless you imagine a
celestial unction without the oil) pie-ey confections, always two plates
full--my eye! She has an admirable chemical, not mechanical, combination
of jam and cake and cream, which I recommend to mother if she is ever at
a loss; though she has no well-stored pantry like that of good old 13
Kay Street; or if she has, it exists not for miserable me. I get up at
six, breakfast and study till nine, when I go to school till one, when
dinner, a short loaf and work again till five, then gymnasium or walk
till tea, and after that, visit, work, literature, correspondence, etc.,
etc., till ten, when I "divest myself of my wardrobe" and lay my weary
head upon my downy pillow and dreamily think of dear old home and Father
and Mother and brothers and sister and aunt and cousins and all that the
good old Newport sun shines upon, until consciousness is lost. My time
last week was fully occupied, and I suspect will be so all winter--I
hope so.
This chemical analysis is so bewildering at first that I am entirely
"muddled and beat"[22] and have to employ most all my time reading up.
Agassiz gives now a course of lectures in Boston, to which I have been.
He is evidently a great favorite with his audience and feels so himself.
But he is an admirable, earnest lecturer, clear as day, and his accent
is most fascinating. I should like to study under him. Prof. Wyman's
lectures on [the] Comp[arative] anatomy of vert[ebrates] promise to be
very good; prosy perhaps a little and monotonous, but plain and packed
full and well arranged (_nourris_). Eliot I have not seen much of; I
don't believe he is a _very_ accomplished chemist, but can't tell yet.
Young [Charles] Atkinson, nephew of Miss Staigg's friend, is a very nice
boy. I walked over to Brookline yesterday afternoon with him to see his
aunt, who received me very cordially. There is something extremely good
about her. The rest of this year's class is nothing wonderful. In last
year's there is a son of Prof. Peirce, whom I suspect to be a very
"smart" fellow with a great deal of character, pretty independent and
violent though. [Storrow] Higginson I like very well. [John] Ropes is
always out, so I have not seen him again.
We are only about twelve in the laboratory, so that we have a very cosy
time. I expect to have a winter of "crowded" life. I can be as
independent as I please, and want to live regardless of the good or bad
opinion of everyone. I shall have a splendid chance to try, I know, and
I know too that the "native hue of resolution" has never been of very
great shade in me hitherto. But I am sure that that feeling is a right
one, and I mean to live according to it if I can. If I do, I think I
shall turn out all right.
I stopped this letter before tea, when Wilk the rosy-gilled and
Higginson came in. I now resume it after tea by the light of a taper and
that of the moon. This room is without gas and I must get some of the
jovial Harry's abhorred kerosene tomorrow. Wilk read Harry's letter and
amused me "metch" by his naïve interpretation of mother's most rational
request "that I should keep a memorandum of all monies I receive from
Father." He thought it was that she might know exactly what sums the
prodigal philosopher really gave out, and that mistrust of his
generosity caused it. The phrase has a little sound that way, as Harry
framed it, I confess....
* * * * *
"Kitty" Temple, next addressed, was the eldest of four Temple cousins,
who were daughters of Henry James, Senior's, favorite sister. Having
lost both their parents the Temple children had come to live in Newport
under the care of their paternal aunt, Mrs. Edmund Tweedie. The fast
friendship between the elder Jameses and the Tweedies, the relationship
between the two groups of children and the parity of their ages resulted
in the Jameses, Temples and Tweedies all living almost as one family.
"Minny," Kitty's younger sister, was about seventeen years old and was
the enchanting and most adored of all the charming and freely
circulating young relatives with whom William had more or less grown up.
Henry James drew two of his most appealing heroines from her
image,--Minny Theale in the "Wings of the Dove" and Isabel Archer in
"The Portrait of a Lady,"--and she is still more authentically revealed
by references that recur in "Notes of a Son and Brother" and in the
bundle of her own letters with which that volume beautifully closes. In
a long-after year William, who was fondly devoted to her, received an
early letter of hers containing an affectionate reference to himself and
wrote to the friend who had sent it: "I am deeply thankful to you for
sending me this letter, which revives all sorts of poignant memories
and makes her live again in all her lightness and freedom. Few spirits
have been more free than hers. I find myself wishing so that she could
know me as I am now. As for knowing her as _she_ is now??!! I find that
she means as much in the way of human character for me now as she ever
did, being unique and with no analogue in all my subsequent experience
of people. Thank you once more for what you have done." At the time of
the next letter, "Minny" had just cut her hair short, and a photograph
of her new aspect was the occasion of the badinage about her madness.
"Dr. Prince" was an alienist to whom another James cousin had lately
been married.
_To Miss Katharine Temple (Mrs. Richard Emmet)._
CAMBRIDGE, [_Sept. 1861_].
MY DEAR KITTY,--Imagine if you can with what palpitations I tore open
the rude outer envelope of your precious, long-looked-for missive. I
read it by the glimmer of the solitary lamp which at eventide lights up
the gloom of the dark and humid den called Post Office. And as I read on
unconscious of the emotion I was betraying, a vast crowd collected.
Profs. Agassiz and Wyman ran with their note-books and proceeded to take
observations of the greatest scientific import. I with difficulty
reached my lodgings. When thereout fell the Photograph. Wheeeew! oohoo!
aha! la-la! [_Marks representing musical flourish_] boisteroso
triumphissimmo, chassez to the right, cross over, forward two, hornpipe
and turn summerset! Up came the fire engines; but I proudly waved them
aside and plunged bareheaded into the chill and gloomy bowels of the
night, to recover by violent exercise the use of my reasoning faculties,
which had almost been annihilated by the shock of happiness. As I
stalked along, an understanding of the words in your letter grew upon
me, and then I felt, my sober senses returning, that I ought not to be
so elate. For you certainly bring me bad news enough. Elly's arm broken
and Minny gone mad should make me rather drop a tear than laugh.
But leaving poor Elly's case for the present, let's speak of Minny and
her fearful catastrophe. Do you know, Kitty,--now that it 's all over, I
don't see why I should not tell you,--I have often had flashes of horrid
doubts about that girl. Occasionally I have caught a glance from her
furtive eye, a glance so wild, so weird, so strange, that it has frozen
the innermost marrow in my bones; and again the most sickening feeling
has come over me as I have noticed fleeting shades of expression on her
face, so short, but ah! so piercingly pregnant of the mysteries of
mania--_unhuman_, ghoul-like, fiendish-cunning! Ah me! ah me! Now that
my worst suspicions have proved true, I feel sad indeed. The well-known,
how-often fondly-contemplated features tell the whole story in the
photograph taken, as you say, a few days before the crisis. Madness is
plainly lurking in that lurid eye, stamps indelibly the arch of the
nostril and the curve of the lip, and in ambush along the soft curve of
the cheek it lies ready to burst forth in consuming fire. But oh! still
is it not pity to think that that fair frame, whilom the chosen fane of
intellect and heart, clear and white as noonday's beams, should now be a
vast desert through whose lurid and murky glooms glare but the fitful
forked lightnings of fuliginous insanity!--Well, Kitty, after all, it is
but an organic lesion of the gray cortical substance which forms the
_pia mater_ of the brain, which is very consoling to us all. Was she all
alone when she did it? Could no one wrest the shears from her vandal
hand? I declare I fear to return home,--but of course Dr. Prince has
her by this time. I shall weep as soon as I have finished this letter.
But now, to speak seriously, I am really shocked and grieved at hearing
of poor little Elly's accident and of her suffering. I suppose she bears
it though like one of the Amazons of old. I suppose the proper thing for
me to do would be to tell her how naughty and careless she was to go and
risk her bones in that unprincipled way, and how it will be a good
lesson to her for the future about climbing into swings, etc., etc., _ad
libitum_; but I will leave that to you, as her elder sister (I have no
doubt you've dosed her already), and convey to her only the expression
of my warmest condolence and sympathy. I hope to see her getting on
finely when I come home, which will be shortly. After all it will soon
be over, and then her arm will be better than ever, twice as strong, and
who of us are exempt from pain? Take me, for example: you might weep
tears of blood to see me day after day forced to hold ignited crucibles
in my naked hands till the eyes of my neighbors water and their throats
choke with the dense fumes of the burning leather. Yet I ask for no
commiseration. Nevertheless I bestow it upon poor Elly, to whom give my
best love and say I look forward to seeing her soon.
And Henrietta the ablebodied and strongminded--your report of her
constancy touched me more than anything has for a long while. Tell her
to stick it out for a few days longer and she will be richly rewarded by
an apple and a chestnut _from Massachusetts_. As for yourself and sister
in the affair of the wings, 'tis but what I expected,--I am too old now
to expect much from human nature,--yet after such length of striving to
please, so many months of incessant devotion, one _must_ feel a slight
twinge. If your sister can still understand, let her know that I thank
her for her photograph. Too bad, too bad! With her long locks she would
still be winning, outwardly, spite of the howling fiends within; but
they gone, like Samson, she has nothing left.--But now, my dear Kitty, I
must put an end to my scribbling. This writing in the middle of the week
is an unheard-of license, for I must work, work, work. Relentless
Chemistry claims its hapless victim. Excuse all faults of grammar,
punctuation, spelling and sense on the score of telegraphic haste. Love
to all and to yourself. Please "remember me" to your aunt Charlotte, and
believe [me] yours affectionately,
W. J.
_To his Family._
CAMBRIDGE,
Sunday afternoon [_Early Nov., 1861_].
DEARLY BELOVED FAMILY,--Wilky and I have just returned from dinner, and
having completed a concert for the benefit of the inmates of Pasco Hall
and the Hall next door, turn ourselves, I to writing a word home, he to
digesting in a "lobbing" position on the sofa. Wilky wrote you a
complete account of our transactions in Boston yesterday much better
than I could have done. I suppose you will ratify our action as it
seemed the only one possible to us. The radiance of Harry's visit[23]
has not faded yet, and I come upon gleams of it three or four times a
day in my farings to and fro; but it has never a bit diminished the
lustre of far-off shining Newport all silver and blue and this heavenly
group below[24] (all being more or less failures, especially the two
outside ones),--the more so as the above-mentioned Harry could in no
wise satisfy my cravings to know of the family and friends, as he did
not seem to have been on speaking terms with any of them for some time
past and could tell me nothing of what they did, said, or thought about
any given subject. Never did I see a so much uninterested creature in
the affairs of those about him. He is a good soul though in his way,
too--much more so than the light fantastic Wilky, who has been doing
nothing but disaster since he has been here, breaking down my good
resolutions about eating, keeping me from any intellectual exercise,
ruining my best hat wearing it while dressing, while in his night-gown,
wishing to wash his face with it on, insisting on sleeping in my bed,
inflicting on me thereby the pains of crucifixion, and hardly to be
prevented from taking the said hat to bed with him. The odious creature
occupied my comfortable armchair all the morning in the position
represented in the fine plate which accompanies this letter. But one
more night though and he shall be gone and no thorn shall be in the side
of the serene and hallowed felicity of expectation in which I shall
revel until the time comes for going home, home, home to the hearts of
my infancy and budding youth.
It is not homesickness I have, if by that term be meant a sickness of
heart and loathing of my present surroundings, but a sentiment far
transcending this, that makes my hair curl for joy whenever I think of
home, by which home comes to me as hope, not as regret, and which puts
roses long faded thence in my old mother's cheeks, mildness in my
father's voice, flowing graces into my Aunt Kate's movements, babbling
confidingness into Harry's talk, a straight parting into Robby's hair
and a heavenly tone into the lovely babe's temper, the elastic graces of
a kitten into Moses's[25] rusty and rheumatic joints. Aha! Aha! The
time will come--Thanksgiving in less than two weeks and then, oh,
then!--probably a cold reception, half repellent, no fatted calf, no
fresh-baked loaf of spicy bread,--but I dare not think of that side of
the picture. I will ever hope and trust and my faith shall be justified.
As Wilky has submitted to you a résumé of his future history for the
next few years, so will I, hoping it will meet your approval. Thus: one
year study chemistry, then spend one term at home, then one year with
Wyman, then a medical education, then five or six years with Agassiz,
then probably death, death, death with inflation and plethora of
knowledge. This you had better seriously consider. This is a glorious
day and I think I must close and take a walk. So farewell, farewell
until a quarter to nine Sunday evening soon! Your bold, your beautiful,
Your Blossom!!
* * * * *
_Dedicated to Miss Kitty, oh! I beg pardon, to Miss Temple._
The following curious facts were discovered by the Chemist James in some
of his recent investigations:
At Pensacola, Fla., there is a navy yard, and consequently many officers
of the U.S.A.
In Pensacola there is a larger proportional number of old maids than in
any city of the Union.
The ladies of Pensacola, instead of seeking an eligible partner in the
middle ranks of society, spend their lives in a vain attempt to entrap
the officers who flirt with them and then leave Pensacola. The moral
lesson is evident.
* * * * *
The "Kitty" to whom James addressed the next letter was another cousin,
the daughter of one of his father's elder brothers. Her husband was the
alienist to whom the reader will remember that the mad Minny was
consigned in a previous letter. It should also be explained that James's
two youngest brothers had now entered the Union army, and that one of
them, Wilky, adjutant of the first colored regiment, had been wounded in
the charge on Fort Wagner in which Colonel Robert Gould Shaw was killed.
_To Mrs. Katharine James (Mrs. William H.) Prince._
CAMBRIDGE, _Sept. 12, 1863_.
MY DEAR COUSIN KITTY,--I was very agreeably surprised at getting your
letter a few days after arriving here, and am heartily glad to find that
you still remember me and think sometimes of the visit you paid us that
happy summer. I often think of you, and at such times feel very much
like renewing our delightful converse. Several times I have been on the
uttermost _brink_ of writing to you, but somehow or other I have always
quailed at plunging over. Nature makes us so awkward. I again felt
several times like going to pay you a short visit,--last winter and this
spring, I remember,--but hesitated, never having been invited, and being
entirely ignorant how you would receive me, whether you would chain me
up in your asylum and scourge me, or what--tho' I believe those good old
days are over.
When you were at our house, I recollect I was in the first flush of my
chemical enthusiasm. A year and a half of hard work at it here has
somewhat dulled my ardor; and after half a year's vegetation at home, I
am back here again, studying this time Comparative Anatomy. I am obliged
before the 15th of January to make finally and irrevocably "the choice
of a profession." I suppose your sex, which has, or should have, its
bread brought to it, instead of having to go in search of it, has no
idea of the awful responsibility of such a choice. I have four
alternatives: Natural History, Medicine, Printing, Beggary. Much may be
said in favor of each. I have named them in the ascending order of their
pecuniary invitingness. After all, the great problem of life seems to be
how to keep body and soul together, and I _have_ to consider lucre. To
study natural science, I know I should like, but the prospect of
supporting a family on $600 a year is not one of those rosy dreams of
the future with which the young are said to be haunted. Medicine would
pay, and I should still be dealing with subjects which interest me--but
how much drudgery and of what an unpleasant kind is there! Of all
departments of Medicine, that to which Dr. Prince devotes himself is, I
should think, the most interesting. And I should like to see him and his
patients at Northampton very much before coming to a decision.
The worst of this matter is that everyone must more or less act with
insufficient knowledge--"go it blind," as they say. Few can afford the
time to try what suits them. However, a few months will show. I shall be
most happy some day to avail myself of your very cordial invitation. I
have heard so much of the beauty of Northampton that I want very much to
see the place too.
I heard from home day before yesterday that "Wilky was improving daily."
I hope he is, poor fellow. His wound is a very large and bad one and he
will be confined to his bed a long while. He bears it like a man. He is
the best abolitionist you ever saw, and makes a common one, as we are,
feel very small and shabby. Poor little Bob is before Charleston, too.
We have not heard from him in a very long while. He made an excellent
officer in camp here, every one said, and was promoted.
But I must stop. I hope, now that the ice is broken, you will soon feel
like writing again. And, if you please, eschew all formality in
addressing me by dropping the title of our relationship before my name.
As for you, the case is different. My senior, a grave matron,
quasi-mother of I know not how many scores, not of children, but of live
lunatics, which is far more exceptional and awe-inspiring, I tremble to
think I have shown too much levity and familiarity already. Are you very
different from what you were two years ago? As no word has passed
between us since then, I suppose I should have begun by congratulating
you first on your engagement, which is I believe the fashionable thing,
then on your marriage, tho' I don't rightly know whether that is
fashionable or not. At any rate I now end. Yours most sincerely,
WM. JAMES.
_To his Mother._
CAMBRIDGE, [_circa Sept., 1863_].
MY DEAREST MOTHER,--...To answer the weighty questions which you
propound: I am glad to leave Newport because I am tired of the place
itself, and because of the reason which you have very well expressed in
your letter, the necessity of the whole family being near the arena of
the future activity of us young men. I recommend Cambridge on account of
its own pleasantness (though I don't wish to be invidious towards
Brookline, Longwood, and other places) and because of its economy if I
or Harry continue to study here much longer....
I feel very much the importance of making soon a final choice of my
business in life. I stand now at the place where the road forks. One
branch leads to material comfort, the flesh-pots; but it seems a kind of
selling of one's soul. The other to mental dignity and independence;
combined, however, with physical penury. If I myself were the only one
concerned I should not hesitate an instant in my choice. But it seems
hard on Mrs. W. J., "that not impossible she," to ask her to share an
empty purse and a cold hearth. On one side is _science_, upon the other
_business_ (the honorable, honored and productive business of printing
seems most attractive), with _medicine_, which partakes of [the]
advantages of both, between them, but which has drawbacks of its own. I
confess I hesitate. I fancy there is a fond maternal cowardice which
would make you and every other mother contemplate with complacency the
worldly fatness of a son, even if obtained by some sacrifice of his
"higher nature." But I fear there might be some anguish in looking back
from the pinnacle of prosperity (_necessarily_ reached, if not by eating
dirt, at least by renouncing some divine ambrosia) over the life you
might have led in the pure pursuit of truth. It seems as if one _could_
not afford to give that up for any bribe, however great. Still, I am
undecided. The medical term opens tomorrow and between this and the end
of the term here, I shall have an opportunity of seeing a little into
medical business. I shall confer with Wyman about the prospects of a
naturalist and finally decide. I want you to become familiar with the
notion that I _may_ stick to science, however, and drain away at your
property for a few years more. If I can get into Agassiz's museum I
think it not improbable I may receive a salary of $400 to $500 in a
couple of years. I know some stupider than I who have done so. You see
in that case how desirable it would be to have a home in Cambridge.
Anyhow, I am convinced that somewhere in this neighborhood is the place
for us to rest. These matters have been a good deal on my mind lately,
and I am very glad to get this chance of pouring them into yours. As
for the other boys, I don't know. And that idle and useless young
female, Alice, too, whom we shall have to feed and clothe!... Cambridge
is all right for business in Boston. Living in Boston or Brookline,
etc., would be as expensive as Newport if Harry or I stayed here, for we
could not easily go home every day.
Give my warmest love to Aunt Kate, Father, who I hope will not tumble
again, and all of them over the way. Recess in three weeks; till then,
my dearest and best of old mothers, good-bye! Your loving son,
W. J.
[P.S.] Give my best love to Kitty and give _cette petite_ humbug of a
Minny a hint about writing to me. I hope you liked your shawl.
* * * * *
The physical and nervous frailty, which President Eliot had noticed in
James during the first winter at the Scientific School, and which later
manifested itself so seriously as to interfere with his studies, kept
him from enlisting in the Federal armies during the Civil War. The case
was too clear to occasion discussion in his letters. He continued as a
student at the School and, at about the time the foregoing letter was
written, transferred himself from the Chemical Department to the
Department of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, in which Professor
Jeffries Wyman was teaching. It was in these two subjects that he
himself was to begin teaching ten years later. The next year (1864-65),
when he entered the Medical School, Professor Wyman was again his
instructor.
Jeffries Wyman (1814-1874) was a less widely effective man than Agassiz,
but his influence counted more in James's student years than did that of
any other teacher. "All the young men who worked under him," says
President Eliot, "took him as the type of scientific zeal,
disinterestedness and candor." N. S. Shaler, an admirable judge of men,
has recorded his opinion of Wyman in his autobiography, saying: "In some
ways he was the most perfect naturalist I have ever known ... within the
limits of his powers he had the best-balanced mind it has been my good
fortune to come into contact with.... Though he published but little,
his store of knowledge of the whole field of natural history was
surprisingly great, and, as I came to find, it greatly exceeded that of
my master Agassiz in its range and accuracy."[26]
James, who was Wyman's pupil during two critical years, held him in
particular reverence and affection, and said of him: "Those who year by
year received part or all of their first year's course of medical
instruction from him always speak with a sort of worship of their
preceptor. His extraordinary effect on all who knew him is to be
accounted for by the one word, character. Never was a man so absolutely
without detractors. The quality which every one first thinks of in him
is his extraordinary modesty, of which his unfailing geniality and
serviceableness, his readiness to confer with and listen to younger
men--how often did his unmagisterial manner lead them unawares into
taking dogmatic liberties, which soon resulted in ignominious collapse
before his quiet wisdom!--were kindred manifestations. Next were his
integrity, and his complete and simple devotion to objective truth.
These qualities were what gave him such incomparable fairness of
judgment in both scientific and worldly matters, and made his opinions
so weighty even when they were unaccompanied by reasons.... An
accomplished draughtsman, his love and understanding of art were
great.... He had if anything too little of the _ego_ in his composition,
and all his faults were excesses of virtue. A little more restlessness
of ambition, and a little more willingness to use other people for his
purposes, would easily have made him more abundantly productive, and
would have greatly increased the sphere of his effectiveness and fame.
But his example on us younger men, who had the never-to-be-forgotten
advantage of working by his side, would then have been, if not less
potent, at least different from what we now remember it; and we prefer
to think of him forever as the paragon that he was of goodness,
disinterestedness, and single-minded love of the truth."[27]
The stream of James's correspondence still flowed entirely for his
family at this time, and his letters were often facetious accounts of
his way of life and occupations.
_To his Sister_ (age 15).
CAMBRIDGE, _Sept. 13, 1863_.
CHÉRIE CHARMANTE DE BAL,--Notwithstanding the abuse we poured on each
other before parting and the (on _my_ part) feigned expressions of joy
at not meeting you again for so many months, it was with the liveliest
regret that I left Newport before your return. But I was obliged in
order to get a room here--drove, literally drove to it. That you should
not have written to me for so long grieves me more than words can
tell--you who have nothing to do besides. It shows you to have little
affection and _that_ of a poor quality. I have, however, heard from
_others_ who tell me that Wilky is doing well, "improving daily," which
I am very glad indeed to hear. I am glad you had such a pleasant summer.
I am nicely established in a cosy little room, with a large recess with
a window in it, containing bed and washstand, separated from the main
apartment by a rich green silken curtain and a large gilt cornice. This
gives the whole establishment a splendid look.
I found when I got here that Miss Upham had changed her price to $5.00.
Great efforts were made by two of us to raise a club, but little
enthusiasm was shown by anyone else and it fell through. I then, with
that fine economical instinct which distinguishes me, resolved to take a
tea and breakfast of bread and milk in my room and only pay Miss Upham
for dinners. Miss U. is at Swampscott. So I asked to see [her sister]
Mrs. Wood, to learn the cost of seven dinners. She, with true motherly
instinct, said that I should only make a slop in my room, and that she
would rather let me keep on for $4.50, seeing it was me. I said she must
first consult Miss Upham. She returned from Swampscott saying that Miss
U. had sworn _she_ would rather pay _me_ a dollar a week than have me go
away. Ablaze with economic passion, I cried "Done!" trying to make it
appear as if she had made a formal offer to that effect. But she would
not admit it, and after much recrimination we were separated, it being
agreed that I should come for $4.50, _but tell no-one_. (Mind _you_
don't either.) I now lay my hand on my heart, and confidently look
towards my mother for that glance of approbation which she _must_
bestow. Have I not redeemed any weaknesses of the past? Though part of
my conception failed, yet it was boldly planned and would have been a
noble stroke.
I have been pretty busy this week. I have a filial feeling towards Wyman
already. I work in a vast museum, at a table all alone, surrounded by
skeletons of mastodons, crocodiles, and the like, with the walls hung
about with monsters and horrors enough to freeze the blood. But I have
no fear, as most of them are tightly bottled up. Occasionally solemn
men and women come in to see the museum, and sometimes timid little
girls (reminding me of thee, beloved, only they are less fashionably
dressed) who whisper: "Is folks allowed here?" It pains me to remark,
however, that not all the little girls are of this pleasing type, _most_
being boldfaced jigs. How does Wilky get on? Is Mayberry gone? How is he
nursed? Who holds his foot for the doctor? Tell me all about him.
Everyone here asks about him, and all without exception seem
enthusiastic about the darkeys. How has Aunt Kate's knee been since her
return? Sorry indeed was I to leave without seeing her. Give her my best
love. Is Kitty Temple as angelic as ever? Give my best love to her and
Minny and the little ones. (My little friend Elly, how often I think of
her!) Have your lessons with Bradford (the brandy-witness) begun? You
may well blush. Tell Harry Mr. [Francis J.] Child is here, just as
usual; Mrs. C. at Swampscott. [C. C.] Salter back, but morose. One or
two new students, and Prof. [W. W.] Goodwin, who is a very agreeable
man. Among other students, a son of Ed. Everett [William Everett], very
intelligent and a capital scholar, studying law. He took honors at
Cambridge, England. Tucks, _mère & fille_ away, _fils_ here....
I send a photograph of Gen. Sickles for yours and Wilky's amusement. It
is a part of a great anthropomorphological collection[28] which I am
going to make. So take care of it, as well as of all the photographs you
will find in the table drawer in my room. But isn't he a bully boy?
Harry's handwriting much better. Desecrate my room as little as
possible. Good-bye, much love to Wilky and all. If he wants nursing send
for me without hesitation. Love to the Tweedies. Haven't you heard yet
from Bobby?
Your aff. bro.,
WM.
[Illustration: Pencil Sketch from a Pocket Note-Book.]
III
1864-1866
_The Harvard Medical School--With Louis Agassiz to the Amazon_
IN 1864 the family moved from Newport to Boston, where Henry James,
Senior, took a house on Ashburton Place (No. 13) for two years, and
there was no more occasion for family letters. Although James began the
regular course at the Medical School, he had arrived at no clear
professional purpose and no selection of any particular field of study.
The School afforded him some measure of preparation for natural science
as well as for practice.
Philosophy had undoubtedly begun to beckon him, although its appealing
gesture lacked authority and did not enlist him in any regular course of
philosophic studies. In sixty-five he wrote to his brother Henry from
Brazil saying, "When I get home, I'm going to study philosophy all my
days." But in many respects his character and tastes matured slowly. The
instruction offered by Professor Francis Bowen in Harvard College does
not appear to have excited his interest at all. It cannot have failed to
excite the irony of his father,--as did everything of the sort that was
academic and orthodox,--and James would have been aware of this and
might have been influenced. On the other hand, it was obvious that, in
the case of his father, who had no connection with church, college or
school, the consideration and expression of theories and beliefs had
always been a totally unremunerative occupation; and James had to
consider how to earn a living. His prospective share of the property
that had sufficed for his parents was clearly not going to be enough to
support him in independent leisure. In the way of bread and butter,
biology and medicine offered more than metaphysical speculation. Last
and most important, the tide of contemporary inquiry, driven forward by
the storm of the Darwinian controversy, was setting strongly toward a
fresh examination of nature. Philosophy must embrace the new reality.
Everything that was stimulating in contemporary thought urged men to the
scrutiny of the phenomenal world. "Natural History," which has since
diversified and amplified itself beyond the use of that appellation, was
almost romantically "having its day."
Grau, teurer Freund, ist alle Theorie,
Und grün des Lebens goldener Baum.[29]
Thus Goethe, and Louis Agassiz, whose lectures James had already
followed, and with the abundance of whose inspiring activity no other
scientific energizing could then compare, was fond of quoting the lines.
Under such circumstances it was not strange that James should interrupt
his medical studies in order to join the expedition which Agassiz was
preparing to lead to the Amazon.
No richer or more instructive experience could well have offered itself
to him at twenty-three than this journey to Brazil seemed to promise. He
was no sooner on the Amazon, however, than it became clear to him that
he was not intended to be a field-naturalist; and he pictured the stages
of this self-discovery in long, diary-like letters which he sent home
to his family. On arriving at Rio he was forced to consider the question
of his going on or coming home, by an illness that kept him quarantined
for several uncomfortable weeks, and left him depressed and unable to
use his eyes during several weeks more. Although he decided in favor of
continuing with Agassiz, he revealed more and more clearly in his
letters that he was seeing Brazil with the eye of an adventurer and
lover of landscape rather than of a geologist or collector, and that the
months spent in fishing and pickling specimens were to count most for
him by teaching him what his vocation was _not_. He found that he was
essentially indifferent to the classification of birds, beasts, and
fishes, and that he was not made to deal with the riddle of the universe
from the only angle of approach that was possible in Agassiz's company.
It would be a mistake, however, to let it appear that nine months of
collecting with Louis Agassiz were nine months wasted. There are some
men whom it is an education to work under, even though the affair in
hand be foreign to one's ultimate concern. Agassiz was such an one,
"recognized by all as one of those naturalists in the unlimited sense,
one of those folio-copies of mankind, like Linnæus and Cuvier." Thirty
years after, James could still say of him: "Since Benjamin Franklin we
had never had among us a person of more popularly impressive type.... He
was so commanding a presence, so curious and enquiring, so responsive
and expansive, and so generous and reckless of himself and his own, that
everyone said immediately, Here is no musty _savant_, but a man, a great
man, a man on the heroic scale, not to serve whom is avarice and
sin."[30]--"To see facts and not to argue or _raisonniren_ was what life
meant for Agassiz," and James, who was already incorrigibly interested
in the causes, values and purposes of things, and whose education had
been most unsystematic, profited by his corrective influence. "James,"
said Agassiz at this time, "some people perhaps consider you a bright
young man; but when you are fifty years old, if they ever speak of you
then, what they will say will be this: That James--oh, yes, I know him;
he used to be a very bright young man!" Such "cold-water therapeutics"
were gratefully accepted from one who was not only a teacher but a kind
friend; and James remembered them, and recorded later that "the hours he
spent with Agassiz so taught him the difference between all possible
abstractionists and all livers in the light of the world's concrete
fullness, that he was never able to forget it." Considering with what
passionate fidelity his own abstractions always face the concrete, this
is perhaps more of an acknowledgment than at first sight appears.
* * * * *
The Thayer Expedition set sail from New York April 1, 1865. The next
letter was written from ship-board, still in New York Harbor. The
"Professor" will be recognized as Louis Agassiz.
_To his Mother._
[_Mar. 30?_], 1865.
...We have been detained 48 hours on this steamer in port on account of
different accidents.... A dense fog is raging which will prevent our
going outside as long as it lasts. Sapristi! c'est embêtant....
The Professor has just been expatiating over the map of South America
and making projects as if he had Sherman's army at his disposal instead
of the ten novices he really has. He may get some students at Rio to
accompany the different parties, which will let them be more numerous.
I'm sure I hope he will, on account of the language. If each of us has a
Portuguese companion, he can do things twice as easily. The Prof. now
sits opposite me with his face all aglow, holding forth to the Captain's
wife about the imperfect education of the American people. He has talked
uninterruptedly for a quarter of an hour at least. I know not how she
reacts; I presume she feels somewhat flattered by the attention,
however. This morning he made a characteristic speech to Mr. Billings,
Mr. Watson's friend. Mr. B. had offered to lend him some books. Agassiz:
"May I enter your state-room and take them when I shall want them, sir?"
Billings, extending his arm said genially, "Sir, all that I have is
yours!" To which, Agassiz, far from being overcome, replied, shaking a
monitory finger at the foolishly generous wight, "Look out, sir, dat I
take not your skin!" That expresses very well the man. Offering your
services to Agassiz is as absurd as it would be for a South Carolinian
to invite General Sherman's soldiers to partake of some refreshment when
they called at his house....
At this moment Prof. passes behind me and says, "Now today I am going to
show you a little what I will have _you_ do." Hurray! I have not been
able to get a word out of the old animal yet about my fate. I'm only
sorry I can't tell _you_....
_To his Parents._
RIO, BRAZIL, _Apr. 21, 1865_.
MY DEAREST PARENTS,--Every one is writing home to catch the steamer
which leaves Rio on Monday. I do likewise, although, so far, I have very
little to say to you. You cannot conceive how pleasant it is to feel
that tomorrow we shall lie in smooth water at Rio and the horrors of
this voyage will be over. O the vile Sea! the damned Deep! No one has a
right to write about the "nature of Evil," or to have any opinion about
evil, who has not been at sea. The awful slough of despond into which
you are there plunged furnishes too profound an experience not to be a
fruitful one. I cannot yet say what the fruit is in my case, but I am
sure some day of an accession of wisdom from it. My sickness did not
take an actively nauseous form after the first night and second morning;
but for twelve mortal days I was, body and soul, in a more indescribably
hopeless, homeless and friendless state than I ever want to be in again.
We had a head wind and tolerably rough sea all that time. The trade
winds, which I thought were gentle zephyrs, are hideous moist gales that
whiten all the waves with foam....
_Sunday Evening._ Yesterday morning at ten o'clock we came to anchor in
this harbor, sailing right up without a pilot. No words of mine, or of
any man short of William the divine, can give any idea of the
magnificence of this harbor and its approaches. The boldest, grandest
mountains, far and near. The palms and other trees of such vivid green
as I never saw anywhere else. The town "realizes" my idea of an African
town in its architecture and effect. Almost everyone is a negro or a
negress, which words I perceive we don't know the meaning of with us; a
great many of them are native Africans and tattooed. The men have white
linen drawers and short shirts of the same kind over them; the women
wear huge turbans, and have a peculiar rolling gait that I have never
seen any approach to elsewhere. Their attitudes as they sleep and lie
about the streets are picturesque to the last degree.
Yesterday was, I think, the day of my life on which I had the most
outward enjoyment. Nine of us took a boat at about noon and went on
shore. The strange sights, the pleasure of walking on terra firma, the
delicious smell of land, compared with the hell of the last three weeks,
were perfectly intoxicating. Our Portuguese went beautifully,--every
visage relaxed at the sight of us and grinned from ear to ear. The
amount of fraternal love that was expressed by bowing and gesture was
tremendous. We had the best dinner I ever eat. Guess how much it cost.
140,000 reis--literal fact. Paid for by the rich man of the party. The
Brazilians are of a pale Indian color, without a particle of red and
with a very aged expression. They are very polite and obliging. _All_
wear black beaver hats and glossy black frock coats, which makes them
look like _des épiciers endimanchés_. We all returned in good order to
the ship at 11 P.M., and I lay awake most of the night on deck listening
to the soft notes of the vampire outside of the awning. (Not knowing
what it was, we'll call it the vampire.) This morning Tom Ward and I
took another cruise on shore, which was equally new and strange. The
weather is like Newport. I have not seen the thermometer....
Agassiz just in, delighted with the Emperor's simplicity and the
precision of his information; but apparently they did not touch upon our
material prospects. He goes to see the Emperor again tomorrow. Agassiz
is one of the most fascinating men personally that I ever saw. I could
listen to him talk by the hour. He is so childlike. Bishop Potter, who
is sitting opposite me writing, asks me to give his best regards to
father. I am in such a state of abdominal tumefaction from having eaten
bananas all day that I can hardly sit down to write. The bananas here
are no whit better than at home, but _so_ cheap and _so_ filling at the
price. My fellow "savans" are a very uninteresting crew. Except Tom
Ward I don't care if I never see one of 'em again. I like Dr. Cotting
very much and Mrs. Agassiz too. I could babble on all night, but must
stop somewhere.
Dear old Father, Mother, Aunt Kate, Harry and Alice! You little know
what thoughts I have had of you since I have been gone. And I have felt
more sympathy with Bob and Wilk than ever, from the fact of my isolated
circumstances being more like theirs than the life I have led hitherto.
Please send them this letter. It is written as much for them as for
anyone. I hope Harry is rising like a phoenix from his ashes, under
the new régime. Bless him. I wish he or some person I could talk to were
along. Thank Aunt Kate once more. Kiss Alice to death. I think Father is
the _wisest_ of all men whom I know. Give my love to the girls,
especially the Hoopers. Tell Harry to remember me to T. S. P[erry] and
to Holmes. Adieu.
Your loving
W. J.
Give my love to Washburn.
_To his Father._
RIO, _June 3, 1865_.
MY DEAREST OLD FATHER AND MY DEAREST OLD EVERYBODY AT HOME,--I've got so
much to say that I don't well know where to begin.--I sent a letter
home, I think about a fortnight ago, telling you about my small-pox,
etc., but as it went by a sailing vessel it is quite likely that this
may reach you first. That was written from the _maison de santé_ where I
was lying in the embrace of the loathsome goddess, and from whose hard
straw bed, eternal chicken and rice, and extortionate prices I was
released yesterday. The disease is over, and granting the necessity of
having it, I have reason to think myself most lucky. My face will not
be marked at all, although at present it presents the appearance of an
immense ripe raspberry.... My sickness began four weeks ago today. You
have no idea of the state of bliss into which I have been plunged in the
last twenty-four hours by the first draughts of my newly gained freedom.
To be dressed, to walk about, to see my friends and the public, to go
into the dining-room and order my own dinner, to feel myself growing
strong and smooth-skinned again, make a very considerable reaction. Now
that I know I am no longer an object of infection, I am perfectly
cynical as to my appearance and go into the dining-room here when it is
at its fullest, having been invited and authorized thereto by the good
people of the hotel. I shall stay here for a week before returning to my
quarters, although it is very expensive. But I need a soft bed instead
of a hammock, and an arm-chair instead of a trunk to sit upon for some
days yet....
In my last letter, I said something about coming home sooner than I
expected. Since then, I have thought the matter over seriously and
conscientiously every day, and it has resulted in my determining so to
do. My coming was a mistake, a mistake as regards what I anticipated,
and a pretty expensive one both for you, dear old Father, and for the
dear generous old Aunt Kate. I find that by staying I shall learn next
to nothing of natural history as I care about learning it. My whole work
will be mechanical, finding objects and packing them, and working so
hard at that and in traveling that no time at all will be found for
studying their structure. The affair reduces itself thus to so many
months spent in physical exercise. Can I afford this? _First_,
pecuniarily? No! Instead of costing the $600 or $700 Agassiz told me
twelve months of it would cost, the expense will be nearer to triple
that amount....
_Secondly_, I can't afford the excursion mentally (though that is not
exactly the adjective to use). I said to myself before I came away: "W.
J., in this excursion you will learn to know yourself and your resources
somewhat more intimately than you do now, and will come back with your
character considerably evolved and established." This has come true
sooner, and in a somewhat different way, than I expected. I am now
certain that my forte is not to go on exploring expeditions. I have no
inward spur goading me forwards on that line, as I have on several
speculative lines. I am convinced now, for good, that I am cut out for a
speculative rather than an active life,--I speak now only of my
_quality_; as for my _quantity_, I became convinced some time ago and
reconciled to the notion, that I was one of the very lightest of
featherweights. Now why not be reconciled with my deficiencies? By
accepting them your actions cease to be at cross-purposes with your
faculties, and you are so much nearer to peace of mind. On the steamer I
began to read Humboldt's Travels. Hardly had I opened the book when I
seemed to become illuminated. "Good Heavens, when such men are provided
to do the work of traveling, exploring, and observing for humanity, men
who gravitate into their work as the air does into our lungs, what need,
what _business_ have we outsiders to pant after them and toilsomely try
to serve as their substitutes? There are men to do all the work which
the world requires without the talent of any one being strained." Men's
activities are occupied in two ways: in grappling with external
circumstances, and in striving to set things at one in their own
topsy-turvy mind.
You must know, dear Father, what I mean, tho' I can't must[er] strength
of brain enough now to express myself with precision. The grit and
energy of some men are called forth by the resistance of the world. But
as for myself, I seem to have no spirit whatever of that kind, no pride
which makes me ashamed to say, "I can't do that." But I have a mental
pride and shame which, although they seem more egotistical than the
other kind, are still the only things that can stir my blood. These
lines seem to satisfy me, although to many they would appear the height
of indolence and contemptibleness: "Ne forçons point notre talent,--Nous
ne ferions rien avec grâce,--Jamais un lourdaud, quoi-qu'il fasse,--Ne
deviendra un galant." Now all the time I should be gone on this
expedition I should have a pining after books and study as I have had
hitherto, and a feeling that this work was not in my path and was so
much waste of life. I had misgivings to this effect before starting; but
I was so filled with enthusiasm, and the romance of the thing seemed so
great, that I stifled them. Here on the ground the romance vanishes and
the misgivings float up. I have determined to listen to them this time.
I said that my act was an expensive mistake as regards what I
anticipated, but I have got this other _edification_ from it. It has to
be got some time, and perhaps only through some great mistake; for there
are some familiar axioms which the individual only seems able to learn
the meaning of through his individual experience. I don't know whether I
have expressed myself so as to let you understand exactly how I feel. O
my dear, affectionate, wise old Father, how I longed to see you while I
lay there with the small-pox,[31] first revolving these things over! and
how I longed to confer with you in a more confiding way than I often do
at home! When I get there I can explain the gaps. As this letter does
not sail till next Saturday (this is Sunday), I will stop for the
present, as I feel quite tired out....
* * * * *
It was not feasible for James to leave the expedition and return home
immediately, and soon after the last letter was written, his returning
health and eyesight brought with them a more cheerful mood. He
determined to stay in Brazil for a few months longer.
_To his Father._
RIVER SOLIMOES (AMAZON),
_Sept. 12-15, 1865_.
MY DEAREST DADDY,--Great was my joy the other evening, on arriving at
Manaos, to get a batch of letters from you.... I could do no more then
than merely "accuse" the reception. Now I can manage to sweat out a few
lines of reply. It is noon and the heat is frightful. We have all come
to the conclusion that, for _us_ at least, there will be no hell
hereafter. We have all become regular alembics, and the heat grows upon
you, I find. Nevertheless it is not the dead, sickening heat of home. It
is more like a lively baking, and the nights remain cool. We are just
entering on the mosquito country, and I suspect our suffering will be
great from them and the flies. While the steamboat is in motion we don't
have them, but when she stops you can hardly open your mouth without
getting it full of them. Poor Mr. Bourkhardt is awfully poisoned and
swollen up by bites he got ten days ago on a bayou. At the same time
with the mosquitoes, the other living things seem to increase; so it has
its good side. The river is much narrower--about two miles wide perhaps
or three (I'm no judge)--very darkly muddy and swirling rapidly down
past the beautiful woods and islands. We are all going up as far as
Tabatinga, when the Professor and Madam, with some others, go into Peru
to the Mountains, while Bourget and I will get a canoe and some men and
spend a month on the river between Tabatinga and Ega. Bourget is a very
dog, yapping and yelping at every one, but a very hard-working
collector, and I can get along very well with him. We shall have a very
gypsy-like, if a very uncomfortable time. The best of this river is that
you can't bathe in it on account of the numerous anthropophagous fishes
who bite mouthfuls out of you. Tom Ward _may_ possibly be out and at
Manaos by the time we get back there at the end of October. Heaven grant
he may, poor fellow! I'd rather see him than any one on this continent.
Agassiz is perfectly delighted with him, his intelligence and his
energy, thinks him in fact much the best man of the expedition.
I see no reason to regret my determination to stay. "On contrary," as
Agassiz says, as I begin to use my eyes a little every day, I feel like
an entirely new being. Everything revives within and without, and I now
feel sure that I shall learn. I have profited a great deal by hearing
Agassiz talk, not so much by what he says, for never did a man utter a
greater amount of humbug, but by learning the way of feeling of such a
vast practical engine as he is. No one sees farther into a
generalization than his own knowledge of details extends, and you have a
greater feeling of weight and solidity about the movement of Agassiz's
mind, owing to the continual presence of this great background of
special facts, than about the mind of any other man I know. He has a
great personal tact too, and I see that in all his talks with me he is
pitching into my loose and superficial way of thinking.... Now that I am
become more intimate with him, and can talk more freely to him, I
delight to be with him. I only saw his defects at first, but now his
wonderful qualities throw them quite in the background. I am convinced
that he is the man to do me good. He will certainly have earned a
holiday when he gets home. I never saw a man work so hard. Physically,
intellectually and socially he has done the work of ten different men
since he has been in Brazil; the only danger is of his overdoing it....
I am beginning to get impatient with the Brazilian sleepiness and
ignorance. These Indians are particularly exasperating by their laziness
and stolidity. It would be amusing if it were not so infuriating to see
how impossible it is to make one hurry, no matter how imminent the
emergency. How queer and how exhilarating all those home letters were,
with their accounts of what every one was doing, doing, doing. To me,
just awakening from my life of forced idleness and from an atmosphere of
Brazilian inanity, it seemed as if a little window had been opened and a
life-giving blast of one of our October nor'westers had blown into my
lungs for half an hour. I had no idea before of the real greatness of
American energy. They wood up the steamer here for instance at the rate
(accurately counted) of eight to twelve logs a minute. It takes them two
and one-half hours to put in as much wood as would go in at home in less
than fifteen minutes.
[Illustration: A Pencil Sketch from a Pocket Note-Book.]
Every note from home makes me proud of our country.... I have not been
able to look at the papers, but I have heard a good deal. I do hope our
people will not be such fools as to hang Jeff. Davis for treason. Can
any one believe in revenge now? And if not for that, for what else
should we hang the poor wretch? Lincoln's violent death did more to
endear him to those indifferent and unfriendly to him than the whole
prosperous remainder of his life could have done; and so will Jeff's
if he is hung. Poor old Abe! What is it that moves you so about his
simple, unprejudiced, unpretending, honest career? I can't tell why, but
albeit unused to the melting mood, I can hardly ever think of Abraham
Lincoln without feeling on the point of blubbering. Is it that he seems
the representative of pure simple human nature against all conventional
additions?...
_To his Parents._
TEFFÉ (AMAZON), _Oct. 21, 1865_.
...I left the party up at Saõ Paulo the 20th of last month and got here
the 16th of this, having gone up two rivers, the Içá and Jutay, and made
collections of fishes which were very satisfactory to the Prof. as they
contained almost one hundred new species. On the whole it was a most
original month, and one which from its strangeness I shall remember to
my dying day; much discomfort from insects and rain, much ecstasy from
the lovely landscape, much hard work and heat, a very disagreeable
companion, J---- [added to the party in Brazil], the very best of fare,
turtle and fresh fish every day, and running through all a delightful
savor of freedom and gypsy-hood which sweetened all that might have been
unpleasant. We slept on the beaches every night and fraternized with the
Indians, who are socially very agreeable, but mentally a most barren
people. I suppose they are the most exclusively practical race in the
world. When I get home I shall bore you with all kinds of stories about
them. I found the rest of the party at this most beautiful little place
in a wonderful picturesque house. It was right pleasant to meet them
again. The Prof. has been working himself out and is thin and nervous.
That good woman, Mrs. Agassiz, is perfectly well. The boys, poor
fellows, have all their legs in an awful condition from a kind of mite
called "muguim" which gets under the skin and makes dreadful sores. You
can't walk in the woods without getting them on you, and poor Hunney
[Hunnewell] is ulcerated very badly. They have no mosquitoes though
here.
Since last night we have had everything packed--our packing-work, its
volume, its dirtyness, and its misery is wonderful. Twenty-nine full
barrels of specimens from here, and hardly one tight barrel among them.
The burly execrations of the burly Dexter when at the cooper's work
would make your hair shiver. But when a good barrel presents itself,
then the calm joy almost makes amends for the past. Dexter says he has
the same feeling for a decent barrel that he has for a beautiful woman.
When the steamer comes we are going down to Manaos, where we expect the
gunboat which the government has promised the Prof. Dexter and Tal go up
the Rio Negro for a month. The rest of us are going to the Madeira River
in the steamer. I don't know what I shall do exactly, but there will
probably be some canoeing to be done, in which case I'm ready; tho' the
rainy season is beginning, which makes canoe traveling very
uncomfortable. We shall be at Parâ by the middle of December certainly.
I am very anxious to learn whether the New York and Brazilian steamers
are to run. We may learn at Manaos, where there is also a chance for
letters for us, and American papers. Why can't you send the "North
American," with Father's and Harry's articles? It would be worth any
price to me.
* * * * *
_22nd Oct._
On board the old homestead, viz., Steamer Icamiaba. The only haven of
rest we have in this country, and then only when she is in motion; for
when we stop at a place, the Prof. is sure to come around and say how
very desirable it would be to get a large number of fishes from this
place, and willy-nilly you must trudge. I wrote in my last letter
something about the possibility of my wishing to go down South again
with the Professor. I don't think there is any more probability of it
than of my wishing to explore Central Africa. If there is anything I
hate, it is collecting. I don't think it is suited to my genius at all;
but for that very reason this little exercise in it I am having here is
the better for me. I am getting to be very practical, orderly, and
businesslike. That fine disorder which used to prevail in my precincts,
and which used to make Mother heave a beautiful sigh when she entered my
room, is treated by the people with whom I am here as a heinous crime,
and I feel very sensitive and ashamed about it. The 22nd of
October!--what glorious weather you are having at home now, and how we
should all like to be wound up by one day of it! I have often longed for
a good, black, sour, sleety, sloshy winter's day in Washington Street.
Oh, the bliss of standing on such a day half way between Roxbury and
Boston and having all the horse-cars pass you full! It will be splendid
to get home in mid-winter and revel in the cold.
I am delighted to hear how well Wilky is, and to hear from him. I wish
Bob would write me a line--and only one letter from Alice in all this
time--shame! Oh, the lovely white child! How the red man of the forest
would like to hug her to his bosom once more! I proposed, beloved Alice,
to write thee a long letter by this steamer describing my wonderful
adventures with the wild Indians, and the tiger [jaguar?], and various
details which interest thy lovely female mind; but I feel so darned
heavy and seedy this morning that I cannot pump up the flow of words,
and the letter goes on with the steamer from Manaos this evening. This
expedition has been far less adventurous and far more picturesque than
I expected. I have not yet seen a single snake wild here. The adventure
with the tiger consisted in his approaching to within 30 paces of our
mosquito net, and roaring so as to wake us, and then keeping us awake
most of the rest of the night by roaring far and near. I confess I felt
some skeert, on being suddenly awoke by him, tho' when I had laid me
down I had mocked the apprehensions of Tal about tigers. The adventure
with the wild Indians consisted in our seeing two of them naked at a
distance on the edge of the forest. On shouting to them in Lingoa Geral
they ran away. It gave me a very peculiar and unexpected thrilling
sensation to come thus suddenly upon these children of Nature. But I now
tell you in confidence, my beloved white child, what you must not tell
any of the rest of the family (for it would spoil the adventure), that
we discovered a few hours later that these wild Indians were a couple of
mulattoes belonging to another canoe, who had been in bathing.
I shall have to stop now. Do you still go to school at Miss Clapp's? For
Heaven's sake write to me, Bal! Tell Harry if he sees [John] Bancroft to
tell him Bourkhardt is much better, having found an Indian remedy of
great efficacy. Please give my best love to the Tweedies, Temples,
Washburns, La Farges, Paine, Childs, Elly Van Buren and in fact
everybody who is in any way connected with me. Best of love to Aunt
Kate, Wilk and Bob, Harry and all the family. I pine for Harry's
literary _efforts_ and to see a number or so of the "Nation." You can't
send too many magazines or papers--Care of James B. Bond, Parâ.
W. J.
IV
1866-1867
_Medical Studies at Harvard_
JAMES returned from Brazil in March, 1866, and immediately entered the
Massachusetts General Hospital for a summer's service as undergraduate
interne. In the autumn he left the Hospital and resumed his studies in
the Harvard Medical School.
The Faculty of the School then included Dr. O. W. Holmes and Professor
Jeffries Wyman. Charles Ed. Brown-Séquard was lecturing on the pathology
of the nervous system. During the years of James's interrupted course a
number of men attended the school who were to be his friends and
colleagues for many years thereafter--among them William G. Farlow,
subsequently Professor of Cryptogamic Botany and a Cambridge neighbor
for forty years, and Charles P. Putnam and James J. Putnam--two brothers
in whose company he was later to spend many Adirondack vacations and to
whom he became warmly attached. Henry P. Bowditch, whose instinct for
physiological inquiry was already vigorous, and who was destined to
become a leader of research in America, and the teacher and inspirer of
a generation of younger investigators, was another Medical School
contemporary with whom he formed an enduring friendship.
The instruction given in the Harvard Medical School in the sixties was
as good as any obtainable in America, but it fell short of what is
nowadays reckoned as essential for a medical education to an extent that
none but a modern student of medicine can understand. The emphasis was
still on lectures, demonstrations and reading, and the pupil's rôle was
an almost completely passive one. James, according to the testimony of
one of his classmates, made a solitary exception to the practice of the
class by attempting to keep a graphic record of his microscopic studies
in histology and pathology. When questioned about this long after, he
admitted that he believed himself to have been the only student of his
time in the Medical School who took the trouble to make drawings from
the microscopic field with regularity.
The teaching of Pasteur and Lister had not then revolutionized medicine.
Modern bacteriology and the possibilities of aseptic surgery were yet to
be understood. Surgeons who operated in the amphitheatre of the
Massachusetts General Hospital could still take pride in appearing in
blood-soiled gowns, much as a fisherman scorns a brand-new outfit and
sports his weather-rusted old clothes. The demonstrations of even Dr.
Henry J. Bigelow, a skillful operator who was then a leader in his
profession, filled James with a horror which he never forgot.
On the other hand, the discovery of anesthesia, which made possible an
enlarged and humane use of animals for experimental inquiry, and such
illuminating reports and investigations as those of Claude Bernard,
Helmholtz, Virchow and Ludwig were giving a great impetus to the
investigation of bodily processes and functions, and a study of these
was a possible next step in James's evolution. He had already been
unusually well grounded in comparative anatomy by Agassiz and Jeffries
Wyman. He was gravitating surely, even if he did not yet realize it
clearly, toward philosophy. Whenever he more or less consciously
projected himself forward, it must have seemed to him that the
examination of processes in the living body, for which he was already
prepared, might be related, in an enlightening way, to the philosophic
pursuits that were beginning to invite him. Physiology therefore
commanded both his respect and his curiosity, and he turned in that
direction rather than toward what he then saw surgery and the practice
of internal medicine to be.
During the winter of 1866-67 he lived with his parents in the house[32]
in Quincy Street, Cambridge, in which they had settled themselves, and
worked regularly at the Medical School. He had come back from the year
of mere animal existence on the Amazon in excellent physical condition.
Of the four letters which follow, two were written to Thomas W. Ward,
who, it will be remembered, had been a member of the Amazon Expedition,
and who, after getting back to New York, had entered the great Baring
banking house of which his father, Samuel Ward, was the American
partner. O. W. Holmes, Jr., will be recognized as the present Associate
Justice of the United States Supreme Court. In no one did James find
more sympathetic philosophic companionship at this period.
_To Thomas W. Ward._
BOSTON, _Mar. 27, 1866_.
MEO CARO COMPADRE,--I have been intending to write you every night for
the last month, but the strange epistolary inertia which always weighs
down upon me has kept me from it until now. I have had news of you two
or three times from my father having met yours, and from Dexter, who
said he had met you in New York. I am very curious to know how you find
your occupation to suit you, and if you find the dust of daily drudgery
to obscure at all the visions of your far-off-future power. From what
Dexter said I am afraid they do a little. We had given up Allen[33] as
gone to the fishes; but the poor Devil arrived last week after a
98-days' passage!!! I never felt gladder for anything in my life. He had
a horrible time at sea, being within 160 miles of New York and then
blown back as far as St. Thomas. He says most of his collections arrived
at Bahia spoiled by the sun. He was sixteen days crossing a limestone
desert on which nothing grew but cacti; so there was no shade at noon,
and the thermometer at 98°. His health has been improved by the voyage,
however, and he thinks it is better now than when he left for Brazil.
Nevertheless he is going to give up natural history for the present and
adopt some out-of-door life till he gets decidedly better, which he says
he has been slowly but steadily doing for some years past. Poor Allen!
None of us have been sold as badly as he. If I had not been to Brazil, I
would go again to do what I have done, knowing beforehand what it would
be. Allen says _he_ would not, on any account.
I have been studying now for about two weeks, and think I shall be much
more interested in it than before. It was some time before I could get
settled down to reading. But now I do it quite naturally, and even
_thinking_ is beginning not to feel like a wholly abnormal process; all
which, as you may imagine, is very agreeable--altho' I confess that as
yet the philosophical _rouages_ of my mind have not attained even to the
degree of lubrication they had before I left. I shan't apologize for the
egotistical pronoun, for I suppose, my dear old Thomas, that you will be
interested to compare my experience since my return with yours, and
learn something from it if possible--even as I would with yours. I spent
the first month of my return in nothing but "social intercourse," having
the two Temple girls and Elly Van Buren in the house for a fortnight,
and being obliged to escort them about to parties, etc., nearly every
night. The consequences were a falling in love with every girl I
met--succeeded now by a reaction which makes me, and will make me for a
long time, decline every invitation. I feel now somehow as if I had
settled down upon a steady track that I shall not have much temptation
to slip off of, for a good many months at any rate. I am conscious of a
desire I never had before so strongly or so permanently, of narrowing
and deepening the channel of my intellectual activity, of economizing my
feeble energies and consequently treating with more _respect_ the few
things I shall devote them to. This temper may be a transient one; mais
pour peu qu'il dure un an ou deux, to fix the shorter term! I'm sure it
will give a tone to my mind it lacked before. As for the disrespect with
which you treat the worthy problems that you turn your back upon, I
don't see now exactly how you get over that; but something tells me
that, practically, my salvation depends for the present on following
some such plan. And, I am sure that, in the majority of men at any rate,
the process of growing into a calm mental state is not one of leveling,
but of going around, difficulties. The problem they solve is not one of
being, but of method. They reach a point from which the view within
certain limits is harmonious, and they keep within those limits; they
find as it were a centre of oscillation in which they may be at rest.
Now whether any other kind of solution is possible, I don't know. Many
men will say not; but I feel somehow, now, as if I had no right to an
opinion on any subject, no right to open my mouth before others until I
know some _one_ thing as thoroughly as it can be known, no matter how
insignificant it may be. After that I shall perhaps be able to think on
general subjects.--The only fellow here I care anything about is
Holmes, who is on the whole a first-rate article, and one which improves
by wear. He is perhaps too exclusively intellectual, but sees things so
easily and clearly and talks so admirably that it's a treat to be with
him. T. S. Perry is also flourishing in health and spirits. Ed[ward]
Emerson I have not yet seen. I made the acquaintance the other day of
Miss Fanny Dixwell of Cambridge (the eldest), do you know her? She is
decidedly AI, and (so far) the best girl I have known. I should like if
possible to confine my whole life to her, Ellen Hooper, Sara
Sedgwick,[34] Holmes, Harry, and the Medical School, for an indefinite
period, letting no breath of extraneous air enter.
There, I hope that's a confession of faith. I wish you would write me a
similar or even more "developed" one, for I really want to know how the
building up into flesh and blood of the wide-sweeping plans that the
solitudes of Brazil gave birth to seems to alter them. Write soon, and
I'll answer soon; for I think, Chéri de Thomas, que ce doux commerce que
nous avons mené tant d'années ought not all of a sudden to die out. I'd
give a great deal to see you, but see no prospect of getting to New York
for a long time. Our family spends six months at Swampscott from the
first of May. I shall have a room in town. What chance is there of your
being able to pay us a visit at Swampscott in my vacation (from July 15
to Sept. 15)? Ever your friend
WM. JAMES.
_To Thomas W. Ward._
BOSTON, _June 8, 1866_.
CHÉRI DE THOMAS,--I cannot exactly say I _hasten_ to reply to your
letter. I have thought of you about every day since I received it, and
given you a Brazilian hug therewith, and wanted to write to you; but
having been in a pretty unsettled theoretical condition myself, from
which I hoped some positive conclusions might emerge worthy to be
presented to you as the last word on the Kosmos and the human soul, I
deferred writing from day to day, thinking that better than to offer you
the crude and premature spawning of my intelligence. In vain! the
conclusions never have emerged, and I see that, if I am _ever_ to write
you, I must do it on the spur of the moment, with all my dullness thick
upon me.
I have just read your letter over again, and am grieved afresh at your
melancholy tone about yourself. You ask why I am quiet, while you are so
restless. Partly from the original constitution of things, I suppose;
partly because I am less quiet than you suppose; only I once heard a
proverb about a man consuming his own smoke, and I do so particularly in
your presence because you, being so much more turbid, produce a reaction
in me; partly because I am a few years older than you, and have not
solved, but grown callous (I hear your sneer) to, many of the problems
that now torture you. The _chief_ reason is the original constitution of
things, which generated me with fewer sympathies and wants than you, and
also perhaps with a certain tranquil confidence in the right ordering of
the Whole, which makes me indifferent in some circumstances where you
would fret. Yours the nobler, mine the happier part! I _think_, too,
that much of your uneasiness comes from that to which you allude in your
letter--your oscillatoriness, and your regarding each oscillation as
something final as long as it lasts. There is nothing more certain than
that every man's life (except perhaps Harry Quincy's) is a line that
continuously oscillates on every side of its direction; and if you
would be more confident that any state of tension you may at any time
find yourself in will inevitably relieve _itself_, sooner or later, you
would spare yourself much anxiety. I myself have felt in the last six
months more and more certain that each man's constitution limits him to
a certain amount of emotion and action, and that, if he insists on going
under a higher pressure than normal for three months, for instance, he
will pay for it by passing the next three months below par. So the best
way is to keep moving steadily and regularly, as your mind becomes thus
deliciously appeased (as you imagine mine to be; ah! Tom, what damned
fools we are!). If you feel below par now, don't think your life is
deserting you forever. You are just as sure to be up again as you are,
when elated, sure to be down again. Six months, or any given cycle of
time, is sure to see you produce a certain amount, and your fretful
anxiety when in a stagnant mood is frivolous. The good time will come
again, as it has come; and go too. I think we ought to be independent of
our moods, look on them as external, for they come to us unbidden, and
feel if possible neither elated nor depressed, but keep our eyes upon
our work and, if we have done the best we could _in that given
condition_, be satisfied.
I don't know whether all this solemn wisdom of mine seems to you
anything better than conceited irrelevance. I began the other day to
read the thoughts of Marcus Aurelius, translated by Long, published by
Ticknor, which, if you have not read, I advise you to read, slowly. I
only read two or three pages a day, and am only half through the book.
He certainly had an invincible soul; and it seems to me that any man who
can, like him, grasp the love of a "life according to nature," _i.e._, a
life in which your individual will becomes so harmonized to nature's
will as cheerfully to acquiesce in whatever she assigns to you, knowing
that you serve _some_ purpose in her vast machinery which will never be
revealed to you--any man who can do this will, I say, be a pleasing
spectacle, no matter what his lot in life. I think old Mark's perpetual
yearnings for patience and equanimity and kindliness would do your heart
good.--I have come to feel lately, more and more (I can't tell though
whether it will be permanent) like paying my footing in the world in a
very humble way, (driving my physicking trade like any other tenth-rate
man), and then living my free life in my leisure hours entirely within
my own breast as a thing the world has nothing to do with; and living it
easily and patiently, without feeling responsible for its future.
I will now, my dear old Tom, stop my crudities. Although these notions
and others have of late led me to a pretty practical contentment, I
cannot help feeling as if I were insulting Heaven by offering them about
as if they had an absolute worth. Still, as I am willing to take them
all back whenever it seems right, you will excuse my apparent conceit.
Besides, they may suggest some practical point of view to you.
The family is at Swampscott. I have a room in Bowdoin Street for the
secular part of the week. We have a very nice house in Swampscott.... I
am anxiously waiting your arrival on Class Day. I expect you to spend
all your time with me either here or in Swampscott, when we shall, I
trust, patch up the Kosmos satisfactorily and rescue it from its present
fragmentary condition....
_To his Sister._
CAMBRIDGE, _Nov. 14, 1866_.
CHÉRIE DE JEUNE BALLE,--I am just in from town in the keen, cold and eke
beauteous moonlight, which by the above qualities makes me think of
thee, to whom, nor to whose aunt, have I (not) yet written. (I don't
understand the grammar of the not.)
Your first question is, "where have I been?" "To C. S. Peirce's lecture,
which I could not understand a word of, but rather enjoyed the sensation
of listening to for an hour." I then turned to O. W. Holmes's and
wrangled with him for another hour.
You may thank your stars that you are not in a place where you have to
ride in such full horse-cars as these. I rode half way out with my
"form" entirely out of the car overhanging the road, my feet alone being
on the same vertical line as any part of the car, there being just room
for them on the step. Aunt Kate may, and probably _will_, have shoot
through her prolific mind the supposish: "How wrong in him to do sich!
for if, while in that posish, he should have a sudden stroke of
paralysis, or faint, his nerveless fingers relaxing their grasp of the
rail, he would fall prostrate to the ground and bust." To which I reply
that, when I go so far as to have a stroke of paralysis, I shall not
mind going a step farther and getting bruised.
Your next question probably is "_how_ are and _where_ are father and
mother?"... I think father seems more lively for a few days past and
cracks jokes with Harry, etc. Mother is recovering from one of her
indispositions, which she bears like an angel, doing any amount of work
at the same time, putting up cornices and raking out the garret-room
like a little buffalo.
Your next question is "wherever is Harry?" I answer: "He is to
Ashburner's, to a tea-squall in favor of Miss Haggerty." I declined. He
is well. We have had nothing but invitations (6) in 3 or 4 days. One, a
painted one, from "Mrs. L----," whoever she may be. I replied that
domestic affliction prevented me from going, but I would take a
pecuniary equivalent instead, viz: To 1 oyster stew 30 cts., 1 chicken
salad 0.50, 1 roll 0.02, 3 ice creams at 20 cts. 0.60, 6 small cakes at
0.05, 0.30, 1 pear $1.50, 1 lb. confectionery 0.50.
6 glasses hock at 0.50 $3.00
3 glasses sherry at 30 0.90
Salad spilt on floor 5.00
Dish of do., broken 3.00
Damage to carpet & Miss L----'s dress frm. do 75.00
3 glasses broken 1.20
Curtains set fire to in dressing-room 40.00
Other injury frm. fire in room 250.00
Injury to house frm. water pumped upon it by
steam fire-engine come to put out fire 5000.00
Miscellaneous 0.35
-------
5300.00
I expect momentarily her reply with a check, and when it comes will take
you and Aunt Kate on a tour in Europe and have you examined by the
leading physicians and surgeons of that country. M---- L---- came out
here and dined with us yesterday of her own accord. I no longer doubt
what I always suspected, her _penchant_ for me, and I don't blame her
for it. Elly Temple staid here two days, too. She scratched, smote,
beat, and kicked me so that I shall dread to meet her again. What an
awful time Bob & Co. must have had at sea! and how anxious you must have
been about them.
With best love to Aunt Kate and yourself believe me your af. bro.
WM. JAMES.
_To O. W. Holmes, Jr._
[A pencil memorandum, Winter of 1866-67?]
Why I'm blest if I'm a Materialist:
The materialist posits an X for his ultimate principle.
Were he satisfied to inhabit this vacuous X, I should not at present try
to disturb him.
But that atmosphere is too rare; so he spends all his time on the road
between it and sensible realities, engaged in the laudable pursuit of
degrading every (sensibly) higher thing into a (sensibly) lower. He thus
accomplishes an immensely great positively conceived and felt result,
and it availeth little to naturalize the sensible impression of this
that he should at the end put in his little caveat that, after all, the
low denomination is as unreal as the unreduced higher ones were. In the
confession of ignorance is nothing which the mind can close upon and
clutch--it's a vanishing negation; while the pretension of knowledge is
full of positive, massively-felt contents. The former kicks the beam.
What balm is it, when instead of my High you have given me a Low, to
tell me that the Low is good for nothing?
If you take my $1000 gold and give me greenbacks, I feel unreconciled
still, even when you have assured me that the greenbacks are
counterfeit. Or what comfort is it to me now to be told that a billion
years hence greenbacks and gold will have the same value? especially
when that is explained to be zero? How anyone can say that this
pennyworth of negation can so balance these tons of affirmation as to
make the naturalist _feel_ like anyone else--I confess it's a mystery to
me.
But as a man's happiness depends on his feeling, I think materialism
inconsistent with a high degree thereof, and in this sense maintained
that a materialist should not be an optimist, using the latter word to
signify one whose philosophy authenticates, by guaranteeing the
objective significance of, his most pleasurable feelings.
You have transferred the question of optimism to a wider field, where I
can't well follow it now. The term would have to be defined first, and
then I think it would take me ten or twelve years of hard study to form
any opinion as to the truth of your second premise.--I send the above
remarks on "materialism," because they were what I was groping for the
other evening, but could not say till you were gone and I in bed. To
conclude:
_Corruptio optimistorum pessima!_
[Illustration: Pencil Sketch from a Pocket Note-Book.]
V
1867-1868
_Eighteen Months in Germany_
IN the spring of 1867 James interrupted his course at the Medical School
again. He was impelled to do this, partly by the pressure of a
conviction that his health required him to stop work or continue
elsewhere under different conditions, and partly by a desire to learn
German and study physiology in the German laboratories. He knew a little
German already, and it seemed reasonable to suppose that if he went
abroad immediately he would have time to familiarize himself with the
language during a pleasant and restful summer and would be ready to
enter one of the universities in the autumn. He sailed in April and
spent the summer in Dresden and Bohemia. But his health became worse
instead of better.
It is unnecessary to detail the record of a long illness by selecting
for this book the passages of his correspondence in which James sooner
or later revealed what his condition was. It would also be idle to
inquire closely about the causes of his illness, considering that, for
one reason, James was completely puzzled and baffled himself. Insomnia,
digestive disorders, eye-troubles, weakness of the back, and sometimes
deep depression of spirits followed each other or afflicted him
simultaneously. If his trouble was in part nervous, it was a reality
none the less. A photograph that was taken of him at about this period
recorded the aspect of a very ill man. If his introspective genius made
things worse for him for a while, it probably did more to pull him
through in the end than the--to our present-day understanding--harsh and
unnecessary treatments, regimens, water-cures, courses of exercise,
galvanisms, and blistering to which he subjected himself.
On the other hand, the illness which began in 1867, and which limited
James's activities and occupations for several years, had another
effect. It overtook him when he was only twenty-five years old, and
threw him heavily upon his inner moral and intellectual resources. It
caught him alone and among strangers, more or less prostrated him, and
defeated his plans just at a time of life when he was beginning, with
the eagerness of youth and philosophic genius combined, to reckon over
each fresh experience into the terms of a possible answer to the riddles
of life and death, predestination, freedom, and responsibility. It gave
a personal intimacy and intensity to the deepest problems that
philosophy and religion can present to man's understanding. This illness
may perhaps have prevented James from becoming a physiological
investigator. But clearly it developed and deepened the bed in which the
stream of his philosophic life was to flow.
He sailed for Europe in April, and went almost directly to Dresden,
where he found quarters in a _pension_ presided over by an amiable Frau
Spannenberg. He spent his mornings, and often his evenings, reading and
studying German. He made an excursion to Bad-Teplitz in Bohemia, but the
"cure" there did not greatly relieve his back, and the baths made him
feel "as if his brain had been boiled,"[35] so he returned to Frau
Spannenberg's. In the early autumn he moved to Berlin, attended a few
lectures at the University there, and read a good deal on the physiology
of the nervous system; but he was unable to work in the laboratories,
and found it expedient to return to Teplitz at the end of January
(1868). What he did thereafter will appear as the letters proceed.
_To his Parents._
DRESDEN, _May 27, 1867_.
...Though I have been just a little over two weeks settled in Dresden, I
hardly know anything about it or about Germany yet. Nothing but
confused, vague and probably erroneous impressions of the people, owing
chiefly to my imperfect knowledge of the language. In the first place
there is not the slightest touch of the romantic, picturesque, or even
_foreign_ about living here. I think there is very little absolutely in
the place to give such impressions, and I think I have outgrown my old
susceptibility to them. Whereas in old times I used to notice every
window, door-handle and smell as having a peculiar and exotic charm,
every old street and house as filled with historic life and mystery,
they are now to me streets and houses and nothing more. The heyday of
youth is o'er! Alack the day! My traveling has been accompanied with
hardly more astonishment or excitement than would accompany a journey to
Chicago....
[Illustration: William James at twenty-five.
From a Photograph]
The place which has most invited me to live in it is Strasburg. The
people all speak both French and German, each with the other's accent,
and the environs are ravishing. The Saxons are a very short and
ill-favored race, both sexes, not light-haired as the Rhinelanders, and
most eccentrically toothed. Many of the young officers, however, are
very good-looking fellows. The poor people wear old greasy caps and
black coats, and no collars, but black cravats as in England, and look
very ugly. The great number of _old_ men and women here has struck me
very much. Can it be that we have so few at home? or do we keep them
indoors? Or do the Germans show their age so much sooner? I know not.
The Americans I have met have been a poor crowd. The English I have seen
have been distinguished by their pure and clean appearance, and by an
awkwardness which in a certain way appeals to your sympathies. They have
the faculty of _blushing_ which is denied to the French and
comparatively to the Germans, and in spite of all my prejudices I feel
more akin to them than to the others.
I have, since I wrote my last letter, led a perfectly monotonous life.
Read all the morning, go out for a walk and a lounge in a concert garden
in the afternoon, and read after tea. I am quite well satisfied with my
progress in the noble German tongue, which has been steady, although,
since the first day I wrote to you about [it], not brilliant. Its
difficulties are I think quite unjustifiably great for a modern
language--it is in fact without _any_ of the modern improvements. I read
the little newspapers, which Dr. Semler takes, carefully from beginning
to end; and what with the other newspapers I see at a reading-room, the
talk I hear, and a little other reading, I have a quite vague and
confused but very wonderful impression of the strange difference between
the whole German way of thinking and ours; and in my as yet crude fancy
it seems to be connected with the grammatical structure of the sentences
and the endless power of making new words by combination. I have just
been reading Hegel's chapter on epic poetry in his "Aesthetik," and
[the] truly monstrous sentences therein were quite a revelation to me.
It seems to me that the expression corresponds much more closely to the
spontaneous and impromptu mode of thought than in our Latinized
tongues--that the language allows and invites speculation and
expatiation without limit. As soon as the first glimmering of an idea
has dawned upon you, there is no reason why you should not begin to
inscribe, for you can wallow round and round as you proceed, affixing
limitations, lugging in definitions and explanations as fast as they
suggest each other, and need never go back to reshape your beginning.
While with us you will, as a rule, come to grief if you begin your
sentence without a pretty distinct idea of what the whole is going to
be. Then the endless power of word-multiplication by composition, and of
making adjectives of whole phrases must allow you to _fix_, and to fix
in a most homely, pregnant form, a host of evanescent shades of meaning
(most of which would with us be lost), as fast as they flash upon the
mind. And from these successive approximations the final form of the
thought may be more easily and surely distilled than if it had to be all
formed in one's head before it could get even an approximate expression.
However, I don't pretend to say that these hasty impressions are
correct. They may be the mere creations of a distempered fancy. At any
rate, I am sure that German is the native tongue of all Wilky-isms, and
that in Germany [Wilky] would be one of the first authors of the age for
style. The mischief of it is that, instead of using these approximations
as such, the people let them stand permanently, and as they can make
them with so little trouble, there arises in literature and talk an
entangled mass of crudity and barbarism that spoils everything. They get
accustomed to such elephantine ways of saying things that they don't
mind it at all, and I have had more amusement out of the newspaper than
I ever derived from the text of "Punch." I wish I could remember some of
the expressions. Yesterday, for instance, the paper said the Emperor of
Austria's message was more _atomistisch_ than _dynamisch_--this, in a
peppery little political article, shows what scholastic expressions the
people are accustomed to. The context gave no explanation. Then, a
couple of days ago, in a review of some histories of German literature,
the surprising depth of one author was praised, altho' it was granted
"that _here and there_ he had not succeeded in lighting up the ultimate
life-spring (_Lebensgrund_) of the phenomena." Of another that "_without
entirely losing sight of what was human_ (_menschlich_) in the
phenomena, he had accomplished a work of extraordinarily logical
development and luminous procedure (_Gang_)." Imagine entirely leaving
out the human in a history of _literature_!...
* * * * *
_May 30._
The pleasant spinster from Hamburg I mentioned in my last letter as
being so well read, has, I find, "drawn the line" of her information at
geography and physical science. She comes out strong in Sanscrit and
Greek literature (which she knows of course by translations), and in
church history, but she drives me frantic by her endless talking about
America, in the course of which she continually leaps without any
warning from New York to Rio de Janeiro and thence to Valparaiso. She
has friends in each of these localities, and it is apparently a fixed
conviction of hers that they take tea together every evening. At first I
tried to show her that these places were all far apart and that the ways
of one were not those of the others, and from her apparent comprehension
and submission I used to fancy I had succeeded; but it was only the
elastic and transient bowing of the reed before the gale. A rather
amusing incident occurred the other evening. I was speaking of the
different classes of people that made up our population, and endeavoring
to give a keen analysis of the Irish character, when she asked me to
tell her something about a people we had with us called "Yankees," about
whom she had heard such strange stories, and who seemed to be, if
report were true, of all the peoples in the world the very worst (_das
allerschlimmste_). What was their genesis and what were they? Imagine
the feelings of the poor old lady, who had asked the question merely
from a wish to please me by her intelligent interest in our affairs,
when the truth was told her....
The other afternoon I fell into conversation with a tall and rather
aristocratic-looking old gentleman with a gray moustache, who spoke very
good French, at a beer garden, and found out afterwards that he was no
less a person than the illustrious Kaulbach. Strangely enough, we quite
accidentally got on the subject of the Gallery. He spoke of several of
the pictures, but said nothing that was not commonplace. I have as yet
only had a mere glimpse at the Gallery, but will do it thoroughly before
I leave. I'd give anything if Harry could see some of the Venetian
things there, and the Shepherds' Adoration of Correggio, which he
probably knows, or rather _méconnaît_, by prints which give nought but
the rather unpleasant and, unless you are let into the secret,
motivelessly eccentric drawing. But it would take Victor Hugo to find
the proper antithetic epithets to describe the combined gladness and
solemnity of the painting, its innocence and its depth. I have always
had, I don't know why, a prejudice against Correggio; but I never saw a
painting before that breathed out so easily such a moral poetry. It
seems to me to kill Rafael's celebrated Madonna right out. Although that
too is a good "piece." I find myself in the Gallery much too disposed to
exalt one thing at the expense of its neighbors, which is very unjust to
them; but by taking it easily and letting the pictures do their own work
I think it will all come right. Mr. Paul Veronese had _eyes_, anyhow. I
am sure it would be the making of John La Farge to come abroad, alone,
if no other way. Dis lui, Henry, que je lui écrirai tantôt à ce sujet.
I have been having a literary debauch to start in the language with, but
am getting down again to medicine. The enthusiastic, oratorical and
eloquent Schiller, the wise and exquisite Goethe, and the virile and
human Lessing have in turn held me entranced by their _Dramal_. Je te
recommande, Henry, "Emilia Galotti" comme étude. C'est serré comme du
chêne, rapide comme l'avalanche, toute la retenue et la vigueur de
Merimée, et au fond un gros coeur dont la tendresse comprimée
n'échappe que par des phrases dont la sobriété même déchire, ou bien par
du bitter irony. Lessing seems to have a religious feeling that people
miss in Goethe, and seems to be a great deal deeper than Schiller,
though, of course, he is a far more homespun character. I have been
reading Goethe's "Italienische Reise." It is perfectly fascinating; but
you can read very little of it at a time, it is so damnably tedious, and
you can't bear to skip. Paradoxical as it may appear, there is a deal of
_naïveté_ in the old cuss. Attends donc un peu que mon grand article sur
Goethe apparaisse dans "L'Américain du Nord!"
I expect T. S. Perry here in a fortnight on his way from Venice. You may
imagine with what joy. I have just been interrupted by the supper, which
takes place at nine P.M. and consists of beer, eggs, herrings, ham, and
bread and butter, and is not displeasing to the carnal man. I have been
writing a most infernally long letter, for which I apologize. It will be
the last time. The fact is I have so few resources here that I am driven
to write. Tell Alice that there are two Miss Twomblys from Boylston
Street living here, one exceedingly pretty. She doubtless, by her
feminine system of espionage, knows who they are, though I know none of
their friends and they none of mine. I got mother's letter and the
"Nation" with great joy soon after my arrival. I read Father's article,
but with much the old result. I am desirous of reading his article in
the N. A. R. and hope he will not delay to send it when it appears.
Heaps of love all round.
_To his Mother._
DRESDEN, _June 12, 1867_.
DEAREST MOTHER,--I have been reading a considerable deal of German, and
in a very desultory way, as I want to get accustomed to a variety of
styles, so as to be able to read any book at sight, skipping the
useless; and I may say that I now begin to have that power whenever the
book is writ in a style at all adapted to the requirements of the human,
as distinguished from the German, mind. The profounder and more
philosophical German requires, however, that you should bring all the
resources of your nature, of every kind, to a focus, and hurl them again
and again on the sentence, till at last you feel something give way, as
it were, and the Idea begins to unravel itself. As for speaking, that is
a very different matter and advances much more slowly....
Life is so monotonous in this place that unless I make some
philosophical discoveries, or unless _something_ happens, my letters
will have to be both few and short. I get up and have breakfast, which
means a big cup of cocoa and some bread and butter with an egg, if I
want it, at eight. I read till half-past one, when dinner, which is
generally quite a decent meal; after dinner a nap, more _Germanorum_ and
more read till the sun gets low enough to go out, when out I
go--generally to the Grosser Garten, a lovely park outside the town
where the sun slants over the greenest meadows and sends his shafts
between the great trees in a most wholesome manner. There are some spots
where the trees are close together, and in their classic gloom you find
mossy statues, so that you feel as if you belonged to the last century.
Often I go and sit on a terrace which overlooks the Elbe and, with my
eyes bent upon the lordly cliffs far down the river on the other side,
with strains of the sweetest music in my ear, and with pint after pint
of beer successively finding their way into the fastnesses of my
interior, I enjoy most delightful reveries, _au nombre desquels_ those
concerning my home and my sister are not the least frequent.
In the house (which stands on a corner) my great resource when time
hangs heavy on my hands is to sit in the window and examine my
neighbors. The houses are all four stories high and composed of separate
flats, as in Paris. I live in the 3me. Diagonally opposite is a young
ladies' boarding-school where the _young_ ladies, very young they are,
are wont to relax from their studies by kissing their hands, etc., etc.,
etc., to a young English lout, who has been here in the house, and
myself. Said lout left for England yesterday, for which I heartily thank
him, and I shall now monopolize the attention of the school. We rather
_had_ them, for we had a telescope to observe them by. Not one was
good-looking. There has, however, lately arisen in the Christian
Strasse, just under my window, a most ravishing apparition, and I begin
to think my heart will not wither wholly away. About eighteen, hair like
night, and _such_ eyes! Their mute-appealing, love-lorn look goes
through and through me. Every day for the last week, after dinner, have
I sat in my window and she in hers. I with the telescope! she with those
eyes! and we communing with each other!! I will try to make a likeness
of her and send with this letter, but I may not succeed.[36] She has
only one defect, which is the length of her nose. If that were only an
inch and a half shorter, I should propose at once to her Mother for it;
but religious difference might intervene, so it is better as it is.
I am expecting T. S. Perry any day now, you may imagine how
impatiently.... Tell Harry I have been reading some essays by Fr. Theod.
Vischer, the _bedeutende Esthetiker_, on Strauss, on Goethe's "Faust"
and its critics, etc., etc., which have much interested me. He is a
splendid writer for style and matter--as brilliant as any of the
non-absolutely-harlequin Frenchmen. The foundation of the thought is, or
at least appears to be to my untutored mind, Hegelian; but they were
published in 1844 and he may have changed. His "Aesthetik" henceforward
appears in the list of "books which I must some day read." Some of the
commentaries there quoted on "Faust" are incredibly monstrous for
ponderous imbecility and seeing everything in the universe and out of
it, except the point. I read this morning an Essay of Kuno Fischer's on
Lessing's "Nathan"--one of the parasitic and analytic sort on the whole,
but still very readable. The way these cusses slip so fluently off into
the "Ideal," the "Jenseitige," the "Inner," etc., etc., and undertake to
give a _logical_ explanation of everything which is so palpably trumped
up _after_ the facts, and the reasoning of which is so grotesquely
incapable of going an inch into the future, is both disgusting and
disheartening. You never saw such a mania for going deep into the bowels
of truth, with such an absolute lack of intuition and perception of the
skin thereof. To hear the grass grow from morn till night is their
happy occupation. There is something that strikes me as corrupt,
immodest in this incessant taste for explaining things in this
mechanical way; but the era of it may be past now--I don't know. I speak
only of æsthetic matters, of course. The political moment both here and
in Austria is extremely interesting to one who has a political sense,
and even I am beginning to have an opinion--and one all in favor of
Prussia's victory and supremacy as a great practical stride towards
civilization. I think the French tone in the last quarrel deserved a
degrading and stinging humiliation as much as anything in history ever
did, and I'm very sorry they did not get it. Of course there's no end of
bunkum and inflation here, too, but it is practically a healthy
thing....
_To his Father._
BERLIN, _Sept. 5, 1867_.
MY BELOVED OLD DAD,--...I think it will be just as well for you not to
say anything to any of the others about what I shall tell you of my
condition hitherto, as it will only give them useless pain, and poor
Harry especially (who evidently from his letters runs much into that
utterly useless emotion, sympathy, with me) had better remain
ignorant.... My confinement to my room and inability to indulge in any
social intercourse drove me necessarily into reading a great deal, which
in my half-starved and weak condition was very bad for me, making me
irritable and tremulous in a way I have never before experienced. Two
evenings which I spent out, one at Gerlach's, the other at Thies's,
aggravated my dorsal symptoms very much, and as I still clung to the
hope of amelioration from repose, I avoided going out to the houses
where it was possible. Although I cannot exactly say that I got
low-spirited, yet thoughts of the pistol, the dagger and the bowl began
to usurp an unduly large part of my attention, and I began to think that
some change, even if a hazardous one, was necessary. It was at that time
that Dr. Carus advised Teplitz. While there, owing to the weakening
effects of the baths, both back and stomach got worse if anything; but
the beautiful country and a number of drives which I thought myself
justified in taking made me happy as a king.... I have purposely
hitherto written fallacious accounts of my state home, to produce a
pleasant impression on you all--but you may rely on the present one as
literally certain, and as it makes the others after all only
_premature_, I don't see what will be the use of impairing the family
confidence in my letters by saying anything about it to them. I have no
doubt that you will consider the Teplitz expenditure justified, as I do.
My sickness has added some other items in the way of medicine and cab
hire to the expenses of my life in Dresden, but nothing _very_
considerable. So much for biz.
I have read your article, which I got in Teplitz, several times
carefully. I must confess that the darkness which to me has always hung
over what you have written on these subjects is hardly at all cleared
up. Every sentence seems written from a point of view which I nowhere
get within range of, and on the other hand ignores all sorts of
questions which are visible from my present view. My questions, I know,
belong to the Understanding, and I suppose deal entirely with the
"natural constitution" of things; but I find it impossible to step out
from them into relation with "spiritual" facts, and the very language
you use _ontologically_ is also so extensively rooted in the finite and
phenomenal that I cannot avoid accepting it as it were in its mechanical
sense, when it becomes to me devoid of significance. I feel myself in
fact more and more drifting towards the sensationalism closed in by
skepticism--but the skepticism will keep bursting out in the very midst
of it, too, from time to time; so that I cannot help thinking I may one
day get a glimpse of things through the ontological window. At present
it is walled up. I can understand now no more than ever the world-wide
gulf you put between "Head" and "Heart"; to me they are inextricably
entangled together, and seem to grow from a common stem--and _no_ theory
of creation seems to me to make things clearer. I cannot logically
understand _your_ theory. You posit first a phenomenal Nature in which
the _alienation_ is produced (but phenomenal to _what_? to the already
unconsciously existing creature?), and from this effected alienation a
_real_ movement of return follows. But how _can_ the real movement have
its rise in the phenomenal? And if it does not, it seems to me the
creation is the very arbitrary one you inveigh against; and the whole
process is a mere circle of the creator described within his own being
and returning to the starting-point. I cannot understand what you mean
by the descent of the creator into nature; you don't explain it, and it
seems to be the kernel of the whole.
You speak sometimes of our natural life as our whole conscious life;
sometimes of our consciousness as composed of both elements, finite and
infinite. If our _real_ life is unconscious, I don't see how you can
occupy in the final result a different place from the Stoics, for
instance. These are points on which I have never understood your
position, and they will doubtless make you smile at my stupidity; but I
cannot help it. I ought not to write about them in such a hurry, for I
have been expecting every moment to see Tom Dwight come in, with whom I
promised to go to the theatre. I arrived here late last night. My back
will prevent my studying physiology this winter at Leipsig, which I
rather hoped to do. I shall stay here if I can. If unable to live here
and cultivate the society of the natives without a greater moral and
dorsal effort than my shattered frame will admit, I will retreat to
Vienna where, knowing so many Americans, I shall find social relaxation
without much expense of strength. Dwight has come. Much love from your
affectionate,
WM. JAMES.
_To O. W. Holmes, Jr._
BERLIN, _Sept. 17, 1867_.
MY DEAR WENDLE,--I was put in the possession, this morning, by a
graceful and unusual attention on the part of the postman, of a letter
from home containing, amongst other valuable matter, a precious specimen
of manuscript signed "O. W. H. Jr." covering just one page of small note
paper belonging to a letter written by Minny Temple!!!!! Now I myself am
not proud,--poverty, misery and philosophy have together brought me to a
pass where there are few actions so shabby that I would not commit them
if thereby I could relieve in any measure my estate, or lighten the
trouble of living,--but, by Jove, Sir! there _is_ a point, _sunt_ certi
denique fines, down to which it seems to me hardly worth while to
condescend--better give up altogether.--I do not intend any personal
application. Men differ, thank Heaven! and there may be some constituted
in such a fearful and wonderful manner, that to write to a friend after
six months, in another person's letter, hail him as "one of the pillars
on which life rests," and after twelve lines stop short, seems to them
an action replete with beauty and credit. To me it is otherwise. And if
perchance, O Wendy boy, there lurked in any cranny of _thy_ breast a
spark of consciousness, a germ of shame at the paltriness of thy
procedure as thou inditedst that pitiful apology for a letter, I would
fain fan it, nourish it, till thy whole being should become one
incarnate blush, one crater of humiliation. Mind, I should not have
found fault with you if you had not written at all. There would have
been a fine brutality about that which would have commanded respect
rather than otherwise--certainly not _pity_. 'Tis that, _writing_, THAT
should be the result. Bah!
But I will change the subject, as I do not wish to provoke you to
recrimination in your next letter. Let it be as substantial and
succulent as the last, with its hollow hyperbolic expression of esteem,
was the opposite, and I assure you that the past shall be forgotten.--I
am, as you have probably been made aware, "a mere wreck," bodily. I left
home without telling anyone about it, because, hoping I might get well,
I wanted to keep it a secret from Alice and the boys till it was over. I
thought of telling you "in confidence," but refrained, partly because
walls have ears, partly from a morbid pride, mostly because of the habit
of secrecy that had grown on me in six months. I dare say Harry has kept
you supplied with information respecting my history up to the present
time, and perhaps read you portions of my letters. My history, internal
and external, since I have been in Germany, has been totally uneventful.
The external, with the exception of three R. R. voyages (to and from
Teplitz and to Berlin), resembles that of a sea anemone; and the
internal, notwithstanding the stimulus of a new language and country,
has contracted the same hue of stagnation. A tedious egotism seems to be
the only mental plant that flourishes in sickness and solitude; and when
the bodily condition is such that muscular and cerebral activity not
only remain _unexcited_, but are _solicited_, by an idiotic hope of
recovery, to crass indolence, the "elasticity" of one's spirits can't be
expected to be very great. Since I have been here I have admired Harry's
pluck more and more. _Pain_, however intense, is light and life,
compared to a condition where hibernation would be the ideal of conduct,
and where your "conscience," in the form of an aspiration towards
recovery, rebukes every tendency towards motion, excitement or life as a
culpable excess. The deadness of spirit thereby produced "must be felt
to be appreciated."
I have been in this city ten days and hope to stay all winter. I have
got a comfortable room near the University and will attempt to follow
some of the lectures. My wish was to study physiology practically, but I
shall not be able. The number of subjects and fractions of subjects on
which courses of lectures are given here and at the other universities
would make you stare. Berlin is a "live" place, with a fine, tall,
intelligent-looking population, infinitely better-looking than that of
Dresden. I like the Germans very much, so far (which is not far at all)
as I have got to know them. The apophthegm, "a fat man consequently a
good man," has much of truth in it. The Germans come out strong on their
abdomens,--even when these are not vast in capacity, one feels that they
are of mighty powerful construction, and play a much weightier part in
the economy of the man than with us,--affording a massive, immovable
background to the consciousness, over which, as on the surface of a deep
and tranquil sea, the motley images contributed by the other senses to
life's drama glide and play without raising more than a pleasant
ripple,--while with _us_, who have no such voluminous background, they
forever touch bottom, or come out on the other side, or kick up such a
tempest and fury that we enjoy no repose. The Germans have leisure,
kindness to strangers, a sort of square honesty, and an absence of false
shame and damned pecuniary pretension that makes intercourse with them
very agreeable. The language is infernal; and I seem to be making no
progress beyond the stage in which one just begins to misunderstand and
to make one's self misunderstood. The scientific literature is even
richer than I thought. In literature proper, Goethe's "Faust" seems to
me almost worth learning the language for.
I wish I could communicate to you some startling discoveries regarding
our dilapidated old friend the Kosmos, made since I have been here. But
I actually haven't had a fresh idea. And my reading until six weeks ago,
having been all in German, covered very little ground. For the past six
weeks I have, by medical order, been relaxing my brain on French
fiction, and am just returning to the realities of life, German and
Science. If you want to be consoled, refreshed, and reconciled to the
Kosmos, the whole from a strictly abdominal point of view, read "L'Ami
Fritz," and "Les Confessions d'un Joueur de Clarinette," etc., by
Erckmann-Chatrian. They are books of gold, so don't read them till you
are just in the mood and all other wisdom is of no avail. Then they will
open the skies to you.
On looking back over this letter I perceive I have unwittingly been
betrayed into a more gloomy tone than I intended, and than would convey
a faithful impression of my usual mental condition--in which occur
moments of keen enjoyment. The contemplation of my letter of credit
alone makes me chuckle for hours. If I ever have leisure I will write an
additional Bridgewater, illustrating the Beneficence and Ingenuity,
etc., in providing me with a letter of credit when so many poor devils
have none. There, I have again unintentionally fallen into a vein of
irony--I do not mean it. I am full of hope in the future.
My back, etc., are far better since I have been in Teplitz; in fact I
feel like a new man. I have several excellent letters to people here,
and when they return from the country, when T. S. Perry arrives for the
winter, when the lectures get a-going, and I get thinking again, when
long letters from you and the rest of my "_friends_" (ha! ha!) arrive
regularly at short intervals--I shall mock the state of kings. You had
better believe I have thought of you with affection at intervals since I
have been away, and prized your qualities of head, heart, and person,
and my priceless luck in possessing your confidence and friendship in a
way I never did at home; and cursed myself that I didn't make more of
you when I was by you, but, like the base Indian, threw evening after
evening away which I might have spent in your bosom, sitting in your
whitely-lit-up room, drinking in your profound wisdom, your golden
jibes, your costly imagery, listening to your shuddering laughter,
baptizing myself afresh, in short, in your friendship--the thought of
all this makes me even now forget your epistolary peculiarities. But
pray, my dear old Wendell, let me have _one_ letter from you--tell me
how your law business gets on, of your adventures, thoughts, discoveries
(even though but of mares' nests, they will be interesting to your
Williams); books read, good stories heard, girls fallen in love
with--nothing can fail to please me, except your failing to write.
Please give my love to John Gray, Jim Higginson and Henry Bowditch. Tell
H. B. I will write to him very soon; but that is no reason why he should
not write to me without waiting, and tell me about himself and medicine
in Boston. Give my very best regards also to your father, mother and
sister. And believe me ever your friend,
WM. JAMES.
P. S. Why can't you write me the result of your study of the _vis viva_
question? I have not thought of it since I left. I wish very much you
would, if the trouble be not too great. Anyhow you could write the
central formulas without explication, and oblige yours. Excuse the
scrawliness of this too hurriedly written letter.
_To Henry James._
BERLIN, _Sept. 26, 1867_.
BELOVED 'ARRY,--I hope you will not be severely disappointed on opening
this fat envelope to find it is not all _letter_. I will first explain
to you the nature of the enclosed document and then proceed to personal
matters. The other day, as I was sitting alone with my deeply breached
letter of credit, beweeping my outcast state, and wondering what I could
possibly do for a living, it flashed across me that I might write a
"notice" of H. Grimm's novel which I had just been reading. To conceive
with me is to execute, as you well know. And after sweating fearfully
for three days, erasing, tearing my hair, copying, recopying, etc.,
etc., I have just succeeded in finishing the enclosed. I want you to
read it, and if, after correcting the style and thoughts, with the aid
of Mother, Alice and Father, and rewriting it if possible, you judge it
to be capable of interesting in any degree anyone in the world but H.
Grimm, himself, to send it to the "Nation" or the "Round Table."
I feel that a living is hardly worth being gained at this price. Style
is not my forte, and to strike the mean between pomposity and vulgar
familiarity is indeed difficult. Still, an the rich guerdon accrue, an
but ten beauteous dollars lie down on their green and glossy backs
within the family treasury in consequence of my exertions, I shall feel
glad that I have made them. I have not seen Grimm yet as he is in
Switzerland. In his writings he is possessed of real imagination and
eloquence, chiefly in an ethical line, and the novel is really
_distingué_, somewhat as Cherbuliez's are, only with rather a deficiency
on the physical and animal side. He is, to my taste, too idealistic, and
Father would scout him for his arrant moralism. Goethe seems to have
mainly suckled him, and the manner of this book is precisely that of
"Wilhelm Meister" or "Elective Affinities." There is something not
exactly _robust_ about him, but, _per contra_, great delicacy and an
extreme belief in the existence and worth of truth and desire to attain
it justly and impartially. In short, a rather painstaking liberality and
want of careless animal spirits--which, by the bye, seem to be rather
characteristics of the rising generation. But enough of him. The notice
was mere taskwork. I could not get up a spark of interest in it, and I
should not think it would be _d'actualité_ for the "Nation." Still, I
could think of nothing else to do, and was bound to do something.[37]
...
I am a new man since I have been here, both from the ruddy hues of
health which mantle on my back, and from the influence of this live city
on my spirits. Dresden was a place in which it always seemed afternoon;
and as I used to sit in my cool and darksome room, and see through the
ancient window the long dusty sunbeams slanting past the roof angles
opposite down into the deep well of a street, and hear the distant
droning of the market and think of no reason why it should not thus
continue _in secula seculorum_, I used to have the same sort of feeling
as that which now comes over me when I remember days passed in
Grandma's old house in Albany. Here, on the other hand, it is just like
home. Berlin, I suppose, is the most American-looking city in Europe. In
the quarter which I inhabit, the streets are all at right angles, very
broad, with dusty trees growing in them, houses all new and flat-roofed,
covered with stucco, and of every imaginable irregularity in height,
bleak, ugly, unsettled-looking--_werdend_. Germany is, I find, as a
whole (I hardly think more experience will change my opinion), very
nearly related to our country, and the German nature and ours so akin in
fundamental qualities, that to come here is not much of an experience.
There is a general colorlessness and bleakness about the outside look of
life, and in artistic matters a wide-spread manifestation of the very
same creative spirit that designs our kerosene-lamp models, for
instance, at home. Nothing in short that is worth making a pilgrimage to
see. To travel in Italy, in Egypt, or in the Tropics, may make creation
widen to one's view; but to one of our race all that is _peculiar_ in
Germany is mental, and _that_ Germany can be brought to us....
(_After dinner._) I have just been out to dine. I am gradually getting
acquainted with all the different restaurants in the neighborhood, of
which there are an endless number, and will presently choose one for
good,--certainly not the one where I went today, where I paid 25
_Groschen_ for a soup, chicken and potatoes, and was almost prevented
from breathing by the damned condescension of the waiters. I fairly sigh
for a home table. I used to find a rather pleasant excitement in dining
"round," that is long since played out. Could I but find some of the
honest, florid and ornate ministers that wait on you at the Parker
House, here, I would stick to their establishment, no matter what the
fare. These indifferent reptiles here, dressed in cast-off
wedding-suits, insolent and disobliging and always trying to cheat you
in the change, are the plague of my life. After dinner I took quite a
long walk under the Linden and round by the Palace and Museum. There are
great numbers of statues (a great many of them "equestrian") here, and
you have no idea how they light up the place. What you say about the
change of the seasons wakens an echo in my soul. Today is really a
harbinger of winter, and felt like an October day at home, with a
northwest wind, cold and crisp with a white light, and the red leaves
falling and blowing everywhere. I expect T. S. Perry in a week. We shall
have a very good large parlor and bedroom, _together_, in this house,
and steer off in fine style right into the bowels of the winter. I
expect it to be a stiff one, as everyone speaks of it here with a
certain solemnity....
I wish you would articulately display to me in your future letters the
names of all the books you have been reading. "A great many books, none
but good ones," is provokingly vague. On looking back at what _I_ have
read since I left home, it shows exceeding small, owing in great part I
suppose to its being in German. I have just got settled down
again--after a nearly-two-months' debauch on French fiction, during
which time Mrs. Sand, the fresh, the bright, the free; the somewhat
shrill but doughty Balzac, who has risen considerably in my esteem or
rather in my affection; Théophile Gautier the good, the golden-mouthed,
in turn captivated my attention; not to speak of the peerless
Erckmann-Chatrian, who renews one's belief in the succulent harmonies of
creation--and a host of others. I lately read Diderot, "OEuvres
Choisies," 2 vols., which are entertaining to the utmost from their
animal spirits and the comic modes of thinking, speaking and behaving of
the time. Think of meeting continually such delicious sentences as
this,--he is speaking of the educability of beasts,--"Et peut-on savoir
jusqu'où l'usage des mains porterait les singes s'ils avaient le loisir
comme la faculté d'inventer, et si la frayeur continuelle que leur
inspirent les hommes ne les retenait dans l'abrutissement"!!! But I must
pull up, as I have to write to Father still....
Adieu, lots of love from your aff.
WILHELM.
* * * * *
The preceding letter shows James as but recently arrived in Berlin and
as arranging himself there for a winter of physiology at the University.
He was soon joined by his young compatriot Thomas Sergeant Perry, an
intimate friend of earlier Newport days and of the subsequent Boston and
Cambridge years, and the two young Americans set up joint lodgings at
Number 12 in the Mittelstrasse. Although James's main purpose was to
work at the University, he was luckily not without social resources.
George Bancroft, the historian and former Secretary of the Navy and
Minister to England, was at this time representing the United States in
Berlin and was an old family acquaintance. His and another hospitable
family, the Louis Thieses, who had been Cambridge neighbors and whose
house in Quincy Street the James parents had acquired upon Mr. Thies's
return to his native land, were a link with home, and at the same time
rendered hospitable services to James by helping him to a few German
acquaintances. By far the most congenial and interesting of these was
Herman Grimm, the son of the younger of the universally beloved brothers
of the Fairy Tales. Herman Grimm had married Gisela von Arnim, the
daughter of Goethe's Bettina, and was at this time a man of just past
forty years. Professor of the History of Art in the University of
Berlin, essayist, author of "The Life of Michael Angelo" and of Lectures
on Goethe as well as of several works of fiction, Grimm was a versatile
and charming specimen of that "learned" Germany which we now think of as
flourishing most amiably during the generation that preceded the
Franco-Prussian War. The easy and cordial way in which his household
accepted James appears, as in the next letter, to have been richly
appreciated.
_To his Sister._
BERLIN, _Oct. 17, 1867_.
Your excellent long letter of September 5 reached me in due time. If
about that time you felt yourself strongly hugged by some invisible
spiritual agency, you may now know that it was _me_. What would not I
give if you could pay me a visit here! Since I last wrote home the
lingual Rubicon has been passed, and I find to my surprise that I can
speak German--certainly not in an ornamental manner, but there is hardly
anything which I would not dare to attempt to _begin_ to say and be
pretty sure that a kind providence would pull me through, somehow or
other. I made the discovery at my first visit to Grimm a fortnight ago,
and have confirmed it several times since. I can likewise understand
educated people perfectly. I feel my German as old Moses used to feel
his oats, and for ten days past have walked along the street dandling my
head in a fatuous manner that rivets the attention of the public. The
University lectures were to have begun this week, but the lazy
professors have put it off to the last of the month.
[Illustration: Pencil Sketches from a Pocket Note-Book.]
I will describe to you the manner in which I spent yesterday. _Ex uno
disce omnes_--(a German proverb). I awoke at half-past eight at the
manly voice of T. S. Perry caroling his morning hymn from his
neighboring bed--if the instrument of torture the Germans sleep in be
worthy of that name. After some preliminary conversation we arose,
performed our washing, each in a couple of tumblers full of water in a
little basin of this shape [sketch], donned our clothes, and stepped
into our SALON into which the morning sun was streaming and adding its
genial warmth to that of the great porcelain stove, into which the maid
had put the handful of fuel (which, when ignited, makes the stove
radiate heat for twelve hours) the while we slumbered. T. S. P. found on
the table a letter from [Moorfield] Storey, which the same vigilant maid
had placed there, and I the morning paper, full of excitement about the
Italian affairs and the diabolical designs of Napoleon on Germany. After
a breakfast of cocoa, eggs and excellent rolls, I finished the paper,
and took up my regular reading, while T. S. P. worked at his German
lesson. I finished the chapter in a treatise on Galvanism which bears
the neat and concise title of [_not deciphered_].
By 10 o'clock T. S. P. had gone to his German lesson, and it was about
time for me to rig up to go to Grimm's to dine, having received a kind
invitation the day before. As I passed through the pleasant wood called
the "Thiergarten," which was filled with gay civil and military
cavaliers, I looked hard for the imposing equestrian figure of the Hon.
Geo. Bancroft; but he was not to be seen. I got safely to Grimm's, and
in a moment the other guest arrived. Herr Professor----, whose name I
could not catch,[38] a man of a type I have never met before. He is
writing now a life of Schleiermacher of which one volume is published. A
soft fat man with black hair (somewhat the type of the photographs of
Renan), of a totally uncertain age between 25 and 40, with little bits
of green eyes swimming in their fat-filled orbits, and the rest of his
face quite "realizing one's idea" of the infant Bacchus. I, with my
usual want of enterprise, have neglected hitherto to provide myself with
a swallow-tailed coat; but I had a resplendent fresh-biled shirt and
collar, while the Professor, who wore the "obligatory coat," etc., had
an exceedingly grimy shirt and collar and a rusty old rag of a cravat.
Which of us most violated the proprieties I know not, but your feminine
nature will decide. Grimm wore a yellowish, greenish, brownish coat
whose big collar and cuffs and enormous flaps made me strongly suspect
it had been the property of the brothers Grimm, who had worn it on state
occasions, and dying, bequeathed it to Herman. The dinner was very good.
The Prof. was overflowing with information with regard to everything
knowable and unknowable. He is the first man I have ever met of a class,
which must be common here, of men to whom learning has become as natural
as breathing. A learned man at home is in a measure isolated; his study
is carried on in private, at reserved hours. To the public he appears as
a citizen and neighbor, etc., and they know at most _about_ him that he
is addicted to this or that study; his intellectual occupation always
has something of a put-on character, and remains external at least to
some part of his being. Whereas this cuss seemed to me to be nothing if
not a professor ... [_line not deciphered_] as if he were able to stand
towards the rest of society _merely_ in the relation of a man learned in
this or that branch--and never for a moment forget the interests or put
off the instincts of his specialty. If he should meet people or
circumstances that could in no measure be dealt with on that ground, he
would pass on and ignore them, instead of being obliged, like an
American, to sink for the time the specialty. He talked and laughed
incessantly at table, related the whole history of Buddhism to Mrs.
Grimm, and I know not what other points of religious history. After
dinner Mrs. Grimm went, at the suggestion of her husband, to take a nap
... [_line not deciphered_] while G. and the Professor engaged in a hot
controversy about the natural primitive forms of religion, Grimm
inclining to the view that the historically first form must have been
monotheistic. I noticed the Professor's replies grow rather languid,
when suddenly his fat head dropped forward, and G. cried out that he had
better take a good square nap in the arm-chair. He eagerly snatched at
the proposal. Grimm got him a clean handkerchief, which he threw over
his face, and presently he seemed to slumber. Grimm woke him in ten
minutes to take some coffee. He rose, refreshed like a giant, and
proceeded to fight with Grimm about the identity of Homer. Grimm has
just been studying the question and thinks that the poems of Homer
_must_ have been composed in a _written_ language. From there through a
discussion about the madness of Hamlet--G. being convinced that
Shakespeare _meant_ to mystify the reader, and intentionally constructed
a riddle. The sun waned low and I took my leave in company with the
Prof. We parted at the corner, _without_ the Prof. telling me (as an
honest, hospitable American would have done) that he would be happy to
see me at his domicile, so that I know not whether I shall be able to
continue acquainted with a man I would fain know more of.
I got into a droschke and, coming home, found T. S. P. in the room, and
while telling him of the events of the dinner was interrupted by the
entrance of the Rev. H. W. Foote of Stone Chapel.... The excellent
little man had presented himself a few evenings before, bringing me from
Dresden a very characteristic note from Elizabeth Peabody (in which
among other things she says she is "on the wing for Italy"--she is as
_folâtre_ a creature as your friend Mrs. W----), and we have dined
together every day since, and had agreed to go to hear "Fidelio"
together at the Opera that evening. Foote is really a good man and I
shall prosecute his friendship every moment of his stay here; seems to
have his mind open to every interest, and has a sweet modesty that
endears him to the heart. He goes home next month. I advise Harry to
call and see him; I know he will sympathize with him. T. S. P. never
grows weary of repeating a pun of Ware's about him in Italy, who, when
asked what had become of Foote (they traveled for a time together),
replied: "I left him at the Hotel, hand in glove with the Bootts."
"Fidelio" was truly musical. After it, I went to Zennig's restaurant (it
was over by quarter before nine), where I had made a rendez-vous with a
young Doctor to whom Mr. Thies had given me a letter. Having been away
from Berlin, I had seen him for the first time the day before yesterday.
He is a very swell young Jew with a gorgeous cravat, blue-black whiskers
and oily ringlets, not prepossessing; and we had made this appointment.
I waited half an hour and, the faithless Israelite not appearing, came
home, and after reading a few hours went to bed.
_Two hours later._ I have just come in from dinner, a ceremony which I
perform at the aforesaid Zennig's, Unter den Linden. (By the bye, you
must not be led by that name to imagine, as I always used to, an avenue
over-shadowed by patriarchal lime trees, whose branches form a long
arch. The "Linden" are two rows of small, scrubby, abortive
horse-chestnuts, beeches, limes and others, planted like the trees in
Commonwealth Avenue.) Zennig's is a table-d'hôte, so-called
notwithstanding the unities of hour and table are violated. You have
soup, three courses, and dessert or coffee and cheese for 12-1/2
Groschen if you buy 14 tickets, and I shall probably dine there all
winter. We dined with Foote today, who spoke among other things of a new
English novel whose heroine "had the bust and arms of the Venus of
Milo." T. S. P. remarked that her having the arms might account for the
Venus herself being without them.
I enclose you the photograph of an actress here with whom I am in love.
A neat coiffure, is it not? I also send you a couple more of my own
precious portraits. I got them taken to fulfill a promise I had made to
a young Bohemian lady at Teplitz, the niece of the landlady. Sweet Anna
Adamowiz! (pronounce--_vitch_), which means descendant of Adam.--She
belongs consequently to one of the very first families in Bohemia. I
used to drive dull care away by writing her short notes in the Bohemian
tongue such as; "Navzdy budes v me mysli Irohm pamatkou," _i.e._,
forever bloomest thou in my memory;--"dej mne tooji bodo biznu," give me
your photograph; and isolated phrases as "Mlaxik, Dicka, pritel,
pritelkyne," _i.e._, Jüngling, Mädchen, Freund, Freundinn; "mi luja," I
love, etc. These were carried to her by the chambermaid, and the style,
a little more florid than was absolutely _required_ by mere courtesy,
was excused by her on the ground of my limited acquaintance with the
subtleties of the language. Besides, the sentiments were on the whole
good and the error, if any, in the right direction. When she gave me her
photograph (which I regret to say she spelt "fotokraft"!!!!) she made me
promise to send her mine. _Hence_ mine.
I have been this afternoon to get a dress-coat measured, which will
doubtless be a comfort to you to know. I must now stop. G--
* * * * *
I had got as far as the above _G_ when the faithless Israelite of
yesterday evening came in. He gave a satisfactory explanation of his
absence and has been making a very pleasant visit. He is coming back at
nine o'clock to take us (after the German mode of exercising
hospitality) to a tavern to meet some of his boon companions. I reckon
he is a better fellow than he seemed at first sight. I will leave this
letter open till tomorrow to let you know what happens at the tavern,
and whether the boon companions are old-clothes men, or Christian
gentlemen. Good-night, my darling sister! Sei tausend mal von mir
geküsst.[39] Give my best love to Father, Mother, Aunt Kate, the boys
and everyone. Ever yr. loving bro.,
WM. JAMES.
* * * * *
11 P.M. Decidedly the Jew rises in my estimation. He treated us in the
German fashion to a veal cutlet and a glass of beer which we paid for
ourselves. His boon companions were apparently Christians of a
half-baked sort. One who sat next to me was half drunk [and] insisted on
talking the most hideous English. T. S. P., who necessarily took small
part in the conversation, endeavored to explain to Selberg that he was a
"skeleton at the banquet," but could not get through. I came to his
assistance, but forgot, of course, the word "Skelett," and found nothing
better to say than that he was a _vertebral column_ at their banquet,
which classical allusion I do not think was understood by the Jew. The
young men did not behave with the politeness and attention to us which
would have been shown to two Germans by a similar crowd at home.
Selberg himself however improved every minute, and I have no doubt will
turn out a capital fellow. Excuse these scraps of paper,
W. J. Good night.
_To his Sister._
BERLIN, _Nov. 19, 1867_.
SÜSS BALCHEN!--I stump wearily up the three flights of stairs after my
dinner to this lone room where no human company but a ghastly lithograph
of Johannes Müller and a grinning skull are to cheer me. Out in the
street the slaw and fine rain is falling as if it would never stop--the
sky is low and murky, and the streets filled with water and that finely
worked-up paste of mud which never is seen on our continent. For some
time past I have thought with longing of the brightness and freshness of
my home in New England--of the extraordinary, and in ordinary moments
little appreciated, but
sometimes-coming-across-you-and-striking-you-with-an-unexpected-sense-of-rich-privilege
blessings of a mother's love (excuse my somewhat German style)--of the
advantage of having a youthful-hearted though bald-headed father who
looks at the Kosmos as if it had some life in it--of the delicious and
respectable meals in the family circle with the aforesaid father telling
touching horse-car anecdotes,[40] and the serene Harry dealing his snubs
around--with a clean female handmaiden to wait, and an open fire to
toast one's self at afterwards instead of one of these pallid porcelain
monuments here,--with a whole country around you full of friends and
acquaintances in whose company you can refresh your social nature, a
library of books in the house and a still bigger one over the way,--and
all the rest of it. The longer I live, the more inclined am I to value
the domestic affections and to be satisfied with the domestic and
citizenly virtues (probably only for the reason that I am temporarily
debarred from exercising any of them, I blush to think). At any rate I
feel _now_ and _here_ the absence of any object with which to start up
some sympathy, and the feeling is real and unpleasant while it lasts.
I ought not, I confess, to sing in this tune _today_, for before dinner
I made a call on a young lady here (named Frl. Bornemann) whom I had met
at Mrs. Grimm's and whom Mrs. G. had advised me to go and see. She lives
with her brother, an _Advocat_. They are rich orflings, and I had really
a friendly visit there and hope it may ripen into familiarity. I got on
tolerably well with the German--only making one laughable mistake, viz.
in talking of the shower of meteors, _Stern-schnuppen_, the other night
to speak of the "Stern-schnupfen" (_Schnupfen_ = snuffles, catarrh). And
this visit is the occasion of my writing this week to you. Frl. B. is
intimate with Miss Thies, and hearing that we lived in their house, she
was seized with an extremely German desire to have some ivy leaves or
other leaves from the garden to surprise Miss Thies with on Christmas.
Your young female heart will probably beat responsive to the project and
_infallibly_ by return mail send the leaves. She only wants one or two.
You might also send a board from the flooring, some old grass and bits
of hay from the front "lawn," or cut out an eye from the "gal" who is so
much "struck with them babies"[41] in the parlor. They would all awaken
tender memories, I have no doubt. Now do not delay even for one day to
execute this, Alice! but set about it now with this letter in your
hand. You see there is no time to lose, and I am very anxious not to
disappoint the excellent young lady.
The few commissions and questions I have sent home have been so
unnoticed and disregarded that I hardly hope for success this time. It
has always been the way with me, however, from birth upwards, and Heaven
forbid that I should now begin to complain! But lo! I here send another
commission. I definitely appoint by name my father H. James, Senior,
author of Substance & Shadder, etc., to perform it; and solemnly charge
all the rest of you to be as lions in his path, as thorns upon his side,
as lumps in his mashed potatoes, until he do it or write me Nay. 'Tis to
send by post Cousin's lectures on Kant, and that other French
translation of a German introduction to Kant, which he bought last
winter! By return of mail! And if not convenient to send the books, to
write me the name of the author of the last-mentioned one, which I have
forgotten. It behooves me to learn something of the "Philosopher of
Königsberg," and I want these to ease the way. I sincerely hope that
these words may not be utterly thrown away.
I got a letter from Mother the day after I wrote last week to Harry,
without date, but written after the Tweedies' visit. I got this morning
a "Nation" and the "advertisement" to Father's Essay on Swedenborg. In
the latter the old lyre is twanged with a greater freshness and force
than ever, so that even T. S. Perry was made to vibrate in unison with
it. I wrote to Father three weeks ago respecting his former article. I
hope the letter is by this time in his hands. I am very sorry the fat
one went astray. It contained, _inter alia_, an account of my
expenditure up to its time of writing. I would give a good deal to be
able to enjoy as you are all doing the society of Venerable Brother
Robertson. It is a great pity that we should get so estranged by
separation from each other. I wish, now he's at home, he would once
write to me. I have got tolerably well to work, and enjoy my lectures at
the University intensely. Are the "Rainbows for Children" I see noticed
in the "Nation" that old book by Mrs. Tappan? I hope Harry is not the
person therein mentioned as having palmed off on Godkin a translation
from the German as an original article on Thorwaldsen. You have not told
me a word about the Tappans since I quit. I am very glad to hear of Aunt
Kate's leg being so much better and staying so. Tell her I hope it has
not been improving at the expense of her heart, as her long silence
sometimes makes me shudderingly fear.
Adieu. 1000 kisses to all, not forgetting Ellen.[42]
Ever your Bruder, W. J.
_To Thomas W. Ward._
[Fragment of a letter from Berlin,
_circa Nov. 1867?_]
...I have begun going to the physiological lectures at the University.
There are in all seven courses and four lectures. I take five courses
and three lectures. There is a bully physiological laboratory, the sight
of which, inaccessible as it is to me in my present condition, gave me a
sharp pang. I have blocked out some reading in physiology and psychology
which I hope to execute this winter--though reading German is still
disgustingly slow.... It seems to me that perhaps the time has come for
psychology to begin to be a science--some measurements have already been
made in the region lying between the physical changes in the nerves and
the appearance of consciousness-at (in the shape of sense perceptions),
and more may come of it. I am going on to study what is already known,
and perhaps may be able to do some work at it. Helmholtz and a man named
Wundt at Heidelberg are working at it, and I hope I live through this
winter to go to them in the summer. From all this talk you probably
think I am working straight ahead--towards a definite aim. Alas, no! I
finger book-covers as ineffectually as ever. The fact is, this sickness
takes all the spring, physical and mental, out of a man....
_To Thomas W. Ward._
BERLIN, _Nov. 7, 1867_.
...If six years ago I could have felt the same satisfied belief in the
worthiness of a life devoted to simple, patient, monotonous, scientific
labor day after day (without reference to its results) and at the same
time have had some inkling of the importance and nature of _education_
(_i.e._, getting orderly habits of thought, and by intense exercise in a
variety of different subjects, getting the mind supple and delicate and
firm), I might be now on the path to accomplishing something some day,
even if my health had turned out no better than it is. But my habits of
mind have been so bad that I feel as if the greater part of the last ten
years had been worse than wasted, and now have so little surplus of
physical vigor as to shrink from trying to retrieve them. Too late! too
late! If I had been _drilled_ further in mathematics, physics,
chemistry, logic, and the history of metaphysics, and had established,
even if only in my memory, a firm and thoroughly familiar _basis_ of
knowledge in all these sciences (like the basis of human anatomy one
gets in studying medicine), to which I should involuntarily refer all
subsequently acquired facts and thoughts,--instead of having now to
keep going back and picking up loose ends of these elements, and wasting
whole hours in looking to see how the new facts are related to them, or
whether they are related to them at all,--I might be steadily
advancing.--But enough! Excuse the damned whine of this letter; I had no
idea whatever of writing it when I sat down, but I am in a mood of
indigestion and blueness. I would not send you the letter at all, were
it not that I thought it might tempt you soon to write to me. You have
no idea, my dear old Tom, how I long to hear a word about you....
_To Henry P. Bowditch._
BERLIN, _Dec. 12, 1867_.
BESTER HEINRICH,--I have arrived safely on this side of the ocean and
hasten to inform you of the fact.--What a fine pair of young men we are
to write so punctually and constantly to each other!--I will not gall
you by any sarcasms, however (I naturally think you are more to blame
than myself), because (as you naturally are of a similar way of
thinking) you might recriminate at great length in your next and much
other to-me-more-agreeable matter be crowded out of your letter. Suffice
[it] to say that I have thought of you continually, and with
undiminished affection, since that bright April morn when we parted; but
I am of such an invincibly inert nature as regards letter-writing that
it takes a combination of outward and inward circumstances and motives
that hardly ever happens, to start me. I wrote you a letter last summer,
but destroyed it because I was in such doleful dumps while writing it
that it would have given you too unpleasant an impression....
I live near the University, and attend all the lectures on physiology
that are given there, but am unable to do anything in the Laboratory, or
to attend the cliniques or Virchow's lectures and demonstrations, etc.
Du Bois-Raymond, an irascible man of about forty-five, gives a very good
and clear, yea, brilliant, series of five lectures a week, and two
ambitious young Jews give six more between them which are almost as
instructive. The opportunities for study here are superb, it seems to
me. Whatever they may be in Paris, they can_not_ be better. The
physiological laboratory, with its endless array of machinery, frogs,
dogs, etc., etc., almost "bursts my gizzard," when I go by it, with
vexation. The German language is not child's play. I have lately begun
to understand almost everything I hear said around me; but I still speak
"with a slight foreign accent," as you may suppose--and, with all my
practice in reading, do not think I can read more than half as fast as
in English. It is very discouraging to get over so little ground. But a
steady boring away is bound to fetch it, I suppose; and it seems to me
it is worth the trouble.
The general level of thoroughness and exactness in scientific work here
is beyond praise; and the abundance of books on every division of every
subject something we English have no idea of. It all comes from the
thorough mode of educating the people from childhood up. The _Staats
Examina_, before passing which no doctor can practise here in Prussia,
exact an amount of physiological, and what we at home call "merely
theoretical" knowledge of the candidate, which a young doctor at home
would claim and receive especial distinction for having made himself
master of. But the men here think it but fair; gird about their loins
and set about working their way through. The general impression the
Germans make on me is not at all that of a remarkably intellectually
gifted people; and if they are not so, their eminence must come solely
from their habits of conscientious and plodding work. It may be that
their expressionless faces do their minds injustice. I don't know enough
of them to decide. But I know the work is a large factor in the result.
It makes one repine at the way he has been brought up, to come here.
Unhappily most of us come too late to profit by what we see. Bad habits
are formed, and life hurries us on too much to stop and drill. But it
seems to me that the fact of so many American students being here of
late years (they outnumber greatly all other foreign students) ought to
have a good influence on the training of the succeeding generation with
us. Tuck, Dwight, Dick Derby, Quincy, Townsend, and Heaven knows how
many more are in Vienna. Tuck and Dwight write me that they are getting
on remarkably well. I saw them both here in September and think T. D.
improves a good deal as he grows older.
Berlin is a bleak and unfriendly place. The inhabitants are rude and
graceless, but must conceal a solid worth beneath it. I only know seven
of them, and they are of the _élite_. It is very hard getting acquainted
with them, as you have to make all the advances yourself; and your
antagonist shifts so between friendliness and a drill sergeant's formal
politeness that you never know exactly on what footing you stand with
him. These Prussians bow in the most amusing way you ever saw,--as if an
invisible hand suddenly punched them in the abdomen and an equally
invisible foot forthwith kicked them in the rear,--one time and two
motions, and they do it 100 times a day.
But enough of national gossip--let us return to that about individuals.
Oh! that I could see thy prominent nose and thy sagacious eyes at this
moment relieved against the back of that empty arm-chair that stands
opposite this table. Oh! that we might once again sit apart from the
fretful and insipid herd of our congeners, and take counsel together
concerning the world and life--our lives in particular, and all life in
general. How the shy goddess would tremble in her hiding-places at the
sound of our unerringly approaching voices. And how you would pour into
my astonished ear all that is new and wonderful about pathology and
microscopical research, all that is sound and neat about operative
surgery, while I would recite the most thrilling chapters of Kolliker's
"Entwickelungs-geschichte," or Helmholtz's
"Innervationsfortpflanzungsgeschwindigkeitsbestimmungen"! I suppose you
have been rolling on like a great growing snowball through the vast
fields of medical knowledge and are fairly out of the long tunnel of low
spirits that leads there by this time. It is only three months since I
have taken up medical reading, as I made all sorts of excursions into
the language when I came here, and, owing to the slowness of progression
I spoke of above, I have not got over much ground. Of course I can never
hope to practise; but I shall graduate on my return, and perhaps pick up
a precarious and needy living by doing work for medical periodicals or
something of that kind--though I hate writing as I do the foul fiend.
But I don't want to break off connexion with biological science. I can't
be a teacher of physiology, pathology, or anatomy; for I can't do
laboratory work, much less microscopical or anatomical. I may get
better, but hardly before it will be too late for me to begin school
again.
I'll tell you what let's do! Set up a partnership, you to run around and
attend to the patients while I will stay at home and, reading everything
imaginable in English, German, and French, distil it in a concentrated
form into your mind. This division of labor will give the firm an
immense advantage over all of our wooden-headed contemporaries. For, in
your person, it will have more experience than any one else has time to
acquire; and in mine, more learning. We will divide the profits equally,
of course; and he who survives the other (you, probably) will inherit
the whole. Does not the idea tempt you? If you don't like it, I'll go
you halves in the profits in any other feasible way. Seriously, you see
I have no very definite plans for the future; but I have enough to keep
body and soul together for some years to come, and I see no need of
providing for more. This talk of course is only for your "private ear."
I want you to write immediately on receipt of this,--for if you don't
then, you never will,--and tell me all about what you've been doing and
learning and what your future plans are. Also, gossip about the School
and Hospital. I have not had a chance to talk medicine with any one but
Dwight and Tuck (for a week), and hunger thereafter.... Believe me, ever
til deth, your friend
WM. JAMES.
T. S. Perry of '66, who lives with me here, reminds me of a story to
tell you. He lived with Architect Ware in Paris, and Ware received a
visit from Dr. Bowditch and Mr. Dixwell last summer. The concierge woman
was terribly impressed by the personal majesty of your uncles,
particularly of Dr. Bowditch, of whom she said: "Il a le grand air, tout
à fait comme Christophe Colomb!" It would be curious to understand
exactly who and what she thought C. C. was, or whether she would have
thought Mr. Dixwell like Americus Vespucius if she had known _him_.
_To O. W. Holmes, Jr._
BERLIN, _Jan. 3, 1868_.
MY DEAR WENDLE,--Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten, dass ich so
traurig bin, tonight. The ghosts of the past all start from their
unquiet graves and keep dancing a senseless whirligig around me so
that, after trying in vain to read three books, to sleep, or to think, I
clutch the pen and ink and resolve to work off the fit by a few lines to
one of the most obtrusive ghosts of all--namely the tall and lank one of
Charles Street. Good golly! how I would prefer to have about twenty-four
hours talk with you up in that whitely lit-up room--without the sun
rising or the firmament revolving so as to put the gas out, without
sleep, food, clothing or shelter except your whiskey bottle, of which,
or the like of which, I have not partaken since I have been in these
longitudes! I should like to have you opposite me in any mood, whether
the facetiously excursive, the metaphysically discursive, the personally
confidential, or the jadedly _cursive_ and argumentative--so that the
oyster-shells which enclose my being might slowly turn open on their
rigid hinges under the radiation, and the critter within loll out his
dried-up gills into the circumfused ichor of life, till they grew so fat
as not to know themselves again. I feel as if a talk with you of any
kind could not fail to set me on my legs again for three weeks at least.
I have been chewing on two or three dried-up old cuds of ideas I brought
from America with me, till they have disappeared, and the nudity of the
Kosmos has got beyond anything I have as yet experienced. I have not
succeeded in finding any companion yet, and I feel the want of some
outward stimulus to my Soul. There is a man named Grimm here whom my
soul loves, but in the way Emerson speaks of, _i.e._ like those people
we meet on staircases, etc., and who always ignore our feelings towards
them. I don't think we shall ever be able to establish a straight line
of communication between us.
I don't know how it is I am able to take so little interest in reading
this winter. I marked out a number of books when I first came here, to
finish. What with their heaviness and the damnable slowness with which
the Dutch still goes, they weigh on me like a haystack. I loathe the
thought of them; and yet they have poisoned my slave of a conscience so
that I can't enjoy anything else. I have reached an age when practical
work of some kind clamors to be done--and I must still wait!
There! Having worked off that pent-up gall of six weeks' accumulation I
feel more genial. I wish I could have some news of you--now that the
postage is lowered to such a ridiculous figure (and no letter is double)
there remains no _shadow_ of an excuse for not writing--but, still, I
don't expect anything from you. I suppose you are sinking ever deeper
into the sloughs of the law--yet I ween the Eternal Mystery still from
time to time gives her goad another turn in the raw she once established
between your ribs. Don't let it heal over yet. When I get home let's
establish a philosophical society to have regular meetings and discuss
none but the very tallest and broadest questions--to be composed of none
but the very topmost cream of Boston manhood. It will give each one a
chance to air his own opinion in a grammatical form, and to sneer and
chuckle when he goes home at what damned fools all the other members
are--and may grow into something very important after a sufficient
number of years.
The German character is without mountains or valleys; its favorite food
is roast veal; and in other lines it prefers whatever may be the
analogue thereof--all which gives life here a certain flatness to the
high-tuned American taste. I don't think any one need care much about
coming here unless he wants to dig very deeply into some exclusive
specialty. I have been reading nothing of any interest but some chapters
of physiology. There has a good deal been doing here of late on the
physiology of the senses, overlapping perception, and consequently, in
a measure, the psychological field. I am wading my way towards it, and
if in course of time I strike on anything exhilarating, I'll let you
know.
I'll now pull up. I don't know whether you take it as a compliment that
I should only write to you when in the dismalest of dumps--perhaps you
ought to--you, the one emergent peak, to which I cling when all the rest
of the world has sunk beneath the wave. Believe me, my Wendly boy, what
poor possibility of friendship abides in the crazy frame of W. J.
meanders about thy neighborhood. Good-bye! Keep the same bold front as
ever to the Common Enemy--and don't forget your ally,
W. J.
That is, after all, all I wanted to write you and it may float the rest
of the letter. Pray give my warm regards to your father, mother and
sister; and my love to the honest Gray and to Jim Higginson.
[_Written on the outside of the envelope._]
_Jan. 4._ By a strange coincidence, after writing this last night, I
received yours this morning. Not to sacrifice the postage-stamps which
are already on the envelope (Economical W!) I don't reopen it. But I
will write you again soon. Meanwhile, bless your heart! thank you!
_Vide_ Shakespeare: sonnet XXLX.
_To Thomas W. Ward._
BERLIN, _Jan. --, 1868_.
...It made me feel quite sad to hear you talk about the inward deadness
and listlessness into which you had again fallen in New York. Bate not a
jot of heart nor hope, but steer right onward. Take for granted that
you've got a temperament from which you must make up your mind to
expect twenty times as much anguish as other people need to get along
with. Regard it as something as external to you as possible, like the
curl of your hair. Remember when old December's darkness is everywhere
about you, that the world is really in every minutest point as full of
life as in the most joyous morning you ever lived through; that the sun
is whanging down, and the waves dancing, and the gulls skimming down at
the mouth of the Amazon, for instance, as freshly as in the first
morning of creation; and the hour is just as fit as any hour that ever
was for a new gospel of cheer to be preached. I am sure that one can, by
merely thinking of these matters of fact, limit the power of one's evil
moods over one's way of looking at the Kosmos.
I am very glad that you think the methodical habits you must stick to in
book-keeping are going to be good discipline to you. I confess to having
had a little feeling of spite when I heard you had gone back on science;
for I had always thought you would one day emerge into deep and clear
water there--by keeping on long enough. But I really don't think it so
_all_-important what our occupation is, so long as we do respectably and
keep a clean bosom. Whatever we are _not_ doing is pretty sure to come
to us at intervals, in the midst of our toil, and fill us with pungent
regrets that it is lost to us. I have felt so about zoölogy whenever I
was not studying it, about anthropology when studying physiology, about
practical medicine lately, now that I am cut off from it, etc., etc.,
etc.; and I conclude that that sort of nostalgia is a necessary incident
of our having imaginations, and we must expect it more or less whatever
we are about. I don't mean to say that in some occupations we should not
have less of it though.
My dear old Thomas, you have always sardonically greeted me as the man
of calm and clockwork feelings. The reason is that your own vehemence
and irregularity was so much greater, that it involuntarily, no matter
what my private mood might have been, threw me into an outwardly
antagonistic one in which I endeavored to be a clog to your mobility, as
it were. So I fancy you have always given me credit for less sympathy
with you and understanding of your feelings than I really have had. All
last winter, for instance, when I was on the continual verge of suicide,
it used to amuse me to hear you chaff my animal contentment. The
appearance of it arose from my reaction against what seemed to me your
unduly _noisy_ and demonstrative despair. The fact is, I think, that we
have both gone through a good deal of similar trouble; we resemble each
other in being both persons of rather wide sympathies, not particularly
logical in the processes of our minds, and of mobile temperament; though
your physical temperament being so much more tremendous than mine makes
a great quantitative difference both in your favor, and against you, as
the case may be.
Well, neither of us wishes to be a mere loafer; each wishes a work which
shall by its mere _exercise_ interest him and at the same time allow him
to feel that through it he takes hold of the reality of things--whatever
that may be--in some measure. Now the first requisite is hard for us to
fill, by reason of our wide sympathy and mobility; we can only choose a
business in which the evil of feeling restless shall be at a minimum,
and then go ahead and make the best of it. That minimum will grow less
every year.--In this connection I will again refer to a poem you
probably know: "A Grammarian's Funeral," by R. Browning, in "Men and
Women." It always strengthens my backbone to read it, and I think the
feeling it expresses of throwing upon eternity the responsibility of
making good your one-sidedness somehow or other ("Leave _now_ for dogs
and apes, Man has forever") is a gallant one, and fit to be trusted if
one-sided activity is in itself at all respectable.
The other requirement is hard theoretically, though practically not so
hard as the first. All I can tell you is the thought that with me
outlasts all others, and onto which, like a rock, I find myself washed
up when the waves of doubt are weltering over all the rest of the world;
and that is the thought of my having a will, and of my belonging to a
brotherhood of men possessed of a capacity for pleasure and pain of
different kinds. For even at one's lowest ebb of belief, the fact
remains empirically certain (and by our will we can, if not _absolutely_
refrain from looking beyond that empirical fact, at least practically
and _on the whole_ accept it and let it suffice us)--that men suffer and
enjoy. And if we have to give up all hope of seeing into the purposes of
God, or to give up theoretically the idea of final causes, and of God
anyhow as vain and leading to nothing for us, we can, by our will, make
the enjoyment of our brothers stand us in the stead of a final cause;
and through a knowledge of the fact that that enjoyment on the whole
depends on what individuals accomplish, lead a life so active, and so
sustained by a clean conscience as not to need to fret much. Individuals
can add to the welfare of the race in a variety of ways. You may delight
its senses or "taste" by some production of luxury or art, comfort it by
discovering some moral truth, relieve its pain by concocting a new
patent medicine, save its labor by a bit of machinery, or by some new
application of a natural product. You may open a road, help start some
social or business institution, contribute your mite in _any_ way to the
mass of the work which each generation subtracts from the task of the
next; and you will come into _real_ relations with your brothers--with
some of them at least.
I know that in a certain point of view, and the most popular one, this
seems a cold activity for our affections, a stone instead of bread. We
long for sympathy, for a purely _personal_ communication, first with the
soul of the world, and then with the soul of our fellows. And happy are
they who think, or know, that they have got them! But to those who must
confess with bitter anguish that they are perfectly isolated from the
soul of the world, and that the closest human love encloses a potential
germ of estrangement or hatred, that all _personal_ relation is finite,
conditional, mixed (_vide_ in Dana's "Household Book of Poetry," stanzas
by C. P. Cranch, "Thought is deeper than speech," etc., etc.), it may
not prove such an unfruitful substitute. At least, when you have added
to the property of the race, even if no one knows your name, yet it is
certain that, without what you have done, some individuals must needs be
acting now in a somewhat different manner. You have modified their life;
you are in _real_ relation with them; you have in so far forth entered
into their being. And is that such an unworthy stake to set up for our
good, after all? Who are these men anyhow? Our predecessors, even apart
from the physical link of generation, have made us what we are. Every
thought you now have and every act and intention owes its complexion to
the acts of your dead and living brothers. _Everything_ we know and are
is through men. We have no revelation but through man. Every sentiment
that warms your gizzard, every brave act that ever made your pulse bound
and your nostril open to a confident breath was a man's act. However
mean a man may be, man is _the best we know_; and your loathing as you
turn from what you probably call the vulgarity of human life--your
homesick yearning for a _Better_, somewhere--is furnished by your
manhood; your ideal is made up of traits suggested by past men's words
and actions. Your manhood shuts you in forever, bounds all your thoughts
like an overarching sky--and all the Good and True and High and Dear
that you know by virtue of your sharing in it. They are the Natural
Product of our Race. So that it seems to me that a sympathy with men as
such, and a desire to contribute to the weal of a species, which,
whatever may be said of it, contains All that we acknowledge as good,
may very well form an external interest sufficient to keep one's moral
pot boiling in a very lively manner to a good old age. The idea, in
short, of becoming an accomplice in a sort of "Mankind its own God or
Providence" scheme is a _practical_ one.
I don't mean, by any means, to affirm that we must come to that, I only
say it is _a_ mode of envisaging life; which is capable of affording
moral support--and may at any rate help to bridge over the despair of
skeptical intervals. I confess that, in the lonesome gloom which beset
me for a couple of months last summer, the only feeling that kept me
from giving up was that by waiting and living, by hook or crook, long
enough, I might make my _nick_, however small a one, in the raw stuff
the race has got to shape, and so assert my reality. The stoic feeling
of being a sentinel obeying orders without knowing the general's plans
is a noble one. And so is the divine enthusiasm of moral culture
(Channing, etc.), and I think that, successively, they may all help to
ballast the same man.
What a preacher I'm getting to be! I had no idea when I sat down to
begin this long letter that I was going to be carried away so far. I
feel like a humbug whenever I endeavor to enunciate moral truths,
because I am at bottom so skeptical. But I resolved to throw off
"_views_" to you, because I know how stimulated you are likely to be by
any accidental point of view or formula which you may not exactly have
struck on before (_e.g._, what you write me of the effect of that
sentence of your mother's about marrying). I had no idea this morning
that I had so many of the elements of a Pascal in me. Excuse the
presumption.--But to go back. I think that in business as well as in
science one can have this philanthropic aspiration satisfied. I have
been growing lately to feel that a great mistake of my past life--which
has been prejudicial to my education, and by telling me which, and by
making me understand it some years ago, some one might have conferred a
great benefit on me--is an impatience of _results_. Inexperience of life
is the cause of it, and I imagine it is generally an American
characteristic. I think you suffer from it. Results should not be too
voluntarily aimed at or too busily thought of. They are _sure_ to float
up of their own accord, from a long enough daily work at a given matter;
and I think the work as a mere occupation ought to be the primary
interest with us. At least, I am sure this is so in the intellectual
realm, and I strongly suspect it is the secret of German prowess
therein. Have confidence, even when you seem to yourself to be making no
progress, that, if you but go on in your own uninteresting way, they
must bloom out in their good time. Ouf, my dear old Tom! I think I must
pull up. I have no time or energy left to gossip to thee of our life
here....
_To his Father._
TEPLITZ, _Jan. 22, 1868_.
MY DEAR DAD,--Don't allow yourself to be shocked with surprise on
reading the above date till you hear the reasons which have brought me
here at this singular season. They are grounded in the increasing wear
and tear of my life in Berlin, and in my growing impatience to get well
enough to be able to do some work in the summer.... I find myself
getting more interested in physiology and nourishing a hope that I _may_
be able to make its study (and perhaps its teaching) my profession; and,
joining the thought that if I came to Teplitz now for three weeks I
could have still another turn at it, if necessary, in April,--before the
summer semester at Heidelberg began,--to the consciousness that in my
present condition I was doing worse than wasting time at Berlin, I took
advantage of a fine sunshiny morning four days ago, packed my trunk,
said good-bye to T. S. Perry, and took the railroad for this place. I
hope you won't think from seeing me back here that my loudly trumpeted
improvement in the autumn was fallacious. On the contrary, I feel more
than ever, now that I am back in presence of my old measures of strength
(distances, etc.), how substantial that improvement was--only it has not
yet bridged the way up to complete soundness.
I have been feeling for a month past that I ought to come here, but an
effeminate shrinking from loneliness and so forth, and the inhuman
blackness of the weather kept me from it. Now that I am here, I am only
sorry I deferred it so long. I found the _Fürstenbad_ open, and with
four other "cure-guests" in it. All its varletry, male and female, fat
as wood-chucks from their winter's repose; a theatre (!) going in town
three times a week; the head waiter of the restaurant where in the
summer I used, for the price of a glass of milk, to read the "Times" and
the "Independence Belge," no longer wearing the pallid look of stern and
desperate _business_ with which he used to scud around among the crowded
tables, and which used to make me stand in mortal fear of him, but
appearing as a comfortable and red-cheeked human being with even greater
conversational gifts than usual; every one moreover glad to see me,
etc., etc. The veil of winter has been lifted for a week and the buried
spring [has] peeped out and taken a-breathing before her time. Today
everything is a-dripping, the earth has a moving smell, and the sky is
full of spots of melting blue. If such weather but lasts, the time will
pass here very quickly. I have brought a lot of good books, and if their
interest wanes have the whole circulating library to fall back on. So
much for Teplitz.
Sunday before last Mrs. Bancroft told me that the most beautiful woman
in Berlin had asked after me with affection and expressed a desire to
see me. After making me guess in vain she told me that it was Mrs.
Lieutenant Pertz, _née_ Emma Wilkinson.[43] I went to see her and found
her looking hardly a day older or different, and certainly very
good-looking, though probably Mrs. B.'s description was exaggerated. She
had the sweetest and simplest of manners and asked all about the family,
to whom she sends her love. She told me nothing particular about her own
family which we did not know, except that Jamie had an aquiline nose.
She has three fine children, much more of the British than the German
type, and it was right pleasant to see her. She has very handsome brown
eyes. Nice manners are a very charming thing, and some of the ladies
here might set a good example to some _other_ young ladies I might
mention (who do not live 100 miles from Quincy Street); Fräulein
Borneman, for example. Let Alice cultivate a manner clinging yet
self-sustained, reserved yet confidential; let her face beam with
serious beauty, and glow with quiet delight at having you speak to her;
let her exhibit short glimpses of a soul _with wings_, as it were (but
very short ones); let her voice be musical and the tones of her voice
full of caressing, and every movement of her full of grace, and you have
no idea how lovely she will become.... I am sorry Wilky has had a
relapse of his fever. He and Bob are still the working ones of the
family (Harry too, though!), but I hope my day will yet come. Give him
and Bob a great deal of love for me. Life in Teplitz is favorable to
letter-writing and I will write to Bob next week. Love to every one
else, from yours ever,
WM. JAMES.
_To Henry James._
FÜRSTENBAD, TEPLITZ, _Mar. 4, 1868_.
...I have been admitted to the intimacy of a family here named G----,
who keep a hotel and restaurant. Immense, bulky, garrulous, kind-hearted
woman, father with thick red face, little eyes and snow-white hair, two
daughters of about twenty. The whole conversation and tea-taking there
reminded me so exactly of Erckmann-Chatrian's stories that I wanted to
get a stenographer and a photographer to take them down. The great,
thick remarks, all about housekeeping and domestic economy of some sort
or other; the jokes; the masses of eatables, from the awful swine soup
(tasting of nothing I could think of but the perspiration of the animal
and which the terrible mother forced me to gulp down by accusing me,
whenever I grew pale and faltered, of not relishing their food), through
the sausages (liver sausages, blood sausages, and more), to the beer and
wine; then the masses of odoriferous cheese, which I refused in spite of
all attacks, entreaties and accusations, and then heard, oh, horrors!
with somewhat the feeling I suppose with which a criminal hears the
judge pass sentence of death upon him,--then heard an order given for
some more sausages to be brought in to me instead; the air of religious
earnestness with which the eating of the father was talked about, how
the mother told the daughter not to give him so much wine, because he
never enjoyed his beer so much after it, while he with his silver
spectacles and pointing with his pudgy forefinger to the lines, read out
of the newspaper half aloud to himself; the immense long room with walls
of dark wood, the big old-fashioned china stove at each end of it, etc.,
etc.,--all brought up the _Taverne du Jambon de Mayence_ into my
mind....
[W. J.]
* * * * *
The water-cure at Teplitz worked no cure; but James repaired to
Heidelberg in the spring, to hear Helmholtz lecture and with the hope of
following the medical courses during the summer semester. Once more he
had to stop work, and for a while he returned to Berlin. From there he
traveled by way of Geneva, stopping characteristically for only the very
briefest of glances at the familiar scenes of his school-days, and
hurrying on to spend the latter part of the summer at another
watering-place, Divonne in Savoy. The following brief letter seems to
have been written there, and is interesting as a first reference to
Charles Renouvier, a French philosopher who later exercised an important
influence on James's thinking.
_To his Father._
[DIVONNE?], _Oct. 5, 1868_.
DEAR FATHER,--...I have not been doing much studying lately, nor indeed
for some time past, though I manage to keep something _dribbling_ all
the while. I began the other day Kant's "Kritik," which is written
crabbedly enough, but which strikes me so far as almost the sturdiest
and _honestest_ piece of work I ever saw. Whether right or wrong (and it
is pretty clearly wrong in a great many details of its _Analytik_ part,
however the rest may be), there it stands like a great snag or mark to
which everything metaphysical or psychological must be _referred_. I
wish I had read it earlier. It is very slow reading and I shall only
give it a couple of hours daily.
I got a little book by a number of authors, "L'Année 1867
Philosophique," which may interest you if you have not got it already.
The introduction, a review of the state of philosophy in France for some
years back, is by one Charles Renouvier, of whom I never heard before
but who, for vigor of style and compression, going to the core of half a
dozen things in a single sentence, so different from the namby-pamby
diffusiveness of most Frenchmen, is unequaled by anyone. He takes his
stand on Kant. I have not read the rest of the book.
Here I stop and take my douche. I will be as economical as I can this
winter in details, and next summer will see us together. I wish I had
the inclination to write, or anything to write about, as Harry has. I
feel ashamed of fattening on the common purse when all the other boys
are working, but writing seems for me next to impossible. Lots of love
to all. Yours,
W. J.
* * * * *
The "cure" at Divonne was as profitless as had been the similar
experiments at Teplitz. So instead of staying abroad for the winter,
James turned his face homeward almost immediately. After a fortnight's
companionship with H. P. Bowditch in Paris, he embarked on November 7
for America, disappointed in the chief hopes with which he had landed in
Europe eighteen months before, but much matured in character and
thought, and resolved to seek his health and his career at home.
[Illustration: Pencil Sketch from a Pocket Note-Book.]
VI
1869-1872
_Invalidism in Cambridge_
THE return to Cambridge from Germany in November, 1868, marked the
beginning of four outwardly uneventful years. James spent them under his
father's roof. His family and intimate friends were usually close at
hand; the stream of his correspondence shrank to almost nothing. The few
letters that have been preserved do incomplete justice to this period,
but can, fortunately, be supplemented by other documents.
* * * * *
James obtained his medical degree easily enough in June, 1869; but he
had no thought of engaging in the practice of medicine. He wanted to go
on with physiology; but he was not strong enough to work in a
laboratory. Condemned to sedentary occupations, and without any definite
responsibilities, he seemed, to his own jaundiced vision, to be
declining into a desultory and profitless idleness.
In this he was hardly fair to himself or to the conditions. It is true
that he had no remunerative occupation, and that he could look forward
to no well-defined professional career for which he could be preparing
and training himself. He was, also, handicapped by the fact that
sometimes he could not use his eyes for more than two hours a day. On
the other hand, he would probably not have been happy in any
professional harness into which he could then have fitted, and was
really more fortunate in having leisure to read and discuss and fill
note-books forced upon him between his twenty-seventh and thirty-first
years. Such leisure has been the unattained goal of many another man
with a mind not one tenth so curious and speculative as his; and few men
who have attained it have made as good use of their free time as James
made of the years 1869 to 1872.
His eyes were weak, to be sure, and his letters usually bewail his
inability to use them more. But, skipping as he had trained himself to,
and snatching at every opportunity, he somehow got over a great deal of
reading in neurology, physiology of the nervous system, and psychology.
He was not confined to the books that were on the shelves of the Quincy
Street house, but could borrow from the excellent Harvard and Boston
libraries without inconvenience. At times, when he was able to read for
several hours a day, he used, as he put it, "to keep himself from using
his mind too much" by turning to non-professional literature in German,
French, and English. One letter to his brother (June 1, 1869) affords
material for reflection upon the range and power of assimilation of a
mind which could seek such relaxation. "I have," he writes in this
letter, "been reading for recreation, since you left, a good many German
books: Steffens and C. P. Moritz's autobiographies, some lyric poetry,
W. Humboldt's letters, Schmidt's history of German literature, etc.,
which have brought to a head the slowly maturing feeling of German
culture.... Reading of the revival, or rather the birth, of German
literature--Kant, Schiller, Goethe, Jacobi, Fichte, Schelling, [the]
Schlegels, Tieck, Richter, Herder, Steffens, W. Humboldt, and a number
of others--puts one into a real classical period. These men were all
interesting as men, each standing as a type or representative of a
certain way of taking life, and beginning at the bottom--taking nothing
for granted. In England, the only parallel I can think of is Coleridge,
and in France, Rousseau and Diderot. If the heroes and heroines of all
of Ste.-Beuve's gossip had had a tenth part of the _significance_ of
these and their male and female friends, bad readers like myself would
never think of growing impatient with him as an old debauchee." A diary
entry made by his sister Alice, a few years later says: "In old days,
when [William's] eyes were bad, and I used to begin to tell him
something which I thought of interest from whatever book I might be
reading ... he would invariably say, 'I glanced into that book yesterday
and read that.'"[44]
He had already formed the habit of making marginal notes, of writing
down summaries of his reading, and of formulating his ideas on
paper--the admirable practice, in short, of confiding in note-books and
addressing himself freely to the waste-basket. For instance: "In 1869,
when still a medical student, he began to write an essay showing how
almost everyone who speculated about brain processes illicitly
interpolated into his account of them links derived from the entirely
heterogeneous universe of Feeling. Spencer, Hodgson (in his 'Time and
Space'), Maudsley, Lockhart, Clarke, Bain, Dr. Carpenter, and other
authors were cited as having been guilty of the confusion. The writing
was soon stopped because he perceived that the view which he was
upholding against these authors was a pure conception, with no proofs to
be adduced of its reality."[45]
He kept some of his memoranda in a series of the alphabetized
blank-books which used to be sold under the name of "Todd's Index Rerum"
during the sixties, and which were devised to facilitate indexing and
reference. He continued to make entries in these books until 1890, and
perhaps later. He also filled copy-books and pocket note-books, of which
a few mutilated but interesting fragments remain. In these he sometimes
copied out quotations, sometimes noted comments on his reading,
sometimes tried to clothe an idea of his own in precise words.
Occasionally he made diary-like entries that show how familiar a
companion he was making of the note-book. He was already at his ease in
the practice of the Baconian maxim that reading maketh a full man,
conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.
A few book-notices or reviews did reach the public. Seven are listed
under the years 1868 to 1872 in Professor R. B. Perry's "List of
Published Writings." Although the matter of these reviews is seldom of
present-day interest, the curious reader will find sentences and
paragraphs in them that are prophetic of passages in James's later
writings, and will observe that he already commanded a style that
expressed the color and quality of his thought.[46]
* * * * *
Considering that James, while still in his twenties, had found such
resources within himself, and had learned how to occupy himself in ways
so appropriate to the development of his best faculties, it would seem
that he need not have labored under any sense of frustration and
impotence. But such a feeling undoubtedly did weigh heavily upon him
during more or less of the whole period between his winter in Berlin and
1872. And it was indeed due in great part to something else than the
mere fact that he could not yet feel the rungs of the ladder of any
particular career under his feet. No reader of the "Varieties of
Religious Experience" can have doubted that he had known religious
despondency himself as well as observed the distress of it in others.
The problem of the moral constitution of things, the question of man's
relation to the Universe,--whether significant or impotent and
meaningless,--these had clearly come home to him as more than questions
of metaphysical discourse. It was during this period that such doubts
invaded his consciousness in a way that was personal and intimate and,
for the time being, oppressive. He was tormented by misgivings which
almost paralyzed his naturally buoyant spirit. Bad health, a feeling of
the purposelessness of his own particular existence, his philosophic
doubts and his constant preoccupation with them, all these combined to
plunge him into a state of morbid depression. He seems to have hidden
the depth of it from those who were about him. He even had an experience
of that kind of melancholy "which takes the form of panic fear." When he
wrote the chapter on the "sick soul" thirty years later, he put into it
an account of this experience. He still disguised it as the report of an
anonymous "French correspondent." Subsequently he admitted to M. Abauzit
that the passage was really the story of his own case,[47] and it may be
repeated here, for the words of the fictitious French correspondent, who
was really James, are the most authentic statement that could be given.
They will be found at page 160 of the "Varieties of Religious
Experience."
"Whilst in this state of philosophic pessimism and general depression
of spirits about my prospects, I went one evening into a dressing-room
in the twilight, to procure some article that was there; when suddenly
there fell upon me without any warning, just as if it came out of the
darkness, a horrible fear of my own existence. Simultaneously there
arose in my mind the image of an epileptic patient whom I had seen in
the asylum, a black-haired youth with greenish skin, entirely idiotic,
who used to sit all day on one of the benches, or rather shelves,
against the wall, with his knees drawn up against his chin, and the
coarse gray undershirt, which was his only garment, drawn over them,
inclosing his entire figure. He sat there like a sort of sculptured
Egyptian cat or Peruvian mummy, moving nothing but his black eyes and
looking absolutely non-human. This image and my fear entered into a
species of combination with each other. _That shape am I_, I felt,
potentially. Nothing that I possess can defend me against that fate, if
the hour for it should strike for me as it struck for him. There was
such a horror of him, and such a perception of my own merely momentary
discrepancy from him, that it was as if something hitherto solid within
my breast gave way entirely, and I became a mass of quivering fear.
After this the universe was changed for me altogether. I awoke morning
after morning with a horrible dread at the pit of my stomach, and with a
sense of the insecurity of life that I never knew before, and that I
have never felt since. It was like a revelation; and although the
immediate feelings passed away, the experience has made me sympathetic
with the morbid feelings of others ever since. It gradually faded, but
for months I was unable to go out into the dark alone.
"In general I dreaded to be left alone. I remember wondering how other
people could live, how I myself had ever lived, so unconscious of that
pit of insecurity beneath the surface of life. My mother in particular,
a very cheerful person, seemed to me a perfect paradox in her
unconsciousness of danger, which you may well believe I was very careful
not to disturb by revelations of my own state of mind. I have always
thought that this experience of melancholia of mine had a religious
bearing.... I mean that the fear was so invasive and powerful that, if I
had not clung to scripture-texts like _The eternal God is my refuge_,
etc., _Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden_, etc., _I am
the Resurrection and the Life_, etc., I think I should have grown really
insane."
The date of this experience cannot and need not be fixed exactly. It was
undoubtedly later than the Berlin winter and after the return to
Cambridge. Perhaps it was during the winter of 1869-70, for one of the
note-books contains an entry dated April 30, 1870, in which James's
resolution and self-confidence appear to be reasserting themselves. This
entry must be quoted too. It is not only illuminating with respect to
1870, but suggests parts of the "Psychology" and of the philosophic
essays that later gave comfort and courage to unnumbered readers.
"I think that yesterday was a crisis in my life. I finished the first
part of Renouvier's second "Essais" and see no reason why his definition
of Free Will--"the sustaining of a thought _because I choose to_ when I
might have other thoughts"--need be the definition of an illusion. At
any rate, I will assume for the present--until next year--that it is no
illusion. My first act of free will shall be to believe in free will.
For the remainder of the year, I will abstain from the mere speculation
and contemplative _Grüblei_[48] in which my nature takes most delight,
and voluntarily cultivate the feeling of moral freedom, by reading books
favorable to it, as well as by acting. After the first of January, my
callow skin being somewhat fledged, I may perhaps return to metaphysical
study and skepticism without danger to my powers of action. For the
present then remember: care little for speculation; much for the _form_
of my action; recollect that only when habits of order are formed can we
advance to really interesting fields of action--and consequently
accumulate grain on grain of willful choice like a very miser; never
forgetting how one link dropped undoes an indefinite number. _Principiis
obsta_--Today has furnished the exceptionally passionate initiative
which Bain posits as needful for the acquisition of habits. I will see
to the sequel. Not in maxims, not in _Anschauungen_,[49] but in
accumulated _acts_ of thought lies salvation. _Passer outre._ Hitherto,
when I have felt like taking a free initiative, like daring to act
originally, without carefully waiting for contemplation of the external
world to determine all for me, suicide seemed the most manly form to put
my daring into; now, I will go a step further with my will, not only act
with it, but believe as well; believe in my individual reality and
creative power. My belief, to be sure, _can't_ be optimistic--but I will
posit life (the real, the good) in the self-governing _resistance_ of
the ego to the world. Life shall [be built in][50] doing and suffering
and creating."
* * * * *
The next letter was written from Cambridge during the winter following
the return from Germany, and while James was completing the work
necessary to entitle him to a medical degree.[51] The reader will
recognize "the firm of B & J" as the medical partnership proposed to
Bowditch in the letter of December 12, 1867.
_To Henry P. Bowditch._
CAMBRIDGE, _Jan. 24, 1869_.
MY DEAR HENRY,--I am in receipt of two letters from yez (dates
forgotten) wherein you speak of having received my money and paid my
bills and of Fleury's book. You're a gentleman in all respects. You said
nothing about whether the pounds when reduced back to francs and Thalers
made exactly the original sum from which the pounds were calculated. If
it was but five centimes under and you have concealed it, I shall brand
you as a villain where'er I go. So out with the truth. Do I still owe
you anything?...
I have just been quit by Chas. S. Peirce, with whom I have been talking
about a couple of articles in the St. Louis "Journal of Speculative
Philosophy" by him, which I have just read. They are exceedingly bold,
subtle and incomprehensible, and I can't say that his vocal elucidations
helped me a great deal to their understanding, but they nevertheless
interest me strangely. The poor cuss sees no chance of getting a
professorship anywhere, and is likely to go into the observatory for
good. It seems a great pity that as original a man as he is, who is
willing and able to devote the powers of his life to logic and
metaphysics, should be starved out of a career, when there are lots of
professorships of the sort to be given in the country to "safe,"
orthodox men. He has had good reason, I know, to feel a little
discouraged about the prospect, but I think he ought to hang on, as a
German would do, till he grows gray....
I saw Wyman a few weeks ago. He said his Indian collecting, etc., took
up all his working time now. Do you keep your room above the freezing
point or can't the thing be done? Have you made any bosom friends among
French students, or do you find the superficial accidents of language
and breeding to hold you wider apart than the deep force of your common
humanity can draw you together? It's deuced discouraging to find how
this is almost certain to be the case.
The older I grow, the more important does it seem to me for the interest
of science and of the sick, and of the firm of B. & J., that you should
take charge of a big state lunatic asylum. Think of the interesting
cases, and of the autopsies! And if you once took firm root, say at
Somerville, I should feel assured of a refuge in my old and destitute
days, for you certainly would not be treacherous enough to spurn me from
the door when I presented myself--on the pretext that I was only
shamming dementia. Think of the matter seriously.
I read a little while ago Chambers's "Clinical Lectures," which are
exceedingly interesting and able. The lectures on indigestion in the
volume are worth, in quality, ten such books as that Guipon I left in
Paris, though more limited in subject. I have been trying to get "Hilton
on Rest and Pain," which you recommended, from the Athenæum, but, _more
librorum_, when you want 'em, it keeps "out." ...
I hope this letter is _décousue_ enough for you. What is a man to write
when a reef is being taken in his existence, and absence from thought
and life is all he aspires to. Better times will come, though, and with
them better letters. Good-bye! Ever yours,
WM. JAMES.
_To O. W. Holmes, Jr., and John C. Gray, Jr._
[_Winter of 1868-69._]
Gents!--entry-thieves--chevaliers d'industrie--well-dressed
swindlers--confidence men--wolves in sheep's clothing--asses in lion's
skin--gentlemanly pickpockets--beware! The hand of the law is already on
your throats and waits but a wink to be tightened. All the resources of
the immensely powerful Corporation of Harvard University have been set
in motion, and concealment of your miserable selves or of the almost
equally miserable (though not _as such_ miserable) goloshes which you
stole from our entry on Sunday night is as impossible as would be the
concealment of the State House. The motive of your precipitate departure
from the house became immediately evident to the remaining guests. But
they resolved to _ignore_ the matter provided the overshoes were
replaced within a week; if not, no _considerations whatever_ will
prevent Messrs. Gurney & Perry[52] from proceeding to treat you with the
utmost severity of the law. It is high time that some of these genteel
adventurers should be made an example of, and your offence just comes in
time to make the cup of public and private forbearance overflow. My
father and self have pledged our lives, our fortunes and our sacred
honor to see the thing through with Gurney and Perry, as the credit of
our house is involved and we might ourselves have been losers, not only
from you but from the aforesaid G. & P., who have been heard to go about
openly declaring that "if they had known the party was going to be
_that_ kind of an affair, d--d if they would not have started off
earlier themselves with some of those aristocratic James overcoats,
hats, gloves and canes!"
So let me as a friend advise you to send the swag back. No questions
will be asked--Mum's the word.
WM. JAMES.
_To Thomas W. Ward._
_March_ [?], 1869.
...I had great movings of my bowels toward thee lately--the distant,
cynical isolation in which we live with our heart's best brothers
sometimes comes over me with a deep bitterness, and I had a little while
ago an experience of life which woke up the spiritual monad within me as
has not happened more than once or twice before in my life. "Malgré la
vue des misères où nous vivons et qui nous tiennent par la gorge," there
is an inextinguishable spark which will, when we least expect it, flash
out and reveal the existence, at least, of something real--of reason at
the bottom of things. I can't tell you how it was now. I'm swamped in an
empirical philosophy.[53] I feel that we are Nature through and through,
that we are wholly conditioned, that not a wiggle of our will happens
save as the result of physical laws; and yet, notwithstanding, we are
_en rapport_ with reason.--How to conceive it? Who knows? I'm convinced
that the defensive tactics of the French "spiritualists" fighting a
steady retreat before materialism will never do anything.--It is not
that we are all nature _but_ some point which is reason, but that all is
nature _and_ all is reason too. We shall see, damn it, we shall see!...
[W. J.]
* * * * *
"The Bootts," with whom "architect Ware" reported the Reverend Mr. Foote
to be hand in glove in Italy in 1867, reappear in the following letter.
Francis Boott (Harvard 1832) had early been left a widower, and had just
returned from a long European residence which he had devoted to the
education of his charming and gifted daughter "Lizzie," later to become
the wife of Frank Duveneck of Cincinnati, the painter and sculptor.
Boott was about the age of Henry James, Senior, but the intimacy which
began at Pomfret during the summer of 1869 ripened into one of those
whole-family friendships which obliterate differences of age. Later,
although both the elder Jameses and young Mrs. Duveneck had died,
William and Boott saw each other frequently in Cambridge. The beautiful
little commemorative address which James delivered after Boott's death
has been included in the volume of "Memories and Studies."
_To Henry P. Bowditch._
POMFRET, CONN., _Aug. 12, 1869_.
...I have been at this place since July 1st with my family. There are a
few farmhouses close together on the same road, which take boarders. We
are in the best of them, and very pleasant it is. The country is
beautifully hilly and fertile, and the climate deliciously windy and
cool. I came here resolved to lead the life of an absolute caterpillar,
and have succeeded very well so far, spending most of my time swinging
in a hammock under the pine trees in front of the house, and having
hardly read fifty pages of anything in the whole six weeks. It has told
on me most advantageously. I am far better every way than when I came,
and am beginning to walk about quite actively. Maybe it's the beginning
of a final rise to health, but I'm so sick of prophesying that I won't
say anything about it till it gets more confirmed. One thing is sure,
however, that I've given the policy of "rest" a fair trial and shall
consider myself justified next winter in going about visiting and to
concerts, etc., regardless of the fatigue.
I am forgetting all this while to tell you that I passed my examination
with no difficulty and am entitled to write myself M.D., if I choose.
Buckingham's midwifery gave me some embarrassment, but the rest was
trifling enough. So there is one epoch of my life closed, and a pretty
important one, I feel it, both in its scientific "yield" and in its
general educational value as enabling me to see a little the inside
workings of an important profession and to learn from it, as an average
example, how all the work of human society is performed. I feel a good
deal of intellectual hunger nowadays, and if my health would allow, I
think there is little doubt that I should make a creditable use of my
freedom, in pretty hard study. I hope, even as it is, not to have to
remain absolutely idle--and shall try to make whatever reading I can do
bear on psychological subjects....
Wendell Holmes and John Gray were on here last Saturday and Sunday, and
seemed in very jolly spirits at being turned out to pasture from their
Boston pen. I should think Wendell worked too hard. Gray is going to
Lenox for a fortnight, but W. is to take no vacation.
During the month of July we had the good fortune to have as fellow
boarders Mr. Boott and his daughter from Boston. Miss B., although not
overpoweringly beautiful, is one of the very best members of her sex I
ever met. She spent the first eighteen years of her life in Europe, and
has of course Italian, French and German at her fingers' ends, and I
never realized before how much a good education (I mean in its common
sense of a wide information) added to the charms of a woman. She has a
great talent for drawing, and was very busy painting here, which, as she
is in just about the same helpless state in which I was when I abandoned
the art, made her particularly interesting to me. You had better come
home soon and make her acquaintance--for you know these first-class
young spinsters do not _always_ keep for ever, although on the whole
they tend to, in Boston.
The successors to the Bootts in this house are Gen. Casey (of "Infantry
Tactics" notoriety) and spouse. He is an amiable but mildish old
gentleman, and about thirty years older than his wife. I'm glad, on the
whole, that General Grant, and not he, was our commander in the late
war.
If you want some good light German reading, let me advise you to try at
least the first half of Jung-Stilling's autobiography. He was a pious
German who lived through the latter half of the last century, and wrote
with the utmost vividness and naïveté all his experiences, that the
glory of God's Providence might be increased. I read it with great
delight a few weeks since; it merits the adjective _fresh_ as well as
most books.
I saw Jeffries Wyman a short time before leaving. He said he had heard
from you. I'd give much to hear from your lips an account of your plans,
hopes and so forth, as well as the _Ergebnisse_ of the past year. I was
truly glad to hear of your determination to stick to physiology. However
discouraging the work of each day may seem, stick at it long enough, and
you'll wake up some morning--a physiologist--just as the man who takes a
daily drink finds himself unexpectedly a drunkard. I wish I'd asked you
sooner to send me a photograph of Bernard and Vulpian--or any other
Parisian medical men worth having--is it too late now?--and too late for
Pflüger? I address this still to Bonn, supposing they'll send it after
you if you've gone.
Write soon to yours affectionately,
WM. JAMES.
_To Miss Mary Tappan._
_Sunday, April 26_ [1870?].
MY DEAR MARY,--Mother says she met you in town this morning, looking
more lovely than ever, but--_with your bonnet on the back of your head!_
I hope that this is a mistake. Mother's eyesight is growing fallacious
and frequently leads her to see what she would like to see. I cannot
think that you would submit to be swayed in your own views of right
bonnet-wearing by the mere vociferation of persons like her and Alice,
especially when you had heard _me_ expressly say I agreed with you that
the forehead is the truly ladylike place for a bonnet. Enough!---- I
waded out to Cambridge from your party. If you enjoyed yourselves as
much as I did (but I'm afraid you didn't) you will keep on giving them.
Somehow your part of the town is very inaccessible to me or I should
frequently bore you. Hoping, in spite of this fearful mother story
today, that you are still unsophisticated, I am always yours
affectionately,
WM. JAMES.
You need not answer this.
[_Across top of first page_]
Written two days ago--kept back from diffidence--sent now because
anything is better than this dead silence between us!
_To Henry James._
CAMBRIDGE, _May 7, 1870_.
DEAR HARRY,--'Tis Saturday evening, ten minutes past six of the clock
and a cold and rainy day (Indian winter, as T. S. P. calls such). I had
a fire lighted in my grate this afternoon. There is nevertheless a
broken blue spot in the eastern clouds as I look out, and the grass and
buds have started visibly since the morning. The trees are half-way
out--you of course have long had them in full leaf--and the early green
is like a bath to the eyes. Father is gone to Newport for a day, and is
expected back within the hour. My jaw is aching badly in consequence of
a tooth I had out two days ago, the which refused to be pulled, was
broken, but finally extracted, and has left its neighbors prone to ache
since. I hope it won't last much longer. I spent the morning, part of it
at least, in fishing the "Revues Germaniques" up from [the] cellar,
looking over their contents, and placing them volumewise, and flat, in
the two top shelves of the big library bookcase _vice_ Thies's good old
books just removed, the shelves being too low to take any of our books
upright. I feel melancholy as a whip-poor-will and took up pen and paper
to sigh melodiously to you. But sighs are hard to express in words. We
have been three weeks now without hearing from you, and if a letter does
not come tomorrow or Monday, I don't know what'll become of us. Howells
brought, a week ago, a long letter you had written to him on the eve of
leaving Malvern, so our next will be from London....
My! how I long to see you, and feel of you, and talk things over. I have
at last, I think, begun to rise out of the sloughs of the past three
months.... What a blessing this change of seasons is, as you used to
say, especially in the spring. The winter is man's enemy, he must exert
himself against it to live, or it will squeeze him in one night out of
existence. So it is hateful to a sick man, and all the greater is the
peace of the latter when it yields to a time when nature seems to
coöperate with life and float one passively on. But I hear Father
arriving and I must go down to hear his usual _compte rendu_.[54]
* * * * *
_Sunday_, 3 P.M.
No letter from you this morning.... It seems to me that all a man has to
depend on in this world, is, in the last resort, mere brute power of
resistance. I can't bring myself, as so many men seem able to, to blink
the evil out of sight, and gloss it over. It's as real as the good, and
if it is denied, good must be denied too. It must be accepted and hated,
and resisted while there's breath in our bodies....
_To Henry P. Bowditch._
CAMBRIDGE, _Dec. 29, 1870_.
MY DEAR HENRY,--Your letter written from Leipzig just before the
declaration of war reached me in the country. I have thought of you and
of answering you, abundantly, ever since; but have mostly been
prevented by sheer physical _imbecillitas_. Now I am ashamed of such a
state, and shall write you a page or so a day till the letter is
finished. I have had no idea all this time where or what you have been,
traveler, student, or medical army officer. You may imagine how excited
I was at the beginning of the war. I had not dared to hope for such a
complete triumph of poetic justice as occurred. Now I feel much less
interested in the success of the Germans, first because I think it's
time that the principle of territorial conquest were abolished, second
because success will redound to the credit of autocratic government
there, and good as that may happen to be in the particular junctures,
it's unsafe and pernicious in the long run. Moreover, if France succeeds
in beating off the Germans now, I should think there would be some
chance of the peace being kept between them hereafter--the French will
have gained an insight they never had of the horrors of a war of
conquest, and some degree of loathing for it in the abstract; and they
will not have to fight to regain their honor. Moreover, I should like to
see the republic succeed. But if Alsace and Lorraine be taken, there
_must_ be another war, for them and for honor. On the other hand,
justice seems to demand a permanent penalty for the political immorality
of France. So that there will be enough good to console one for the bad,
whichever way it turns out....
* * * * *
31st.
As I said, I have no idea of how the war may have affected your
movements and occupations. It did my heart good to hear of the solid and
businesslike way in which you were working at Leipzig, and I should
think [that], with Ludwig and the laboratory, you would feel like giving
it another winter--though the other attractions of Berlin and Vienna
must pull you rather strongly away. I heard a rumor the other day that
Lombard's place was being kept for you here. I hope it's true, for your
sake and that of Boston. Thank you very much for the photographs of
Ludwig and Fechner. I have enjoyed Ludwig's face very much, he must be a
good fellow; and Fechner, down to below the orbits, has a strange
resemblance to Jeffries Wyman. I have quite a decent nucleus of a
physiognomical collection now, and any further contributions it may
please you to make to it will be most thankfully received.
J. Wyman I have not seen since his return. Such is the state of brutal
social isolation which characterizes this community! Partly sickness,
partly a morbid shrinking from the society of anyone who is alive
intellectually are to blame, however, in my case. I, as I wrote, am long
since dead and buried in that respect. I fill my belly for about four
hours daily with husks,--newspapers, novels and biographies, but thought
is tabooed,--and you can imagine that conversation with Wyman should
only intensify the sense of my degradation.
* * * * *
_Jan. 23, 1871._
Since my last date I have been unable to write until today, and now, I
think, to make sure of the letter going at all, I had better cut it
short and send it off to your father to direct. I have indeed nothing
particular to communicate, and only want to give you assurance of my
undying affection. This morning 4 degrees below zero, and N.W. wind.
Don't you wish you were here to enjoy the sunshine of it? A batch of
telegrams in the "Advertiser," showing that France must soon throw up
the sponge. Faidherbe licked at St. Quentin, Bourbaki pursued, Chanzy
almost disintegrated, and Paris frozen and starved out. Well, so be it!
only the German liberals will have the harder battle to fight at home
for the next twenty years. I suspect that England, irresolute and
unhandsome as is the figure she makes externally, is today in a
healthier state than any country in Europe. She is renovating herself
socially, and although she may be eclipsed during these days of
"militarismus," yet when they depart, as surely they must some time,
from sheer exhaustion, she will be ready to take the lead by influence.
I know of no news here to tell you. I suppose you get the "Nation,"
which keeps up well, notwithstanding its monotony. I shall be expecting
to fold you to my bosom some time next summer. Heaven speed the day!
Write me as soon as you get this. You haven't the same excuse for
silence that I have. Speak of your work, your plans and the war. Good
bye, old fellow, and believe me, ever your friend,
WM. JAMES.
_To Henry P. Bowditch._
CAMBRIDGE, _Apr. 8, 1871_.
...So the gallant Gauls are shooting each other again! I wish we knew
what it all meant. From the apparent generality of the movement in
Paris, it seems as if it must be something more dignified than it at
first appeared. But can anything great be expected now from a nation
between the two factions of which there is such hopeless enmity and
mistrust as between the religious and the revolutionary parties in
France? No mediation is possible between them. In England, America and
Germany, a regular advance is possible, because each man confides in his
brothers. However great the superficial differences of opinion, there is
at bottom a trust in the power of the deep forces of human nature to
work out their salvation, and the minority is contented to bide its
time. But in France, nothing of the sort; no one feels secure against
what he considers evil, by any guaranty but force; and if his opponents
get uppermost, he thinks all is forever lost. How much Catholic
education is to answer for this and how much national idiosyncrasy, it
is hard to say. But I am inclined to think the latter is a large factor.
The want of true sympathy in the French character, their love of
external mechanical order, their satisfaction in police-regulation,
their everlasting cry of "traitor," all point to it. But, on the other
hand, protestantism would seem to have a good deal to do with the
fundamental cohesiveness of society in the countries of Germanic blood.
For what may be called the revolutionary party there has _developed_
through insensible grades of rationalism out of the old orthodox
conceptions, religious and social. The process has been a continuous
modification of positive belief, and the extremes, even if they had no
respect for each other and no desire for mutual accommodation (which I
think at bottom they have), would yet be kept from cutting each other's
throats by the intermediate links. But in France Belief and Denial are
separated by a chasm. The step once made, "écrasez l'infâme" is the only
watchword on each side. How any order is possible except by a Cæsar to
hold the balance, it is hard to see. But I don't want to dose you with
my crude speculations. This difference was brought home vividly to me by
reading yesterday in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" for last December a
splendid little story, "Histoire d'un Sous-Maître," by Erckmann-Chatrian,
and what was uppermost in my mind came out easiest in writing.
I shall be overjoyed to see you in September, but expect to hear from
you many a time ere then. I see little medical society, none in fact;
but hope to begin again soon. [R. H.] Fitz, I believe, is showing great
powers in "Pathology" since his return. And I hear a place in the
school is being kept warm for you on your return. Count me for an
auditor. I invested yesterday in a ticket for a course of "University"
lectures on "Optical Phenomena and the Eye," by B. Joy Jeffries, to be
begun out here tomorrow. It's the first mingling in the business of life
which I have done since my return home. Wyman is in Florida till May. He
has an obstinate cough and seems anxious about his lungs. I hope he'll
be spared, though, many a long year.
Ever yours truly,
WM. JAMES.
_To Charles Renouvier._
CAMBRIDGE, _Nov. 2, 1872_.
MONSIEUR,--Je viens d'apprendre par votre "Science de la Morale," que
l'ouvrage de M. Lequier, auquel vous faites renvoi dans votre deuxième
Essai de Critique, n'a jamais été mis en vente. Ceci explique l'insuccès
avec lequel j'ai pendant longtemps tâché de me le procurer par la voie
de la librairie.
Serait-ce trop vous demander, s'il vous restait encore des exemplaires,
de m'en envoyer un, que je présenterais, après l'avoir lu, en votre nom,
à la bibliothèque Universitaire de cette ville?
Si l'édition est déjà épuisée, ne vous mettez pas en peine de me
répondre, et que le vif intérêt que je prends à vos idées serve d'excuse
à ma demande. Je ne peux pas laisser échapper cette occasion de vous
dire toute l'admiration et la reconnaissance que m'ont inspirée la
lecture de vos Essais (sauf le 3me, que je n'ai pas encore lu). Grâce à
vous, je possède pour la première fois une conception intelligible et
raisonnable de la Liberté. Je m'y suis rangé à peu près. Sur d'autres
points de votre philosophie il me reste encore des doutes, mais je puis
dire que par elle je commence à renaître à la vie morale; et croyez,
monsieur, que ce n'est pas une petite chose!
Chez nous, c'est la philosophie de Mill, Bain, et Spencer qui emporte
tout à présent devant lui. Elle fait d'excellents travaux en
psychologie, mais au point de vue pratique elle est déterministe et
matérialiste, et déjà je crois aperçevoir en Angleterre les symptomes
d'une renaissance de la pensée religieuse. Votre philosophie par son
côté phénoméniste semble très propre à frapper les ésprits élevés dans
l'école empirique anglaise, et je ne doute pas dès qu'elle sera un peu
mieux connue en Angleterre et dans ce pays, qu'elle n'ait un assez grand
retentissement. Elle paraît faire son chemin lentement; mais je suis
convaincu que chaque année nous rapprochera du jour où elle sera
reconnue de tous comme étant la plus forte tentative philosophique que
le siècle ait vue naître en France, et qu'elle comptera toujours comme
un des grands jalons dans l'histoire de la speculation. Dès que ma santé
(depuis quelques années très mauvaise) me permet un travail intellectuel
un peu sérieux, je me propose d'en faire une étude plus approfondie et
plus critique, et d'en donner un compte-rendu dans une de nos revues. Si
donc, monsieur, il se trouve un exemplaire encore disponible de la
"Rech[erche] d'une première Verité," j'oserai vous prier de l'envoyer à
l'adresse de la libraire ci-incluse, en écrivant mon nom sur la
couverture. M. Galette soldera tous les frais, s'il s'en trouve.
Veuillez encore une fois, cher monsieur, croire aux sentiments
d'admiration et de haut respect avec lesquels je suis votre très
obéissant serviteur,
WILLIAM JAMES.
VII
1872-1878
_First Years of Teaching_
IN 1872 President Eliot wished to provide instruction in physiology and
hygiene for the Harvard undergraduates, and looked about him for
instructors. He had formed an impression of James ten years before
which, as he said, "was later to become useful to Harvard University,"
and in the interval he had known him as a Cambridge neighbor and had
been aware of the direction his interests had taken. He proposed that
James and Dr. Thomas Dwight--a young anatomist who was also to become an
eminent teacher--should share in the new undertaking. In August, 1872,
the College appointed James "Instructor in Physiology," to conduct three
exercises a week "during half of the ensuing academic year." Thus began
a service in the University which was to be almost continuously active
and engrossing until 1907.
The fact that James began by teaching anatomy and physiology, passed
thence to psychology, and last to philosophy, has been wrongly cited as
if his interest in each successive subject of his college work had been
the fruit of his experience in teaching the preceding subject. This
inference from the mere sequence of events will appear strange to
attentive readers of what has gone before. Indeed, if the fact that
James devoted a good share of his time to physiology in the seventies
calls for remark at all, it should be noted that his subject, from soon
after the beginning, was really physiological psychology, and
that--more interesting than anything else in this connection--one may
discern a patient surrender to limitations imposed by the state of his
health on the one hand, and on the other a sound sense of the value of
physiology to psychological investigations and so to philosophy, as both
underlying the sequence of events in his teaching. Whatever may have
been the succession of his college "courses," psychology and philosophy
were never divorced from each other in his thought or in his writings.
Thus it is interesting to find, that at the very moment of his
engagement to teach physiology,--at a date intermediate between the
appointment and the commencement of the course in fact,--he wrote to his
brother, "If I were well enough, now would be my chance to strike at
Harvard College, for Peterson has just resigned his sub-professorship of
philosophy, and I know of no very formidable opponent. But it's
impossible. I keep up a small daily pegging at my physiology, whose
duties don't begin till January, and which I shall find easy, I think."
He had needed definite duties and responsibilities and more or less
recognized his need; so he undertook to teach a subject which, though
congenial and interesting, lay distinctly off the path of his deepest
inclination.
The first three fragments that follow refer to his preparation for the
plunge into teaching. The course on Comparative Anatomy and Physiology
was given by Dwight and James under the general head of Natural History
and was an "elective" open to Juniors and Seniors. "As the course was
experimental and a part of the new expansion of the Elective System,"
writes President Eliot, "the President and the Faculty were interested
in the fact that the new course under these two young instructors
attracted 28 Juniors and 25 Seniors."
_To Henry James._
SCARBORO, _Aug. 24, 1872_.
...The appointment to teach physiology is a perfect God-send to me just
now, an external motive to work, which yet does not strain me--a dealing
with men instead of my own mind, and a diversion from those
introspective studies which had bred a sort of philosophical
hypochondria in me of late and which it will certainly do me good to
drop for a year....
* * * * *
CAMBRIDGE, _Nov. 24, 1872_.
...I go into the Medical School nearly every morning to hear Bowditch
lecture, or paddle round in his laboratory. It is a noble thing for
one's spirits to have some responsible work to do. I enjoy my revived
physiological reading greatly, and have in a corporeal sense been better
for the past four or five weeks than I have been at all since you
left....
* * * * *
CAMBRIDGE, _Feb. 13, 1873_.
...This morning arose, went to Brewer's to get two partridges to garnish
our cod-fish dinner. Bought at Richardson's an "Appleton's Journal"
containing part of "Bressant," a novel by Julian Hawthorne, to send Bob
Temple. At 10.30 arrived your letter of January 26th, which was a very
pleasant continuation of your _Aufenthalt_ in Rome. At 12.30, after
reading an hour in Flint's "Physiology," I went to town, paid a bill of
Randidge's, looked into the Athenæum reading-room, got one dozen raw
oysters at Higgins's saloon in Court Street, came out again, thermometer
having risen to near thawing point, dozed half an hour before the fire,
and am now writing this to you.
I am enjoying a two weeks' respite from tuition, the boys being
condemned to pass examinations, in which I luckily take no part at
present. I find the work very interesting and stimulating. It presents
two problems, the intellectual one--how best to state your matter to
them; and the practical one--how to govern them, stir them up, not bore
them, yet make them work, etc. I should think it not unpleasant as a
permanent thing. The authority is at first rather flattering to one. So
far, I seem to have succeeded in interesting them, for they are
admirably attentive, and I hear expressions of satisfaction on their
part. Whether it will go on next year can't at this hour, for many
reasons, be decided. I have done almost absolutely no visiting this
winter, and seen hardly anyone or heard anything till last week, when a
sort of frenzy took possession of me and I went to a symphony concert
and thrice to the theatre. A most lovely English actress, young,
innocent, refined, has been playing Juliet, which play I enjoyed most
intensely, though it was at the Boston Theatre and her support almost as
poor as it could have been. Neilson is she hight. I ne'er heard of her
before. A rival American beauty has been playing a stinking thing of
Sardou's ("Agnes") at the Globe, which disgusted me with cleverness. Her
name is Miss Ethel, and she is a ladylike but depressing phenomenon, all
made up of nerves and American insubstantiality. I have read hardly
anything of late, some of the immortal Wordsworth's "Excursion" having
been the best. I have simply shaken hands with Gray since his
engagement, and have only seen Holmes twice this winter. I fear he is at
last feeling the effects of his overwork....
* * * * *
CAMBRIDGE, _Apr. 6, 1873_.
...I have been cut out all this winter from the men with whom I used to
gossip on generalities, Holmes, Putnam, Peirce, Shaler, John Gray and,
last not least, yourself. I rather hanker after it, Bowditch being
almost the only man I have seen anything of this winter, and that at his
laboratory.... Child and I have struck up quite an intimacy.... T. S.
Perry is my only surviving crony. He dines pretty regular once a week
here.... Ever your affectionate
W. J.
* * * * *
The next letter, although not from William James, will help to fill out
the picture.
_Henry James, Senior, to Henry James._
CAMBRIDGE, _Mar. 18, 1873_.
... [William] gets on greatly with his teaching; his
students--fifty-seven of them--are elated with their luck in having him,
and I feel sure he will have next year a still larger number by his
fame. He came in the other afternoon while I was sitting alone, and
after walking the floor in an animated way for a moment, broke out:
"Bless my soul, what a difference between me as I am now and as I was
last spring at this time! Then so hypochondriacal"--he used that word,
though perhaps less in substance than form--"and now with my mind so
cleared up and restored to sanity. It's the difference between death and
life."
He had a great effusion. I was afraid of interfering with it, or
possibly checking it, but I ventured to ask what especially in his
opinion had produced the change. He said several things: the reading of
Renouvier (particularly his vindication of the freedom of the will) and
of Wordsworth, whom he has been feeding on now for a good while; but
more than anything else, his having given up the notion that all mental
disorder requires to have a physical basis. This had become perfectly
untrue to him. He saw that the mind does act irrespectively of material
coercion, and could be dealt with therefore at first hand, and this was
health to his bones. It was a splendid declaration, and though I had
known from unerring signs of the fact of the change, I never had been
more delighted than by hearing of it so unreservedly from his own lips.
He has been shaking off his respect for men of mere science as such, and
is even more universal and impartial in his mental judgments than I have
known him before....
* * * * *
James's first Harvard appointment had been for one year only. In the
spring of 1873 the question of its renewal on somewhat different terms
came up. President Eliot informed him that the College wished some one
man to give the instruction which he and Dr. Dwight had shared between
them, and offered him the whole course, including the anatomy.
It cost him "some perplexity to make the decision." He thought he saw
that such an instructorship "might easily grow into a permanent
biological appointment, to succeed Wyman, perhaps." At first he resolved
"to fight it out on the line of mental science," feeling that "with such
arrears of lost time behind [him] and such curtailed power of work," he
could no longer "afford to make so considerable an expedition into the
field of anatomy." But when he then considered himself as a possible
future teacher of philosophy, he was overwhelmed by a feeling which he
recorded on a page of his diary: "Philosophical activity _as a business_
is not normal for most men, and not for me.... To make the _form_ of all
possible thought the prevailing _matter_ of one's thought breeds
hypochondria. Of course my deepest interest will, as ever, lie with the
most general problems. But ... my strongest moral and intellectual
craving is for some stable reality to lean upon.... That gets reality
for us in which we place our responsibility, and the concrete facts in
which a biologist's responsibilities lie form a fixed basis from which
to aspire as much as he pleases to the mastery of universal questions
when the gallant mood is on him; and a basis too upon which he can
passively float and tide over times of weakness and depression, trusting
all the while blindly in the beneficence of nature's forces, and the
return of higher opportunities." Accordingly he determined to give
himself to biology, reporting to his brother Henry, who was at that time
in Europe, "I am not a strong enough man to choose the other and nobler
lot in life, but I can in a less penetrating way work out a philosophy
in the midst of the other duties...."
* * * * *
As the summer went on, he still had misgivings that he would not be
strong enough to prepare and conduct the laboratory demonstrations
necessary for a large class in comparative anatomy and physiology. He
saw that his first year of teaching had been "of great moral service to
him," but thought that in other ways the strain and fatigue had been a
brake upon the rate of his wished-for improvement. He therefore made up
his mind to postpone the instructorship for a year and go abroad once
more.
These hesitations, and a few months in Europe, marked the end of the
period of morbid depression through which the reader has been following
him. He returned to America eager for work.
Meanwhile parts of four letters written while he was abroad may be
given.
_To his Family._
ON BOARD S.S. SPAIN, _Oct. 17, 1873_.
DEAREST FAMILY,--I begin my Queenstown letter now because the first
section of the voyage seems to be closing. The delicious warm stern
wind, cloudy sky and smooth sea which we have had, unlike anything I
remember on the Atlantic, threatens to change into something less
agreeable, for the wind is fresh ahead, and the waves all capped with
white and the vessel begins to roll more and more. Hitherto she has not
rolled an inch, and all our days have been spent on deck, and I have
enjoyed less sickness than ever before; though I must say I loathe the
element. I am confirmed in my preference for big boats, and shall
probably try one of the Inman line when I return, as this, sweet Alice,
is rather Cunardy as to its table and sitting accommodations. Miss K----
and her two friends sit opposite me at meals and seem to ply a good
knife and fork. The other passengers are inoffensive and quiet, with the
exception of my roommate, who is a fine fellow, and a lovely young
missionary going to the Gabun coast to convert the niggers--a fearful
waste of herself, one is tempted to think. There are eleven missionaries
on board, and a young lady who is traveling with a party of them and
confided to me yesterday that she dreaded it was her doom to become one
too. My chum is a graduate of Bowdoin College, going to study two years
in Europe on money which he made during his vacations by peddling quack
medicines of his own concoction, and cutting corns. He has supported
himself four years in this way, and _abgesehen_ from the swindle of his
life in vacation time, is an honor to his native land, without
prejudices and full of animal spirits, wit and intelligence. We wash in
the same basin. He has never tasted spirituous liquor. I am also
intimate with a French commercial traveler, incredibly ignorant, but
extremely good-natured and gentlemanly. I have now determined to stick
to the missionary as close as possible. She is twenty-four years old and
very beautiful. I finished the "Strange Adventures of a Phaeton"
yesterday. A perfectly beautiful book, beside which "Good-bye,
Sweetheart," which I have begun, tastes coarse.
Good-bye. I hope a storm won't arise, but if it does, I'm glad enough to
be in such an extraordinarily steady ship. I pity you at home without
me, and long to pat the rich, creamy throat of little sister.
(Expression derived from "Goodbye, Sweetheart.")
* * * * *
_Friday Morn._
Ach! I thought yesterday was Friday, but found in the evening that it
was only Thursday. No matter, six days are now past. As I predicted, the
sea grew pretty big before sundown and the ship has been skipping about
all night like a lively kitten. But her motion is delightfully easy, and
no one, so far as I can see, has been sick. I never was better in my
life than yesterday made me. Nevertheless, little Sister, in looking at
the black waves with their skin of silver lace I have regretted saying
that safety was a minor consideration with me. I doubt in my heart that
even comfort is to be preferred to danger. The sea looks too
indigestible--the all-digesting sea! I threw away "Goodbye, Sweetheart"
at the 40th page and have begun the "Tour of the World in Eighty Days,"
a much better book. I am sorry that the little beauty's care for her
Bro.'s comfort did not go so far as to provide him with a
needle-and-thread-book, etc. _True_ sympathy divines wants; and a sister
who could not foresee that in three days her bro. should be driven to
borrowing Miss K----'s needle-book to sew on his buttons cannot be said
to be in very close magnetic relations with him. I lurched about the
deck arm in arm with the young missionary yestreen. I told her that, if
I were a missionary, instead of going to the most unhealthy part of
Africa, I would choose, say, Paris for a field. She, all unconscious of
the subtle humor of my remark, said, "Oh, yes! there are fearful numbers
of heathen there!" I have just rolled out of bed and into my clothes,
and write this in my stateroom, but can stand no longer its aromatic air
and hasten to say good-bye and mount to the deck.... Good-bye, good-bye.
Ever your loving
W. J.
* * * * *
On landing, James proceeded to Florence, to join his brother Henry for a
winter in Italy.
_To his Sister._
FLORENCE, _Oct. 29_ [1873].
12 midnight.
BELOVED SWEETLINGTON,--At this solemn hour I can't go to sleep without
remembering thee and thy beauty. I have just arrived from an
eleven-hours ride from Turin, pouring rain all the way. Ditto yesterday
during my twenty-two-hours ride from Paris. The Angel sleeps in number
39 hard by, all unwitting that I, the Demon (or perhaps you have already
begun in your talks to distinguish me from him as the Archangel), am
here at last. I wouldn't for worlds disturb this his last independent
slumber.
Not having seen the sun but for three days (on board ship) since the
eleventh, the natural gloom of my disposition and circumstances has been
much aggravated. And I had in London and Paris a pretty melancholy time.
I stayed but two days and one night in the latter place, which,
according to the law of opposition that rules your opinions and mine,
seemed to me a very tedious place. Its Haussmanization has produced a
terribly monotonous-looking city--no expression of having _grown_, in
any of the quarters I visited, and I did not have time to bring to the
surface what power I may possess of sympathizing with the French way of
being and doing. The awful thin and slow dinner in the tremendously
imperial dining-room of the Hôtel du Louvre, the exaggerated neatness
and order and reglementation of everything visible, contrasted with the
volcanic situation of things at the present moment, all a-kinder turned
my plain Yankee stomach, which has not yet recovered from the simpler
lessons of joy it learnt at Scarboro and Magnolia last summer. I went to
the Théâtre Français and heard a play in verse of Ponsard, thin stuff
splendidly represented. Altogether I don't care if I never go to Paris
again. London "impressed" me twelve times as much. Today in Italy my
spirits have riz. The draggle-tailed physiognomy of the railway stations
on the way here, the beautifully good-natured easy-going expression on
the faces of the railway officials, the charming dialogue I have just
had with the aged but angelic chambermaid whose phrases I managed to
understand the sense of as a whole without recognizing any particular
words--together with the consciousness of having for a time come to my
journey's end and of the certainty of breakfasting tomorrow with the
Angel, all let me go to bed with a light heart; hoping that yours is as
much so, beloved Alice and all....
_To his Sister._
FLORENCE, _Nov. 23, 1873_.
BELOVED SISTERKIN,--Your "nice long letter," as you call it, of Oct. 26
reached me five days ago, Mother's of November 4th yesterday, and with
it one from Father to Harry. Though you will probably disbelieve me, I
cannot help stating how agreeable it is to me to be once more in
regular communication with that which, in spite of all shortcomings, is
all that has ever been vouchsafed to me in the way of a "home" (and a
mother). The hotel in which we live here is anything but home-like. In
fact, when the heart aches for cosiness, etc., all it can do is to turn
out into the street.
I begin to feel, too, strongly that at my time of life, with such a set
of desultory years behind, what a man most wants is to be settled and
concentrated, to cultivate a patch of ground which may be humble but
still is his own. Here all this dead civilization crowding in upon one's
consciousness forces the mind open again even as the knife the unwilling
oyster--and what my mind wants most now is practical tasks, not the
theoretical digestion of additional masses of what to me are raw and
disconnected empirical materials. I feel like one still obliged to eat
more and more grapes and pears and pineapples, when the state of the
system imperiously demands a fat Irish stew, or something of that sort.
I knew it all before I came, however; and I hope in a fortnight to be
able comparatively to disregard what lies about me and get interested in
the physiological books I brought. So far I find the pictures, etc.,
drive my thoughts far away. I have just been reading a big German
octavo, Burkhardt's "Renaissance in Italy," with the title of which you
may enrich your historical consciousness, though I hardly think you need
read the book. This is the place for history. I don't see how, if one
lived here, historical problems could help being the most urgent ones
for the mind. It would suit you admirably. Even art comes before one
here much more as a problem--how to account for its development and
decline--than as a refreshment and an edification. I really think that
end is better served by the stray photographs which enter our houses at
home, finding us in the midst of our work and surprising us.
But here I am pouring out this one-sided splenetic humor upon you
without having the least intended it when I sat down. Your pen
accidentally slips into a certain vein and you must go on till you get
it out clearly. If you had heard me telling Harry two or three times
lately that I feared the fatal fascination of this place,--that I began
to feel it taking little stitches in my soul,--you would have a
different impression of my state than my above written words have left
upon you.... I went out intending to stroll in the Boboli Garden, a
wonderful old piece of last-century stateliness, but found it shut till
twelve. So I returned to Harry's room, where I sit by the pungent wood
fire writing this letter which I did not expect to begin till the
afternoon, while he, just at this moment rising from the table where his
quill has been busily scratching away at the last pages of his
Turguenieff article, comes to warm his legs and puts on another log....
Good-bye beloved Sister, and Father and Mother.... Write repeatedly such
nice long letters, and make glad the heart of both the Angel and the
other brother,
W. J.
_To his Sister._
ROME, _Dec. 17, 1873_.
BELOVED BEAUTLINGTON,--I cannot retire to rest on this eve of a
well-filled day without imparting to thy noble nature a tithe of the
enjoyment and happiness with which I am filled, and wishing you was here
to take your share in it.... The barbarian mind stretches little by
little to take in Rome, but I doubt if I shall ever call it the "city of
my soul," or "my country." Strange to say, my very enjoyment of what
here belongs to hoary eld has done more to reconcile me to what belongs
to the present hour, business, factories, etc., etc., than anything I
ever experienced. Every day I sally out into the sunshine and plod my
way o'er steps of broken thrones and temples until one o'clock, when I
repair to a certain café in the Corso, begin to eat and read "Galignani"
and the "Débats," until Harry comes in with the flush of successful
literary effort fading off his cheek. (It may interest the sympathetic
soul of Mother to know that my diet until that hour consists of a roll,
which a waiter in wedding costume brings up to my room when I rise, and
three sous' worth of big roasted chestnuts, which I buy, on going out,
from an old crone a few doors from the hotel. In this respect I am
economical. Likewise in my total abstinence from spirituous liquors, to
which Harry, I regret to say, has become an utter slave, spending a
large part of his earnings in Bass's Ale and wine, and trembling with
anger if there is any delay in their being brought to him.) After
feeding, the Angel in his old and rather shabby striped overcoat, and I
in my usual neat attire, proceed to walk together either to the big
Pincian terrace which overhangs the city, and where on certain days
everyone resorts, or to different churches and spots of note. I always
dine at the table-d'hôte here; Harry sometimes, his indisposition lately
(better the past two days) having made him prefer a solitary gorge at
the restaurant.
The people in the house are hardly instructive or exciting, but at
dinner and for an hour after in the dining-room they very pleasantly
kill time. I am become so far Anglicized that I find myself quite
fearful of speaking too much to a family of three "cads" who sit
opposite me at the table-d'hôte, and of whom the young lady (though
rather greasy about the face) is very handsome and intelligent. In the
evening I usually light my fire and read some local book....
I got a note from Hillebrand saying Schiff would gladly let me work in
his laboratory if I liked. I suppose I ought if I can, but I hanker
after home even at the price of a February voyage, and I hate to spend
so much money here on my mere gizzard and cheeks.--There, my sweet
sister, I hope that is a sufficiently spirited epistle for 10.30 P.M.
When, oh, when, will you write me another like the solitary one I got
from you in Florence? Seven weeks and one letter! C'est très
caractéristique de vous! I wrote two days ago to Annie Ashburner. Tell
the adorable Sara Sedgwick [Mrs. W. E. Darwin] that I can't possibly
refrain much longer--in spite of my just resentment--from writing to
her. Love to all.... Your
W. J.
* * * * *
After his return his college duties proved both absorbing and
stimulating. Beginning, as the reader has seen, as an instructor in the
Department of Natural History, charged with teaching the comparative
anatomy and physiology of vertebrates, he added a course on
physiological psychology in 1876, and organized the beginnings of the
psychological laboratory.[55] The next year this course was transferred
to the Department of Philosophy and given under the title "Psychology."
He contributed numerous reviews of scientific and philosophic
literature, along with a few anonymous articles, to the columns of the
"Atlantic Monthly" and the "Nation," and in 1878 appeared in the
"Journal of Speculative Philosophy" and the "Critique Philosophique,"
with three important papers entitled "Spencer's Definition of Mind as
Correspondence," "Brute and Human Intellect," and "Quelques
Considérations sur la Méthode Subjective."
Meanwhile his correspondence diminished to its minimum. When his brother
Henry also came home to America in 1874, it ceased almost entirely. It
did not begin to flow freely again, at least so far as letters are now
recoverable, until after 1878.
_To Henry James._
CAMBRIDGE, _June 25, 1874_.
A few days ago came your letter from Florence of June 3, speaking of the
glare on the _piazza_ and the coolness and space of your rooms, of your
late dinners and your solitude, and of the progress of your novel, and,
finally, of your expected departure about the 20th; so that I suppose
you are today percolating the cool arcades of Bologna or the faded
beauties of Verona, or haply [are] at Venice.... As the weeks glide by,
my present life and my last year's life at home seem to glide together
across the five months breach that Italy made in them, and to become
continuous; while those months step out of the line and become a sort of
side-decoration or picture hanging vaguely in my memory. As this happens
more and more, I take the greater pleasure in it. Especially does the
utter friendliness of Florence, Rome, etc., grow dear to me, and get
strangely mixed up with still earlier and more faded impressions,
derived I know not whence, which infused into the places when I first
saw them that strange thread of familiarity. The thought of the
Florentine places you name in your letters like "leiser Nachhall längst
verklungner Lieder, zieht mit Errinnerungsschauer durch die Brust." I
hope you'll pass through Dresden if you sail from Germany. I forgot to
say that the Eagle line from Hamburg has now the largest and finest
ships and the newest....
* * * * *
Miss Theodora Sedgwick, to whom the next letter is addressed, was a
member of the Stockbridge and New York family of that name, and a sister
of Mrs. Charles Eliot Norton and Mrs. William Darwin, to whom reference
has already been made. At this time she was living with two maiden aunts
named Ashburner, friends of James's parents, in a house on Kirkland
Street, Cambridge, not far from Mr. Norton's "Shady Hill." The letter of
November 14, 1866, contained an allusion to this household, and others
will occur as the letters proceed.
_To Miss Theodora Sedgwick._
CAMBRIDGE, _Aug. 8, 1874_.
MISS THEODORA SEDGWICK
to WILLIAM JAMES, Dr.
Aug. 6, to 1 Orchestra Seat in Hippodrome [Barnum's Circus] $1.00
" " " 2 carriage fares at 50c. $1.00
" " " 1 glass vanilla cream sodawater $ .10
" " " 1 plate of soup lost $ .25
" " " 4 hours time at 12-1/2 cents $ .50
" " " Sundries $ .05
-----
Total $2.90
Rec'd on account. $2.00
WM. JAMES
HONORED MISS,--I hope you will find the aforesaid charges moderate. When
you transmit me the 90 cents still due, please send back at the same
time whatever letters of mine you may still have in your possession, and
the diamonds, silks, etc., which you may have at different times been
glad to receive from me. Likewise both pieces of the collar stud I so
recently lavished upon you. We can then remain as strangers.
I come of a race sensitive in the extreme; more accustomed to treat than
to be treated, especially in this manner; and caring for its money as
little as for its life. What wonder then that the mercenary conduct of
One whom I have ever fostered without hope of pecuniary reward should
work like madness in my brain?
On the point of closing I see with rapture that a way of accommodation
is still open! O joy! The salmon, blackberries, etc., I consumed, had a
market value. By charging me for the tea 90 cents, you will make the
thing reciprocal, and I will call the account square. Perhaps even then
the dreadful feeling of wounded pride and Barnum-born resentment may
with time fade away. Amen. Respectfully yours,
W. J.
_To Henry James._
CAMBRIDGE, _Jan._ [2], 1876.
...Your letter No. 2 speaking of your visit to Turguenieff was received
by me duly and greatly enjoyed. I never heard you speak so
enthusiastically of any human being. It is too bad he is to leave Paris;
but if he gives you the "run" of Flaubert and eke George Sand, it will
be so much gained. I don't think you know Miss A----, but if you did,
you would thank me for pointing out to you the parallelism between her
and George Sand which overwhelmed me the other day when I was calling on
her, and she (who has just lost her sister B---- and had her father go
through an attack of insanity) was snuggling down so hyper-comfortably
into garrulity about B----, and her poor dead T---- and her dead mother,
that I was fairly suffocated, just as I am by the _comfort_ George Sand
takes in telling you of the loves of servant men for ladies, and other
things _contra naturam_.
Christmas passed off here in a rather wan and sallow manner. I got a
gold scarf-ring from Mother and a gold watch-chain from Aunt Kate. Let
me, by the way, advise you to get a scarf-ring; 't is one of the
greatest inventions of modern times, in saving labor, silk and shirt
fronts. Alice got a desk, and from me a Scotch terrier pup only seven
weeks old, whom we call Bunch, who has almost doubled his size in a
week, who is a perfect lion in determination and courage, and who don't
seem to care a jot for any human society but that of Jane in the
kitchen, whose person is, I suppose, pervaded by a greasy and smoky
smell agreeable to his nostrils. He has a perfect passion for the
dining-room; whenever he is left to himself, he travels thither and lies
down under the table and takes no notice of you when you go to call him.
He does not sleep half as much as Dido, never utters a sound when shut
up for the night in the kitchen, and altogether fills us with a sort of
awe for the Roman firmness and independence of his character. He is
"animated" by a colliquative diarrhoea or cholera, which keeps us all
sponging over his tracks, but which don't affect his strength or spirits
a bit. He is in short a very queer substitute for poor, dear Dido....
_To Henry James._
NEWPORT, _June 3, 1876_.
MY DEAR H.,--I write you after [a] considerable interval filled with too
much work and weariness to make letter-writing convenient.... I ran away
three days ago, the recitations being over for the year, in order to
break from the studious associations of home. I have been staying at the
Tweedies with Mrs. Chapman, and James Sturgis and his wife, and enjoying
extremely, not the conversation indoors, but the lonely lying on the
grass on the cliffs at Lyly Pond, and four or five hours yesterday at
the Dumplings, feeling the moving air and the gentle living sea. There
is a purity and mildness about the elements here which purges the soul
of one. And I have been as if I had taken opium, not wanting to do
anything else than the particular thing I happened to be doing at the
moment, and feeling equally good whether I stood or walked or lay, or
spoke or was silent. It's a splendid relief from the overstrain and
stimulus of the past few scholastic months. I go the day after tomorrow
(Monday) with the Tweedies to New York, assist at Henrietta Temple's
wedding on Tuesday, and then pass on to the Centennial for a couple of
days. I suppose it will be pretty tiresome, but I want to see the
English pictures, which they say are a good show.... I fancy my
vacationizing will be confined to visits of a week at a time to
different points, perhaps the pleasantest way after all of spending it.
Newport as to its villas, and all that, is most repulsive to me. I
really didn't know how little charm and how much shabbiness there was
about the place. There are not more than three or four houses out of the
whole lot that are not offensive, in some way, externally. But the mild
nature grows on one every day. This afternoon, God willing, I shall
spend on Paradise.[56]
The Tweedies keep no horses, which makes one walk more or pay more than
one would wish. The younger Seabury told me yesterday that he was just
reading your "Roderick Hudson," but offered no [comment]. Colonel
Waring said of your "American" to me: "I'm not a blind admirer of H.
James, Jr., but I said to my wife after reading that first number, 'By
Jove, I think he's hit it this time!'" I think myself the thing opens
very well indeed, you have a first-rate datum to work up, and I hope
you'll do it well.
Your last few letters home have breathed a tone of contentment and
domestication in Paris which was very agreeable to get.... Your accounts
of Ivan Sergeitch are delightful, and I envy you the possession of the
young painter's intimacy. Give my best love to Ivan. I read his book
which you sent home (foreign books sent by mail pay duty now, though; so
send none but good ones), and although the vein of "morbidness" was so
pronounced in the stories, yet the mysterious depths which his plummet
sounds atone for all. It is the amount of life which a man feels that
makes you value his mind, and Turguenieff has a sense of worlds within
worlds whose existence is unsuspected by the vulgar. It amuses me to
recommend his books to people who mention them as they would the novels
of Wilkie Collins. You say we don't notice "Daniel Deronda." I find it
extremely interesting. Gwendolen and her spouse are masterpieces of
conception and delineation. Her ideal figures are much vaguer and
thinner. But her "sapience," as you excellently call it, passes all
decent bounds. There is something essentially womanish in the
irrepressible garrulity of her moral reflections. Why is it that it
makes women feel so good to moralize? Man philosophizes as a matter of
business, because he must,--he does it to a purpose and then lets it
rest; but women don't seem to get over being tickled at the discovery
that they have the faculty; hence the tedious iteration and restlessness
of George Eliot's commentary on life. The La Farges are absent. Yours
always,
W. J.
* * * * *
Under the title "Bain and Renouvier," James contributed a review
containing a brief discussion of free will and determinism to the
"Nation" of June 8, 1876. He of course sent a copy to Renouvier. The
following letter begins with a reference to Renouvier's acknowledgment.
James had been acquainted with Renouvier's work since 1868, when, as the
reader will recall, he read a number of the "Année Philosophique,"
Renouvier's annual survey of contemporary philosophy, for the first
time. The diary entry already quoted from the year 1870 has shown what
effect Renouvier's essays then had on his mind. His admiration for the
elder philosopher was great and he cherished it loyally for the rest of
his life. Indeed, in the unfinished manuscript, which was published
posthumously as "Some Problems of Philosophy," James looked back at the
formative period of his own philosophical thinking and wrote: "Renouvier
was one of the greatest of philosophic characters, and but for the
decisive impression made on me in the seventies by his masterly advocacy
of pluralism I might never have got free from the monistic superstition
under which I had grown up." In time he made Renouvier's acquaintance in
France and wrote to him often. He examined and discussed his writings
with college classes. Occasionally he reported these discussions and
read Renouvier's answers to the students. On the other side, Renouvier
paid James the compliment of printing or translating several of his
papers in the "Critique Philosophique," and thus brought him early to
the notice of French readers.
_To Charles Renouvier._
CAMBRIDGE, _July 29, 1876_.
MY DEAR SIR,--I am quite overcome by your appreciation of my poor little
article in the "Nation." It gratifies me extremely to hear from your
own lips that my apprehension of your thoughts is accurate. In so
despicably brief a space as that which a newspaper affords, I could
hardly hope to attain any other quality than that, and perhaps
clearness. I had written another paragraph of pure eulogy of your
powers, which the editor suppressed, to my great regret, for want of
room. I need not repeat to you again how grateful I feel to you for all
I have learned from your admirable writings. I do what lies in my feeble
power to assist the propagation of your works here, but _students_ of
philosophy are rare here as everywhere. It astonishes me, nevertheless,
that you have had to wait so long for general recognition. Only a few
months ago I had the pleasure of introducing to your "Essais" two
_professors_ of philosophy, able and learned men, who hardly knew your
name!! But I am perfectly convinced that it is a mere affair of time,
and that you will take your place in the general History of Speculation
as the classical and finished representative of the tendency which was
begun by Hume, and to which writers before you had made only fragmentary
contributions, whilst you have fused the whole matter into a solid,
elegant and definitive system, perfectly consistent, and capable, by
reason of its moral vitality, of becoming popular, so far as that is
permitted to philosophic systems. After your Essays, it seems to me that
the only important question is the deepest one of all, the one between
the principle of contradiction, and the _Sein und Nichts_.[57] You have
brought it to that clear issue; and extremely as I value your logical
attitude, it would be uncandid of me (after what I have said) not to
confess that there are certain psychological and moral facts, which make
me, as I stand today, unable wholly to commit myself to your position,
to burn my ships behind me, and proclaim the belief in the _one_ and the
many to be the Original Sin of the mind. I long for leisure to study up
these questions. I have been teaching anatomy and physiology in Harvard
College here. Next year, I add a course of physiological psychology,
using, for certain practical reasons, Spencer's "Psychology" as a
textbook. My health is not strong; I find that laboratory work and
study, too, are more than I can attend to. It is therefore not
impossible that I may in 1877-8 be transferred to the philosophical
department, in which there is likely to be a vacancy. If so, you may
depend upon it that the name of Renouvier will be as familiar as that of
Descartes to the Bachelors of Arts who leave these walls. Believe me
with the greatest respect and gratitude, faithfully yours,
WM. JAMES.
...I must add a _vivat_ to your "Critique Philosophique," which keeps up
so ably and bravely! And although it is probably an entirely superfluous
recommendation, I cannot refrain from calling your attention to the most
robust of English philosophic writers, [Shadworth] Hodgson, whose "Time
and Space" was published in 1865 by Longmans, and whose "Theory of
Practice," in two volumes, followed it in 1870.
* * * * *
In connection with the allusion to two professors of philosophy who
hardly knew Renouvier's name, it would be fair to say that James was
acutely conscious of the prevailing academic conditions. He was, in
fact, one among a few younger men who were already rejuvenating the
teaching of philosophy in American colleges. They began their work under
difficult conditions.
Dr. G. Stanley Hall wrote an open letter to the "Nation" in 1876, in
which he said:--
"I have often wished that the 'Nation' would devote some space to the
condition of philosophy in American colleges. Within the last few years
I have visited the class-rooms of many of our best institutions, and
believe that there are few if any branches which are so inadequately
taught as those generally roughly classed as philosophy. Deductive
logic, or the syllogism, is the most thoroughly dwelt upon, while
induction, æsthetic and psychological and ethical studies, and
especially the history of the leading systems of philosophy, ancient and
modern, and the marvellous new developments in England and Germany, are
almost entirely ignored. The persistent use of Hamilton, Butler's
'Analogy' and a score of treatises on 'moral science,' which deduce all
the ground of obligation from theological considerations, as text-books,
is largely responsible for the supposed unpopularity of the studies....
I think the success which has attended the recent lecture courses at
Cambridge on modern systems of philosophy, and on æsthetic studies of
literature and the fine arts, shows plainly how much might be
accomplished in this direction by the proper method of instruction."
James's comment on this, printed anonymously in the "Nation" for
September 21, 1876, expressed his view of the situation more fully:--
"The philosophical teaching, as a rule, in our higher seminaries is in
the hands of the president, who is usually a minister of the Gospel,
and, as he more often owes his position to general excellence of
character and administrative faculty than to any speculative gifts or
propensities, it usually follows that 'safeness' becomes the main
characteristic of his tuition; that his classes are edified rather than
awakened, and leave college with the generous youthful impulse, to
reflect on the world and our position in it, rather dampened and
discouraged than stimulated by the lifeless discussions and flabby
formulas they have had to commit to memory....
"Let it not be supposed that we are prejudging the question whether the
final results of speculation will be friendly or hostile to the formulas
of Christian thought. All we contend for is that we, like the Greeks and
the Germans, should now attack things as if there were no official
answer preoccupying the field. At present we are bribed beforehand by
our reverence or dislike for the official answer; and the free-thinking
tendency which the 'Popular Science Monthly,' for example, represents,
is condemned to an even more dismal shallowness than the spiritualistic
systems of our text-books of 'Mental Science.' We work with one eye on
our problem, and with the other on the consequences to our enemy or to
our lawgiver, as the case may be; the result in both cases is
mediocrity.
"If the best use of our colleges is to give young men a wider openness
of mind and a more flexible way of thinking than special technical
training can generate, then we hold that philosophy (taken in the broad
sense in which our correspondent uses the word) is the most important of
all college studies. However skeptical one may be of the attainment of
universal truths (and to make our position more emphatic, we are willing
here to concede the extreme Positivistic position), one can never deny
that philosophic study means the habit of always seeing an alternative,
of not taking the usual for granted, of making conventionalities fluid
again, of imagining foreign states of mind. In a word, it means the
possession of mental perspective. Touchstone's question, 'Hast any
philosophy in thee, shepherd?' will never cease to be one of the tests
of a wellborn nature. It says, Is there space and air in your mind, or
must your companions gasp for breath whenever they talk with you? And
if our colleges are to make men, and not machines, they should look,
above all things, to this aspect of their influence....
"As for philosophy, technically so called, or the reflection of man on
his relations with the universe, its educational essence lies in the
quickening of the spirit to its _problems_. What doctrines students take
from their teachers are of little consequence provided they catch from
them the living, philosophic attitude of mind, the independent, personal
look at all the data of life, and the eagerness to harmonize them....
"In short, philosophy, like Molière, claims her own where she finds it.
She finds much of it today in physics and natural history, and must and
will educate herself accordingly.... Meanwhile, when we find announced
that the students in Harvard College next year may study any or all of
the following works under the guidance of different professors,--Locke's
'Essay,' Kant's 'Kritik,' Schopenhauer and Hartmann, Hodgson's 'Theory
of Practice,' and Spencer's 'Psychology,'--we need not complain of
universal academic stagnation, even today."
VIII
1878-1883
_Marriage--Contract for the Psychology--European Colleagues--Death of
his Parents_
EARLY in 1876 James had been introduced by their common friend Thomas
Davidson (that ardent and lovable man whom he sketched with incomparable
strokes in "A Knight Errant of the Intellectual Life") to Miss Alice H.
Gibbens, and the next day he wrote to his brother Wilky that he had met
"the future Mrs. W. J." Miss Gibbens had grown up in Weymouth, a
pleasant little Massachusetts town in which several generations of her
ancestors had lived comfortably and which was then still untouched by
the "development" that later converted it and its neighbour, Quincy,
into unseemly stone-quarriers' suburbs. In 1876 she had just returned,
with her widowed mother and two younger sisters, from a five-years'
residence in Europe and was teaching in a school for girls in Boston. On
July 10, 1878, after a short engagement, he and Miss Gibbens were
married by the Reverend Rufus Ellis at the house of the bride's
grandmother in Boston.
It must be left to a later day and a less intimate and partial hand to
do adequate justice to a marriage which was happy in the rarest and
fullest sense, and which was soon to work an abiding transformation in
James's health and spirits. No mere devotion could have achieved the
skill and care with which his wife understood and helped him. Family
duties and responsibilities, often grave and worrisome enough, weighed
lightly in the balance against the tranquillity and confidence that his
new domesticity soon brought him. During the twenty-one years that
immediately followed his marriage he accomplished an amount of teaching,
college committee-service and administration, friendly and helpful
personal intercourse with his students, reading and book-writing,
original research, not to speak of his initial excursions into the field
of psychical research, and a good deal of popular lecturing to eke out
his income, that would have astonished anyone who had known him only
during the early seventies, and that would have honored the capacity and
endurance of any man. The serener tone of his letters soon contrasts
itself with much that has gone before. The occasional references to
fatigue, insomnia, and eye-strain, which still occur in his
correspondence are explained by the amount of work he imposed upon
himself rather than by the lack of strength with which he met his tasks.
Meanwhile his wife, who entered into all his plans and undertakings with
unfailing understanding and high spirit, stood guard over his library
door, protected him from interruptions and distractions, managed the
household and the children and the family business, helped him to order
his day and to see and entertain his friends at convenient times, sped
him off on occasional much-needed vacations, and encouraged him to all
his major undertakings, with a sustaining skill and cheer which need not
be described to anyone who knew his household. To the importance of her
companionship it is still, happily, impossible to do justice. If
consulted, she would not tolerate even this allusion; yet to gloss over
her sustaining influence entirely would be to do injustice to James
himself.
* * * * *
The summer of 1878 was momentous in James's life for another reason. In
June, one month before his marriage, he contracted with Messrs. Henry
Holt & Company to write a volume on Psychology for the "American Science
Series" that they were beginning to publish. He was asked by Mr. Holt,
in the course of preliminary correspondence, whether he could deliver
the manuscript in a year's time. James replied (June, 1878): "My other
engagements and my health both forbid the attempt to execute the work
rapidly. Its quality too might then suffer. I don't think I could finish
it inside of two years--say the fall of 1880." Thus he proposed to throw
the book off rapidly. He doubtless conceived of it in the beginning as a
more or less literary survey of the subject as it was then known, and he
certainly did not foresee that he was going to devote twelve years of
critical study and original research to its preparation.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, immediately after their marriage, James took his wife to the
upper end of Keene Valley in the Adirondacks for the rest of the summer.
They both knew and loved the region already. Indeed, although there has
been no occasion to mention it before, Keene Valley had already become
for James the playground toward which he turned most eagerly when summer
came. It never lost its charm for him; he managed to spend a week or two
of almost every year there or nearby; and allusions to the region will
appear in a number of later letters.
At the head of these valleys, in the basin of the Ausable Lakes and on
the surrounding slopes of the most interesting group of mountains in the
Adirondacks, a great tract of forest has been preserved. Giant,
Noonmark, Colvin, and the Gothics raise their splendid ridges and
summits to the enclosing horizon, and Dix, Haystack, and Marcy, the
last the highest mountain of the Adirondack range, are within a day's
walk of the little community that used to be known as "Beede's." Where
the Ausable Club's picturesque golf-course is now laid out, the fields
of Smith Beede's farm then surrounded his primitive, white-painted
hotel. Half a mile to the eastward, in a patch of rocky pasture beside
Giant Brook, stood the original Beede farm-house, and this Henry P.
Bowditch, Charles and James Putnam, and William James had bought for a
few hundred dollars (subject to Beede's cautious proviso in the deed
that "the purchasers are to keep no boarders"). They had adapted the
little story-and-a-half dwelling to their own purposes and converted its
surrounding sheds and pens into habitable shanties of the simplest kind.
So they established a sort of camp, with the mountains for their
climbing, the brook to bathe in, and the primeval forest fragrant about
them.
With a friend or native guide,--or often alone, with a book and lunch in
his light rücksack,--James would go off for a long day's walk on one of
the mountain trails. He liked to start early and to spend several hours
at mid-day stretched out on the sheltered side of an open ridge or
summit. In this way he would combine a day of outdoor exercise with
fifty to eighty pages of professional reading, the daily stint to which
he often held himself in his holidays.
In the summer of seventy-eight he planned to combine this sort of
refreshment with work on the "Psychology." The plan seemed a little
innocent to at least one friend,--Francis J. Child,--who said in a
letter to James Russell Lowell: "William has already begun a Manual of
Psychology--in the honeymoon;--but they are both writing it."
_To Francis J. Child._
[Dictated to Mrs. James]
KEENE VALLEY, _Aug. 16_ [1878].
CARISSIMO,--Daily since the first instant have we trembled with joyous
expectancy of your holiday face arriving at our door. Daily have we
dashed the teardrop of disappointment from our common eye! And now to
get a letter instead of your revered form! It is shameful. We are dying
with the tedium of each other's society and you would make the wheels of
life go round again. Your excursion to Scarborough is simply criminal
under the circumstances. You know we longed to see you. It is not too
late to repair your fault, for although we shall not outstay the 1st of
September, you would find the Putnams and the best thirty-five-year-old
medical society in Boston to keep you company after we go. You had
better come from Scarborough through Portland direct to Burlington by
the White Mt. R.R. From Burlington take boat to Westport, whence stage
to Beede's and our beating heart. But such is the crassitude of your
malignity that after this we hardly dare expect you. Seriously, how
could you be so insane?
As for the remaining matter of your somewhat illegible letter, what is
this mythological and poetical talk about psychology and Psyche and
keeping back a manuscript composed during a honeymoon? The only Psyche
now recognized by science is a decapitated frog whose writhings express
deeper truths than your weakminded poets ever dreamed. _She_ (not Psyche
but the bride) loves all these doctrines which are quite novel to her
mind, hitherto accustomed to all sorts of mysticism and superstitions.
She swears entirely by reflex action now, and believes in universal
_Nothwendigkeit_. Hope not with your ballad-mongering ever to gain an
influence.
We have spent, however, a ballad-like summer in this delicious cot among
the hills. We only needed crooks and a flock of sheep. I need not say
that our psychic reaction has been one of content--perhaps as great as
ever enjoyed by man.
So farewell, false friend, till such near time as your ehrwürdig person
decorate our hearth at Mrs. Hanks's in Harvard St.
Communicate our hearty love to Mrs. Child and believe us your always
doting
(W. and A.) J.
And for Heaven's sake _come_ while yet there is time!
WM.
* * * * *
When the College opened in the autumn of seventy-eight James and his
wife returned to Cambridge and lived for a few months in lodgings at 387
Harvard Street. The next letter begins a series from which a number of
later letters will be given. One of the warmest of James's lifelong
friendships was with Miss Frances R. Morse of Boston. The "exquisite
Mary" referred to near the end is her sister, later Mrs. John W. Elliot.
_To Miss Frances R. Morse._
[Dictated to Mrs. James]
CAMBRIDGE, _Dec. 26, 1878_.
_Our_ DEAR FANNY,--I (W.) shield myself under my wife's handwriting to
drop that formal style of address which has so long cast its cold shadow
over our intercourse, and for which, now that I have become an old fogy
whilst you still remain a blooming child, there seems no further good
reason. Are you willing that henceforward we should call each other by
our first names? If so, respond in kind. I have got into the habit of
dictating to _her_ all that I write, in order to save my eyes. This
letter is from both of us.
Your letter from Brighton of Oct. 15th was duly and gladly received. You
have since then seen a great many things, and we have heard of you
occasionally, latest of your ascent of the Nile with the Longfellows.
They will be pleasant companions and I hope the long rest, delicious
climate and beautiful outlook of that voyage will do ---- a world of
good. It is too pitiful to think of her breaking down just at a time
when one's active faculties have so much incitement to exert themselves.
I am glad your mother is so much better. And how you will enjoy the
sights of the winter! Don't you wish you had taken history instead of
English literature!
We are very happily "boarding" on the corner of Harvard and Ware Street,
next door to old Mrs. Cary's, where the Tappans used to live. We have
absolutely no housekeeping trouble; we live surrounded by our wedding
presents, and can devote all our energies to studying our lessons,
dining with our respective mothers-in-law, receiving and repaying our
"calls," which average one a day, and anxiously keeping our accounts in
a little book so as to see where the trouble is if both ends don't meet.
We meant to have sent you this letter on Christmas day, but it was
crowded out by many interruptions. We had, considering the age of the
world and the hard times, quite a show of Xmas gifts and mild
festivities.
...I suppose you get your "Nation" regularly on the Nile, so I make no
comments on public affairs. We all feel sorry for poor old England just
now. It really seems as if with us things were settling down upon a
solid and orderly basis of general frugality. Keen cold weather, bare
ground, and clear sky, west wind filling the air with clouds of frozen
dust, and an engagement at the dentist's in an hour from this will seem
to you on the Nile like tales told by an idiot. Still they are true for
me. Pray write again and let us hear that you are all well, especially
the exquisite Mary, to whom give lots of love, and with plenty to your
parents and self, believe me, yours faithfully,
WM. JAMES.
* * * * *
The passage which follows is taken from a letter to Mrs. James, of about
this time. It is so unusual a bit of self-analysis that it is included
here. James himself never failed to recognize that every man's thought
is biased by his temperament as well as guided by purely rational
considerations.
_To Mrs. James._
...I have often thought that the best way to define a man's character
would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which,
when it came upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active
and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and
says: "_This_ is the real me!" And afterwards, considering the
circumstances in which the man is placed, and noting how some of them
are fitted to evoke this attitude, whilst others do not call for it, an
outside observer may be able to prophesy where the man may fail, where
succeed, where be happy and where miserable. Now as well as I can
describe it, this characteristic attitude in me always involves an
element of active tension, of holding my own, as it were, and trusting
outward things to perform their part so as to make it a full harmony,
but without any _guaranty_ that they will. Make it a guaranty--and the
attitude immediately becomes to my consciousness stagnant and stingless.
Take away the guaranty, and I feel (provided I am _überhaupt_ in
vigorous condition) a sort of deep enthusiastic bliss, of bitter
willingness to do and suffer anything, which translates itself
physically by a kind of stinging pain inside my breast-bone (don't smile
at this--it is to me an essential element of the whole thing!), and
which, although it is a mere mood or emotion to which I can give no form
in words, authenticates itself to me as the deepest principle of all
active and theoretic determination which I possess....
W. J.
* * * * *
The next letter contains the first reference to work on the
"Psychology." It also introduces into this volume the name and
personality of a colleague-to-be with whom James's relations were
destined to be close and permanent.
Josiah Royce was then a young man "from the intellectual barrens of
California" whose brilliant work was still to be done, and whose
philosophic genius had not yet been disclosed to the public, although it
may fairly be said to have been announced by every line of his
engagingly Socrates-like face and figure. He had been born and brought
up among the most primitive surroundings in Grass Valley, California,
and won his way to a brief period of study in Germany and to a degree at
Johns Hopkins in 1878. While yet a student there, he paid a visit to
Cambridge, and he has left his own quotable record of the meeting which
resulted, and of what followed.
"My real acquaintance with [James] began one summer-day in 1877, when I
first visited him in [his father's] house on Quincy Street, and was
permitted to pour out my soul to somebody who really seemed to believe
that a young man might rightfully devote his life to philosophy if he
chose. I was then a student at the Johns Hopkins University. The
opportunities for a life-work in philosophy in this country were few.
Most of my friends and advisers had long been telling me to let the
subject alone. Perhaps, so far as I was concerned, their advice was
sound; but in any case I was, so far, incapable of accepting that
advice. Yet if somebody had not been ready to tell me that I had a right
to work for truth in my own way, I should ere long have been quite
discouraged. I do not know what I then could have done. James found me
at once--made out what my essential interests were at our first
interview, accepted me with all my imperfections, as one of those many
souls who ought to be able to find themselves in their own way, gave a
patient and willing ear to just my variety of philosophical experience,
and used his influence from that time on, not to win me as a follower,
but to give me my chance. It was upon his responsibility that I was
later led to get my first opportunities here at Harvard."[58]
The opportunities did not ripen until 1882-83, however; and in the
meanwhile Royce returned to the young University of California as an
instructor in logic and rhetoric. Letters written to him there will show
how cordially James continued to sympathize with the aspirations of his
young friend, and how eagerly he fostered the possibility of an
appointment to the Harvard philosophical department. When the
opportunity arose, James seized it. Thereafter he and Royce saw each
other so constantly in Cambridge that there were not many occasions for
either to write letters to the other. Instead, allusions to Royce appear
frequently in the letters to other people.
The philosophical club which is alluded to at the end of the letter was
presided over by Dr. W. T. Harris and held informal meetings in Boston
during this one winter. Its purpose was to read and discuss Hegel. Dr.
C. C. Everett, Prof. G. H. Palmer, and Thomas Davidson were among the
members.
_To Josiah Royce._
CAMBRIDGE, _Feb. 16_ [1879].
MY DEAR ROYCE,--Your letter was most welcome. I had often found myself
wondering how you were getting on, and your wail as the solitary
philosopher between Behrings' Strait and Tierra del Fuego has a grand,
lonesome picturesqueness about it. I am sorry your surroundings are not
more mentally congenial. But recollect your extreme youth and the fact
that you are making a living and practising yourself in the pedagogic
art, _überhaupt_. You might be forced to do something much farther away
from your chosen line, and even then not make a living. I think you are
a lucky youth even as matters stand. Unexpected chances are always
turning up. A fortnight ago President Eliot was asked to recommend some
one for a $5000 professorship of philosophy in the New York City
College. One Griffin of Amherst was finally appointed. I imagine that
Gilman [of Johns Hopkins] is keeping his eye on you and only waiting for
the disgrace of youth to fade from your person.
I liked your article on Schiller very much, and hope you will send more
to Harris. That most villainous of editors, as I am told, has himself
been to Baltimore lately as an office-seeker. But the rumor may be
false. In some respects he might be a useful man for the Johns Hopkins
University, but I would give no more for his judgment than for that of a
Digger Indian. I hope you will write something about Hodgson. He is
quite as worthy as Kant of supporting any number of parasites and
partial assimilators of his substance. My sentence, I perceive, has a
rather uncomplimentary sound. I meant only to say that you should not be
deterred from treating him in your own way from fear of inadequacy. All
his commentators must undoubtedly be inadequate for some time to come;
but they will all help each other out. He seems to me the wealthiest
mine of thought I ever met with.
With me, save for my eyes, things are jogging along smoothly. I am
writing (very slowly) what may become a text-book of psychology. A
proposal from Gilman to teach in Baltimore three months yearly for the
next three years had to be declined as incompatible with work here. I
will send you a corrected copy of Harris's journal with my article on
Space, which was printed without my seeing the proof.
I suppose you subscribe to "Mind." The only decent thing I have ever
written will, I hope, appear in the July number of that sheet.[59] The
delays of publication are fearful. Most of this was written in 1877. If
it ever sees the light, I hope you will let me know what you think of
it, and how it tallies with your own theory of the Concept, which latter
I would fain swallow and digest. I wish you belonged to our philosophic
club here. It is very helpful to the uprooting of weeds from one's own
mind as well as the detection of beams in one's neighbor's eyes. Write
often and believe me faithfully yours,
WM. JAMES.
_To Josiah Royce._
CAMBRIDGE, _Feb. 3, 1880_.
BELOVED ROYCE!--So far was I from having forgotten you that I had been
revolving in my mind, on the very day when your letter came, the
rhetorical formulas of objurgation with which I was to begin a page of
inquiries of you: whether you were dead and buried or had become an
idiot or were sick or blind or what, that you sent no word of yourself.
_I_ am blind as ever, which may excuse my silence.
First of all _Glückwünsche_ as to your _Verlobung_! which, like the true
philosopher that you are, you mention parenthetically and without names,
dates, numbers of dollars, etc., etc. I think it shows great sense in
her, and no small amount of it in you, whoe'er she be. I have found in
marriage a calm and repose I never knew before, and only wish I had done
the thing ten years earlier. I think the lateness of our usual marriages
is a bad thing, and hope your engagement will not last very long.
It is refreshing to hear your account of philosophic work.... I'm sorry
you've given up your article on Hodgson. He _is_ obscure enough, and
makes me sometimes wonder whether the _ignotum_ does not pass itself off
for the _magnifico_ in his pages. I enclose his photograph as a loan,
trusting you will return it soon. I will never write again for Harris's
journal. He refused an article of mine a year ago "for lack of room,"
and has postponed the printing of two admirable original articles by T.
Davidson and Elliot Cabot for the last ten months or more, in order to
accommodate Mrs. Channing's verses and Miss----'s drivel about the
school of Athens, etc., etc. It is too loathsome. Harris has resigned
his school position in St. Louis and will, I am told, come East to live.
I know not whether he means to lay siege to the Johns Hopkins
professorship. My ignorant prejudice against all Hegelians, except
Hegel himself, grows wusser and wusser. Their sacerdotal airs! and their
sterility! Contemplating their navels and the syllable _oum_! My dear
friend Palmer, assistant professor of philosophy here, is already one of
the white-winged band, having been made captive by Caird in two summers
of vacation in Scotland.... The ineffectiveness and impotence of the
ending of [Caird's] work on Kant seem to me simply scandalous, after its
pretentious (and able) beginning. What do you think of Carveth [Reid]'s
Essay on Shadworth [Hodgson]? I haven't read it. Our Philosophic Club
here is given up this year--I think we're all rather sick of each
other's voices. My teaching is small in numbers, though my men are good.
I've tried Renouvier as a text-book--for the last time! His exposition
offers too many difficulties. I enjoyed your Rhapsody on Space, and
hereby pledge myself to buy two copies of your work ten years hence, and
to devote the rest of my life to the propagation of its doctrines. I
despise my own article,[60] which was dashed off for a momentary purpose
and published for another. But I don't see why its main doctrine, from a
psychologic and sublunary point of view, is not sound; and I think I
can, if my psychology ever gets writ, set it down in decently clear and
orderly form. All _deducers_ of space are, I am sure, mythologists. You
are, after all, not so very much isolated in California. We are all
isolated--"columns left alone of a temple once complete," etc. Books are
our companions more than men. But I wish nevertheless, and firmly
expect, that somehow or other you will get a call East, and within my
humble sphere of power I will do what I can to further that end. My
accursed eye-sight balks me always about study and production. _Ora pro
me!_ With most respectful and devout regards to the fair Object, believe
me always your
WM. JAMES.
_To Charles Renouvier._
CAMBRIDGE, _June 1, 1880_.
MY DEAR MONSIEUR RENOUVIER,--My last lesson in the course on your
"Essais" took place today. The final examination occurs this week. The
students have been profoundly interested, though their reactions on your
teaching seem as diverse as their personalities; one (the maturest of
all) being yours body and soul, another turning out a strongly
materialistic fatalist! and the rest occupying positions of mixed doubt
and assent; all however (but one) being convinced by your treatment of
freedom and certitude.
As for myself, I must frankly confess to you that I am more unsettled
than I have been for years. I have read several times over your reply to
Lotze, and your reply to my letter. The latter was fully discussed in
the class. The former seems to me a perfectly masterly expression of a
certain intellectual position, and with the latter, I think it makes it
perfectly clear to me where our divergence lies. I can formulate all
your reasonings for myself, but--dare I say it?--they fail to awaken
conviction. It seems as if, the simpler the point, the more hopeless the
disagreement in philosophy. But I will enter into no further discussion
now. I think it will be profitable for me, for some time to come,
inwardly to digest the matters in question and your utterances before
trying to articulate any more opinions.
I am overwhelmed with duties at present, and shall very shortly sail for
England to pass part of the vacation; maybe I shall get to the Continent
and see you. If we meet, I hope you will treat my heresies on the
question of the Infinite with the indulgence and magnanimity which your
doctrine of freedom in theoretic affirmations exacts!! I will send you
in a day or two an essay which develops your psychology of the voluntary
process, and which I hope will give you pleasure.
Pray excuse the haste and superficiality of this note, which is only
meant to explain why I do not write at greater length and to announce my
hope of soon grasping you by the hand and assuring you in person of my
devotion and indebtedness. Always yours,
WM. JAMES.
* * * * *
James sailed in June a good deal fagged by his year's work, and got back
by the first week of September, having spent most of the interval
seeking solitude and refreshment in the Alps and Northern Italy. On his
way home he paid his respects to Renouvier at Avignon, but otherwise
made no effort to meet his European colleagues.
_To Charles Renouvier._
CAMBRIDGE, _Dec. 27, 1880_.
MY DEAR MONSIEUR RENOUVIER,--Your note and the conclusion of my article
in the "Critique" came together this morning. It gives me almost a
feeling of pain that you, at your age and with your achievements, should
be spending your time in translating my feeble words, when by every
principle of right I should be engaged in turning your invaluable
writings into English. The state of my eyes is, as you know, my excuse
for this as for all other shortcomings. I have not even read the whole
of your translation of [my] "Feeling of Effort," though the passages I
have perused have seemed to me excellently well done. My exposition
strikes me as rather complicated now. It was written in great haste
and, were I to rewrite it, it should be simpler. The omissions of which
you speak are of no importance whatever.
I have read your discussion with Lotze in the "Revue Philosophique" and
agree with Hodgson that you carry off there the honors of the battle.
_Quant au fond de la question_, however, I am still in doubt and wait
for the light of further reflexion to settle my opinion. The matter in
my mind complicates itself with the question of a universal ego. If time
and space are not _in se_, do we not need an enveloping ego to make
continuous the times and spaces, not necessarily coincident, of the
partial egos? On this question, as I told you, I will not fail to write
again when I get new light, which I trust may decide me in your favor.
My principal amusement this winter has been resisting the inroads of
Hegelism in our University. My colleague Palmer, a recent convert and a
man of much ability, has been making an active propaganda among the more
advanced students. It is a strange thing, this resurrection of Hegel in
England and here, after his burial in Germany. I think his philosophy
will probably have an important influence on the development of our
liberal form of Christianity. It gives a quasi-metaphysic backbone which
this theology has always been in need of, but it is too fundamentally
rotten and charlatanish to last long. As a reaction against
materialistic evolutionism it has its use, only this evolutionism is
fertile while Hegelism is absolutely sterile.
I think often of the too-short hours I spent with you and Monsieur
Pillon and wish they might return. Believe me with the warmest thanks
and regards, yours faithfully,
WM. JAMES.
* * * * *
In August of 1882 James arranged with the College for a year's leave of
absence, and sailed for Europe again, this time with the double purpose
of giving himself a vacation and of meeting some of the European
investigators who were working on the problems in which he had become
absorbed.
He landed in England, and paused there just long enough to throw his
brother Henry into the state of half-resentful bewilderment that
invariably resulted from their first European reunions. Henry, to whom
Europe, and England in particular, had already become an absorbing
passion and for whom American reactions upon Europe were still an
unexhausted theme, greeted every arriving American with eager curiosity
and a confident expectation that the stranger would "register"
impressions of the most charming enchantment and pleasure for his
edification. William, on the other hand, was always most under the
European spell when in America; and--whether moved by the constitutional
restlessness that seized him so soon as ever he began to travel, or by
the perversity that was a fascinating trait in his character and was
usually provoked by his younger brother's admiring neighborhood--he was
always most ardently American when on European soil. Thus his first
words of greeting to Henry on stepping out of the steamer-train were:
"My!--how cramped and inferior England seems! After all, it's poor old
Europe, just as it used to be in our dreary boyhood! America may be raw
and shrill, but I could never live with this as you do! I'm going to
hurry down to Switzerland [or wherever] and then home again as soon as
may be. It was a mistake to come over! I thought it would do me good.
Hereafter I'll stay at home. You'll have to come to America if you want
to see the family."
The effect on Henry can better be imagined than described. Time never
accustomed him to these collisions, even though he learned to expect
them. England inferior! A mistake to come abroad! Horror and
consternation are weak terms by which to describe his feelings; and
nothing but a devotion seldom existing between brothers, and a lively
interest in the astonishing phenomenon of such a reaction, ever carried
him through the hour. He usually ended by hurrying William
onward--anywhere--within the day if possible--and remained alone to
ejaculate, to exclaim and to expatiate for weeks on the rude and
exciting cyclone that had burst upon him and passed by.
On this occasion it took only two days for William to start on from
London for the Rhine, Nüremburg, and Vienna; then to Venice, where he
idled for the first half of October. After this short pause he returned
to Prague; and then, working northward, consumed the autumn in visiting
the universities of Dresden, Berlin, Leipzig, Liège and Paris. Intimate
letters to his wife, who had remained in Cambridge with their two little
boys, are almost the only ones that survive. A few passages from these
will therefore be included.
_To Mrs. James._
VIENNA, _Sept. 24, 1882_.
...I wish you could have been with me yesterday to see some French
pictures at the "Internationale Kunst Ausstellung"; they gave an idea of
the vigor of France in that way just now. One, a peasant woman, in all
her brutish loutishness sitting staring before her at noonday on the
grass she's been cutting, while the man lies flat on his back with straw
hat over face. She with such a look of infinite unawakenedness, such
childlike virginity under her shapeless body and in her face, as to make
it a poem.[61] Dear, perhaps the deepest impression I've got since I've
been in Germany is that made on me by the indefatigable beavers of old
wrinkled peasant women, striding like men through the streets, dragging
their carts or lugging their baskets, minding their business, seeming to
notice nothing, in the stream of luxury and vice, but belonging far
away, to something better and purer. Their poor, old, ravaged and
stiffened faces, their poor old bodies dried up with ceaseless toil,
their patient souls make me weep. "They are our conscripts." They are
the venerable ones whom we should reverence. All the mystery of
womanhood seems incarnated in their ugly being--the Mothers! the
Mothers! Ye are all one! Yes, Alice dear, what I love in you is only
what these blessed old creatures have; and I'm glad and proud, when I
think of my own dear Mother with tears running down my face, to know
that she is one with these.[62] Good-night, good-night!...
_To Mrs. James._
AUSSIG, BOHEMIA, _Nov. 2, 1882_.
...As for Prague, _veni, vidi, vici_. I went there with much trepidation
to do my social-scientific duty. The mighty Hering in especial
intimidated me beforehand; but having taken the plunge, the cutaneous
glow and "euphoria" (_vide_ dictionary) succeeded, and I have rarely
enjoyed a forty-eight hours better, in spite of the fact that the good
and sharp-nosed Stumpf (whose book "Über die Raumvorstellungen" I verily
believe thou art capable of never having noticed the cover of!) insisted
on trotting me about, day and night, over the whole length and breadth
of Prague, and that [Ernst] Mach (Professor of Physics), genius of all
trades, simply took Stumpf's place to do the same. I heard [Ewald]
Hering give a very poor physiology lecture and Mach a beautiful physical
one. I presented them with my visiting card, saying that I was with
their "Schriften sehr vertraut und wollte nicht eher Prague verlassen
als bis ich wenigstens ein Paar Worte mit ihnen umtauschte," etc.[63]
They received me with open arms. I had an hour and a half's talk with
Hering, which cleared up some things for me. He asked me to come to his
house that evening, but I gave an evasive reply, being fearful of boring
him. Meanwhile Mach came to my hotel and I spent four hours walking and
supping with him at his club, an unforgettable conversation. I don't
think anyone ever gave me so strong an impression of pure intellectual
genius. He apparently has read everything and thought about everything,
and has an absolute simplicity of manner and winningness of smile when
his face lights up, that are charming.
With Stumpf I spent five hours on Monday evening (this is Thursday),
three on Wednesday morning and four in the afternoon; so I feel rather
intimate. A clear-headed and just-minded, though pale and
anxious-looking man in poor health. He had another philosopher named
Marty [?] to dine with me yesterday--jolly young fellow. My native
_Geschwätzigkeit_[64] triumphed over even the difficulties of the German
tongue; I careered over the field, taking the pitfalls and breastworks
at full run, and was fairly astounded myself at coming in alive. I
learned a good many things from them, both in the way of theory and
fact, and shall probably keep up a correspondence with Stumpf. They are
not so different from us as we think. Their greater thoroughness is
largely the result of circumstances. I found that I had a more
_cosmopolitan_ knowledge of modern philosophic literature than any of
them, and shall on the whole feel much less intimidated by the thought
of their like than hitherto.
My letters will hereafter, I feel sure, have a more jocund tone. Damn
Italy! It isn't a good thing to stay with one's inferiors. With the
nourishing breath of the German air, and the sort of smoky and leathery
German smell, vigor and good spirits have set in. I have walked well and
slept well and eaten well and read well, and in short begin to feel as I
expected I should when I decided upon this arduous pilgrimage. Prague is
a ---- city--the adjective is hard to find; not magnificent, but
everything is too honest and homely,--we have in fact no English word
for the peculiar quality that good German things have, of depth,
solidity, picturesqueness, magnitude and homely goodness combined. They
have worked out a really great civilization. "Dienst ist Dienst"![65]
said the gateman of a certain garden yesterday afternoon whom Stumpf was
trying to persuade to let me in, as an American, to see the view five
minutes after the closing hour had struck. _Dienst ist Dienst._ That is
really the German motto everywhere--and I should like to know what
American would ever think of justifying himself by just that formula. I
say German of Prague, for it seems to me, in spite of the feverish
nationalism of the natives, to be outwardly a pure German city....
* * * * *
BERLIN, _Nov. 9, 1882_.
...Yesterday I went to the veterinary school to see H. Munk, the great
brain vivisector. He was very cordial and poured out a torrent of talk
for one and a half hours, though he could show me no animals. He gave
me one of his new publications and introduced me to Dr. Baginsky
(Professor Samuel Porter's favorite authority on the semicircular
canals, whose work I treated superciliously in my article). So we opened
on the semicircular canals, and Baginsky's torrent of words was even
more overwhelming than Munk's. I never felt quite so helpless and
small-boyish before, and am to this hour dizzy from the onslaught. In
the evening at the house of Gizycki (a Docent on Ethics), to a
"privatissimum" with a supper after it. Good, square, deep-chested talk
again, which I couldn't help contrasting with the whining tones of our
students and of some of the members of the Hegel Club--I hate to leave
the wholesome, tonic atmosphere, the land where one talks best when he
talks manliest--slowest, distinctest, with most deliberate emphasis and
strong voice....
* * * * *
LEIPZIG, _Nov. 11, 1882_.
...Jones spoilt my incipient nap this afternoon and I adjourned to his
room to meet Smith and Brown[66] again, with another American wild-cat
reformer. Jones is too many for me--I'm glad I'm to get far off.
Religion is well, moral regeneration is well, so is improvement of
society, so are the courage, disinterestedness, ideality of all sorts,
these men show in their lives; but I verily believe that the condition
of being a man of the world, a gentleman, etc., carries something with
it, an atmosphere, an outlook, a play, that all these things together
fail to carry, and that is worth them all. I got so suffocated with
their everlasting spiritual gossip! The falsest views and tastes somehow
in a man of fashion are truer than the truest in a plebeian cad. And
when I told the new man there that a "materialist" would have no
difficulty in keeping his place in Harvard College provided he was
well-bred, I said what was really the highest test of the College
excellence. I suppose he thought it sounded cynical. _Their_ sphere is
with the masses struggling into light, not with us at Harvard; though
I'm glad I can meet them cordially for a while now and then. Thou
see'est I have some "spleen" on me today....
* * * * *
LEIPZIG, _Nov. 13, 1882_.
...Yesterday was a splendid day within and without.... The old town
delightful in its blackness and plainness. I heard several lecturers.
Old Ludwig's lecture in the afternoon was memorable for the
extraordinary impression of character he made on me. The traditional
German professor in its highest sense. A rusty brown wig and
broad-skirted brown coat, a voluminous black neckcloth, an absolute
unexcitability of manner, a clean-shaven face so plebeian and at the
same time so grandly carved, with its hooked nose and gentle kindly
mouth and inexhaustible patience of expression, that I never saw the
like. Then to Wundt, who has a more refined elocution than any one I've
yet heard in Germany. He received me very kindly after the lecture in
his laboratory, dimly trying to remember my writings, and I stay over
today, against my intention, to go to his _psychologische Gesellschaft_
tonight. Have been writing psychology most all day....
* * * * *
In train for LIÈGE, _Nov. 18, 1882_.
...I believe I didn't tell you, in the bustle of traveling, much about
Wundt. He made a very pleasant and personal impression on me, with his
agreeable voice and ready, tooth-showing smile. His lecture also was
very able, and my opinion of him is higher than before seeing him. But
he seemed very busy and showed no desire to see more of me than the
present interview either time. The _psychologische Gesellschaft_ I
stayed over to see was postponed, but he did not propose to me to do
anything else--to the gain of my ease, but to the loss of my vanity.
Dear old Stumpf has been the friendliest of these fellows. With him I
shall correspond....
* * * * *
LIÈGE, _Nov. 20, 1882_.
...I am still at Delboeuf's, aching in every joint and muscle, weary
in every nerve-cell, but unable to get away till tomorrow noon. I was to
have started today.... The total lesson of what I have done in the past
month is to make me quieter with my home-lot and readier to believe that
it is one of the chosen places of the Earth. Certainly the instruction
and facilities at our university are on the whole superior to anything I
have seen; the rawnesses we mention with such affliction at home belong
rather to the century than to us (witness the houses here); we are not a
whit more isolated than they are here. In all Belgium there seem to be
but two genuine philosophers; in Berlin they have little to do with each
other, and I really believe that in my way I have a wider view of the
field than anyone I've seen (I count out, of course, my ignorance of
ancient authors). We are a sound country and my opinion of our essential
worth has risen and not fallen. We only lack abdominal depth of
temperament and the power to sit for an hour over a single pot of beer
without being able to tell at the end of it what we've been thinking
about. Also to reform our altogether abominable, infamous and
infra-human voices and way of talking. (What _further_ fatal defects
hang together with that I don't know--it seems as if it must carry
something very bad with it.) The first thing to do is to establish in
Cambridge a genuine German plebeian Kneipe club, to which all
instructors and picked students shall be admitted. If that succeeds, we
shall be perfect, especially if we talk therein with deeper voices....
_To Henry James._
PARIS, _Nov. 22, 1882_.
DEAR H.,--Found at Hottinguer's this A.M. your letter with all the
enclosures--and a wail you had sent to Berlin. Also six letters from my
wife and seven or eight others, not counting papers and magazines. I
will mail back yours and father's letter to me. Alice [Mrs. W. J.]
speaks of father's indubitable improvement in strength, but our sister
Alice apparently is somewhat run down.--Paris looks delicious--I shall
try to get settled as soon as possible and meanwhile feel as if the
confusion of life was recommencing. I saw in Germany all the men I cared
to see and talked with most of them. With three or four I had a really
nutritious time. The trip has amply paid for itself. I found third-class
_Nichtraucher_ almost always empty and perfectly comfortable. The great
use of such experiences is less the definite information you gain from
anyone, than a sort of solidification of your own foothold on life.
Nowhere did I see a university which seems to do for _all_ its students
anything like what Harvard does. Our methods throughout are better. It
is only in the select "Seminaria" (private classes) that a few German
students making researches with the professor gain something from him
personally which his genius alone can give. I certainly got a most
distinct impression of my own _information_ in regard to _modern_
philosophic matters being broader than that of any one I met, and our
Harvard post of observation being more cosmopolitan. Delboeuf in Liège
was an angel and much the best teacher I've seen....[67] "The Century,"
with your very good portrait, etc., was at Hottinguer's this A.M., sent
by my wife. I shall read it presently. I'm off now to see if I can get
your leather trunk, sent from London, arrested by inundations, and
ordered to be returned to Paris. I never needed its contents a second.
And in your little American valise and my flabby black hand-bag and
shawl-straps and a small satchel, I carried not only everything I used,
but collected a whole library of books in Leipsig, some pieces of
Venetian glass in their balky bolsters of seaweed, a quart bottle of eau
de Cologne, and a lot of other acquisitions. I feel remarkably tough
now, and fairly ravenous for my psychologic work. Address Hottinguer's.
W. J.
* * * * *
James's mother had died during the preceding winter. Now, just after his
arrival in Paris, he received news that his father was dangerously ill.
He went to London immediately, with the intention of getting home as
soon as possible. On arriving at his brother Henry's lodgings, he found
that Henry had already sailed. He also received a despatch advising him
that the danger was not immediate and that he should wait. He remained,
but with misgivings which the next news intensified.
_To his Father._
BOLTON ST., LONDON, _Dec. 14, 1882_.
DARLING OLD FATHER,--Two letters, one from my Alice last night, and one
from Aunt Kate to Harry just now, have somewhat dispelled the mystery
in which the telegrams left your condition; and although their news is
several days earlier than the telegrams, I am free to suppose that the
latter report only an aggravation of the symptoms the letters describe.
It is far more agreeable to think of this than of some dreadful unknown
and sudden malady.
We have been so long accustomed to the hypothesis of your being taken
away from us, especially during the past ten months, that the thought
that this may be your last illness conveys no very sudden shock. You are
old enough, you've given your message to the world in many ways and will
not be forgotten; you are here left alone, and on the other side, let us
hope and pray, dear, dear old Mother is waiting for you to join her. If
you go, it will not be an inharmonious thing. Only, if you are still in
possession of your normal consciousness, I should like to see you once
again before we part. I stayed here only in obedience to the last
telegram, and am waiting now for Harry--who knows the exact state of my
mind, and who will know yours--to telegraph again what I shall do.
Meanwhile, my blessed old Father, I scribble this line (which may reach
you though I should come too late), just to tell you how full of the
tenderest memories and feelings about you my heart has for the last few
days been filled. In that mysterious gulf of the past into which the
present soon will fall and go back and back, yours is still for me the
central figure. All my intellectual life I derive from you; and though
we have often seemed at odds in the expression thereof, I'm sure there's
a harmony somewhere, and that our strivings will combine. What my debt
to you is goes beyond all my power of estimating,--so early, so
penetrating and so constant has been the influence. You need be in no
anxiety about your literary remains. I will see them well taken care
of, and that your words shall not suffer for being concealed. At Paris I
heard that Milsand, whose name you may remember in the "Revue des Deux
Mondes" and elsewhere, was an admirer of the "Secret of Swedenborg," and
Hodgson told me your last book had deeply impressed him. So will it be;
especially, I think, if a collection of _extracts_ from your various
writings were published, after the manner of the extracts from Carlyle,
Ruskin, & Co. I have long thought such a volume would be the best
monument to you.--As for us; we shall live on each in his way,--feeling
somewhat unprotected, old as we are, for the absence of the parental
bosoms as a refuge, but holding fast together in that common sacred
memory. We will stand by each other and by Alice, try to transmit the
torch in our offspring as you did in us, and when the time comes for
being gathered in, I pray we may, if not all, some at least, be as ripe
as you. As for myself, I know what trouble I've given you at various
times through my peculiarities; and as my own boys grow up, I shall
learn more and more of the kind of trial you had to overcome in
superintending the development of a creature different from yourself,
for whom you felt responsible. I say this merely to show how my
_sympathy_ with you is likely to grow much livelier, rather than to
fade--and not for the sake of regrets.--As for the other side, and
Mother, and our all possibly meeting, I _can't_ say anything. More than
ever at this moment do I feel that if that _were_ true, all would be
solved and justified. And it comes strangely over me in bidding you
good-bye how a life is but a day and expresses mainly but a single note.
It is so much like the act of bidding an ordinary good-night.
Good-night, my sacred old Father! If I don't see you again--Farewell! a
blessed farewell! Your
WILLIAM.
* * * * *
The elder Henry James died on the nineteenth of December. A cablegram
was sent to London; and on learning of his father's death, James wrote a
letter to his wife from which the following extract is taken.
_To Mrs. James._
...Father's boyhood up in Albany, Grandmother's house, the father and
brothers and sister, with their passions and turbulent histories, his
burning, amputation and sickness, his college days and ramblings, his
theological throes, his engagement and marriage and fatherhood, his
finding more and more of the truths he finally settled down in, his
travels in Europe, the days of the old house in New York and all the men
I used to see there, at last his quieter motion down the later years of
life in Newport, Boston and Cambridge, with his friends and
correspondents about him, and his books more and more easily brought
forth--how long, how long all these things were in the living, but how
short their memory now is! What remains is a few printed pages, us and
our children and some incalculable modifications of other people's
lives, influenced this day or that by what he said or did. For me, the
humor, the good spirits, the humanity, the faith in the divine, and the
sense of his right to have a say about the deepest reasons of the
universe, are what will stay by me. I wish I could believe I should
transmit some of them to our babes. We all of us have some of his
virtues and some of his shortcomings. Unlike the cool, dry thin-edged
men who now abound, he was full of the fumes of the _ur-sprünglich_
human nature; things turbid, more than he could formulate, wrought
within him and made his judgments of rejection of so much of what was
brought [before him] seem like revelations as well as knock-down
blows.... I hope that rich soil of human nature will not become more
rare!...
* * * * *
Two months later James said in a letter to Mrs. Gibbens: "It is singular
how I'm learning every day now how the thought of his comment on my
experiences has hitherto formed an integral part of my daily
consciousness, without my having realized it at all. I interrupt myself
incessantly now in the old habit of imagining what he will say when I
tell him this or that thing I have seen or heard."
* * * * *
James remained in London until mid-February of 1883, and took advantage
of the opportunity to see more of certain men there--among them
Shadworth Hodgson, Edmund Gurney, Croom Robertson, Frederick Pollock,
Leslie Stephen, Carveth Reid, and Francis Galton. His eyes were
troubling him again, but he did some writing on psychology. After paying
another short visit to Paris, he sailed for home in March.
IX
1883-1890
_Writing the "Principles of Psychology"--Psychical Research--The
Place at Chocorua--The Irving Street House--The Paris Psychological
Congress of 1889_
JAMES had now found his feet, professionally, as well as in other ways.
He strode ahead on the next stage of his journey with a firmness of
which he would have been incapable in the seventies, and carried a heavy
burden of work forward, with never a long halt and without ever setting
it down, until he had finished the two large volumes of the "Principles
of Psychology" in 1890. The previous decade had counted steadily for
inward clarification, for health and for confidence. He was no longer
harassed by serious illnesses and pursued by the spectre of possible
invalidism. Marriage, parenthood--these immense events in a man's
spiritual journey--had happened for him within the last four years and
had brought him new loves and ambitions. He was no longer perplexed by
misgivings about his aims and abilities, but had arrived at the
conception of his treatise on psychology and had begun to formulate its
chapters. He had become a very successful teacher, and might fairly have
suspected himself of being an inspiring one. His work was beginning to
be well known outside the halls of his own University.
It is not the purpose of this book to trace the origin of his ideas or
their influence on contemporary discussion. But any reader who will
glance at Professor Perry's annotated "List" of his published work may
see that he had written important papers by 1883, and that most of what
was original in his psychology must by then have been present to his
mind. During the visit he had just made to Europe, he had got a personal
impression of the transatlantic colleagues whose writings had interested
him especially, and had spent many hours in the company of certain among
them with whom he found himself to be particularly in sympathy. Thus he
had gained a bracing sense of comradeship with the men who were
collaborating in his field. Last of all, he had brought home with him a
happy conviction that the most propitious place for him to teach and
write his book in was the philosophical department of his own
University.
So far as the "textbook on Psychology" was concerned, however, he still
underestimated the amount of original investigation and thought which
his instinct for "concrete" reality was to exact of him. Perhaps also he
made too little allowance for the inadequacies of current laboratory
methods and of the existing literature of the subject. Helmholtz and
Wundt had already published important reports from their laboratories in
Germany; but psychology was still generally considered to be an
inductive science, which achieved its purposes by introspection and
description, and which had no very broad connection with physiology nor
many laboratory methods of its own. James had still to help make a
modern science of it by his own immense effort. He may perhaps be said
to have set to work when he offered the course on "The Relation between
Physiology and Psychology" to graduate students in 1875, and made the
class take part in experiments which he arranged in a room in the
Lawrence Scientific School building.[68]
Thus with teaching, experimenting, and occasionally writing out his
conclusions as he went along, he ploughed his way through his subject.
The triple process is familiar enough today to most men of science. But
James and the majority of his contemporaries had been trained
differently or not at all; and their generation, following a few great
leaders like Pasteur, Darwin and Helmholtz, had to establish new
standards of criticism and new methods of inquiry in every department of
science. When the "Psychology" was drawing to its completion, James
wrote two sentences about his difficulties to his brother Henry. They
might equally well have been written at any other time during the
eighties. "I have," he said, "to forge every sentence in the teeth of
irreducible and stubborn facts. It is like walking through the densest
brush-wood."
* * * * *
There was one peculiarly stubborn and irreducible class of facts which
he took up and gave much thought to during this period.
As early as 1869 he had recognized the desirability of examining the
class of phenomena that are popularly called psychic[69] in a critical
and modern spirit. This was not because he was in the least impressed by
the lucubrations of the kind of mind which can be well described, in
Macaulay's phrase, as "utterly wanting in the faculty by which a
demonstrated truth is distinguished from a plausible supposition." But
an instinctive "love of sportsmanlike fair play" was stirred in him by
the indifference with which men who professed to be students of
nature,[70] and particularly scientists whose prime concern was with our
mental life, usually declined to examine phenomena which have occurred
in every known human race and generation. He was in cordial sympathy
with the announced intention of the Society for Psychical Research to
investigate the abnormal and "supernormal" occurrences. He referred
aptly to such occurrences as "wild facts," having as yet no scientific
"stall or pigeon-hole."[71] Above all, he was conscious, from the
beginning, of the proximity and possible relevance to his psychological
and philosophical problems of this large body of unanalyzed material.
Most people cannot approach such matters without emotional bias. The
atmosphere in which the public discussion of them goes on is still
poisoned by superstition and clouded by prejudice. No scientific man
involves himself in such inquiries, even now, without the certitude that
his statements will be misconstrued by some of his professional
brethren, and that his name will be taken in vain by newspapers and
charlatans. James recognized all this, but saw in it no excuse for
avoiding the subject; rather, a reason for examining it in an
unprejudiced spirit and for avowing his conclusions openly.
The English Society for Psychical Research had been founded in 1882. In
1884 James became a corresponding member and concerned himself actively
in organizing an American society of the same name in Boston. He made
contributions to the "Proceedings" of this society during the six years
of its existence; and, when it amalgamated with the English Society in
1890, he became a Vice-President of the latter. With the exception of a
term during which he served as its President (in 1894-95), he continued
to be a Vice-President of the S. P. R. until his death, and occasionally
published through its "Proceedings."
In the eighties he took up his share of the drudgery which was involved
in investigating alleged cases of apparition, thought-transference, and
mediumship. For one entire winter he and Professor G. H. Palmer attended
"cabinet séances" every Saturday without discovering anything that they
could report as other than fraudulent. But in the following year he got
upon the track of the now famous Mrs. Piper, and he made his first
report on her trance-state to the S. P. R. in 1886. After many tests and
trials he was unable to "resist the conviction that knowledge appeared
in her trances which she had never gained by the ordinary waking use of
her eyes, ears and wits." Withholding his acceptance from the
spirit-message hypothesis, he added: "What the source of this knowledge
may be I know not, and have not a glimmer of an explanatory suggestion
to make; but from admitting the fact of such knowledge I can see no
escape."[72] He continued to find time for the investigation of other
cases, and could sometimes console himself by laughing over expeditions
which were quite fruitless of interesting result. A few sentences from
letters addressed to Mrs. James in 1888, reporting an adventure with
Richard Hodgson in New York, will serve as illustration:--
"[Apr. 6.] Hodgson and I started after our baggage arrived, to find Mr.
B----, who, you may have seen by the papers, is making a scandal by
having given himself over (hand and foot) to a medium, 'Madam D----,'
who does most extraordinarily described physical performances. We found
the old girl herself, a type for Alexandre Dumas, obese, wicked, jolly,
intellectual, with no end of go and animal spirits, who entertained us
for an hour, gave us an appointment for a sitting on Monday, and asked
us to come and see Mr. B. tonight. What will come of it all I don't
know. It will be baffling, I suppose, like everything else of that
kind."
"[Apr. 7.] Mr. B. and Mrs. D. were 'too tired' to see us last night! I
suspect that will be the case next Monday. It is the knowing thing to do
under the circumstances. But that woman is one with whom one would fall
_wildly_ in love, if in love at all--she is such a fat, _fat_ old
villain...."
"[Apr. 24th.] In bed at 11.30, after the most hideously inept psychical
night, in Charleston, over a much-praised female medium who fraudulently
played on the guitar. A plague take all white-livered, anæmic, flaccid,
weak-voiced Yankee frauds! Give me a full blooded red-lipped villain
like dear old D.--when shall I look upon her like again?"
In 1889 James undertook the labor of conducting the "Census of
Hallucinations" in America. The census sought to discover, from lists of
people selected at random, how many of them, when in good health and
awake, had ever heard a voice, seen a form, or felt a touch which no
material presence could account for. James received about seven thousand
answers to the inquiries that were sent out in America; and after he had
digested and reported them, the results turned out to be in remarkable
conformity with the returns from other parts of the world. Some of
James's own deductions from the returns will be found in the essay,
"What Psychical Research has Accomplished."[73] Among other things, the
census showed apparitions corresponding with a distant event as
occurring more than four hundred times oftener than could be expected
from a calculation of chances.
After this task had been completed, he usually avoided spending time in
personal investigations.
_To Charles Renouvier._
KEENE VALLEY, _Aug. 5, 1883_
ADIRONDACKS.
MY DEAR MONSIEUR RENOUVIER,--My silence has been so protracted that I
fear you must have wondered what its reasons could be. Only the old
ones!--much to do, and little power to do it, obliging procrastination.
You will doubtless have heard from the Pillons of my safe return home. I
have spent the interval in the house of my mother-in-law in Cambridge,
trying to do some work in the way of psychologic writing before the
fatal day should arrive when the College bell, summoning _me_ as well
as my colleagues to the lecture-room, should make literary work almost
impossible. Although my bodily condition, thanks to my winter abroad,
has been better than in many years at a corresponding period, what I
succeeded in accomplishing was well-nigh zero. I floundered round in the
morasses of the theory of cognition,--the Object and the Ego,--tore up
almost each day what I had written the day before, and although I am
inwardly, of course, more aware than I was before of where the
difficulties of the subject lie, outwardly I have hardly any manuscript
to show for my pains. Your unparalleled literary fecundity is a perfect
wonder to me. You should return pious thanks to the one or many gods who
had a hand in your production, not only for endowing you with so clear a
head, but for giving you so admirable a working temperament. The most
rapid piece of literary work I ever did was completed ten days ago, and
sent to "Mind," where it will doubtless soon appear. I had promised to
give three lectures at a rather absurd little "Summer School of
Philosophy," which has flourished for four or five years past in the
little town of Concord near Boston, and which has an audience of from
twenty to fifty persons, including the lecturers themselves; and,
finding at the last moment that I could do nothing with my much
meditated subject of the Object and the Ego, I turned round and lectured
"On Some Omissions of Introspective Psychology,"[74] and wrote the
substance of the lectures out immediately after giving them--the whole
occupying six days. I hope you may read the paper some time and approve
it--though it is out of the current of your own favorite topics and
consequently hardly a proper candidate for the honours of translation in
the "Critique."
I understand now why no really good classic manual of psychology exists;
why all that do exist only treat of particular points and chapters with
any thoroughness. It is impossible to write one at present, so
infinitely more numerous are the difficulties of the task than the means
of their solution. Every chapter bristles with obstructions that refer
one to the next ten years of work for their mitigation.
With all this I have done very little consecutive reading. I have not
yet got at your historic survey in the "Critique Religieuse," for which
my brain nevertheless itches. But I have read your articles apropos of
Fouillée, and found them--the latest one especially--admirable for
clearness and completeness of statement. Surely nothing like them has
ever been written--no such stripping of the question down to its naked
essentials. Those who, like Fouillée, have the intuition of the Absolute
Unity, will of course not profit by them or anything else. Why can all
others view their own beliefs as _possibly_ only hypotheses--_they_ only
not? Why does the Absolute Unity make its votaries so much more
_conceited_ at having attained it, than any other supposed truth does?
This inner sense of superiority to all antagonists gives Fouillée his
_fougue_ and adds to his cleverness, and no doubt increases immensely
the effectiveness of his writing over the average reader's mind. But it
also makes him careless and liable to overshoot the mark.
I have just been interrupted by a visit from Noah Porter, D.D.,
President of Yale College, whose bulky work on "The Human Intellect" you
may have in your library, possibly. An American college president is a
very peculiar type of character, partly man of business, partly
diplomatist, partly clergyman, and partly professor of metaphysics,
armed with great authority and influence if his college is an important
one--which Yale is; and Porter is the paragon of the type--_bonhomme et
rusé_, learned and simple, kindhearted and sociable, yet possessed of
great decision and obstinacy. He is over seventy, but comes every summer
here to the woods to refresh himself by long mountain walks and life in
"camp," sleeping on a bed of green boughs before a great fire in the
open air. He looks like a farmer or a fisherman, and there is no sort of
human being who does not immediately feel himself entirely at home in
his company.
I have been here myself just a week. The virgin forest comes close to
our house, and the diversity of walks through it, the brooks and the
ascensions of hilltops are infinite. I doubt if there be anything like
it in Europe. Your mountains are grander, but you have nowhere this
carpet of absolutely primitive forest, with its indescribably sweet
exhalations, spreading in every direction unbroken. I shall stay here
doing hardly any work till late in September. I need to lead a purely
animal life for at least two months to carry me through the teaching
year. My wife and two children are here, all well. I would send you her
photograph and mine, save that hers--the only one I have--is too bad to
send to anyone, and my own are for the moment exhausted. I find myself
counting the years till my next visit to Europe becomes possible. Then
it shall occur under more cheerful circumstances, if possible; and I
shall stay the full fifteen months instead of only six. As I look back
now upon the winter, I find the strongest impression I received was that
of the singularly artificial, yet deeply vital and soundly healthy,
character of the English social and political system as it now exists.
It is one of the most _bizarre_ outbirths of time, one of the most
abnormal, in certain ways, and yet one of the most successful. I know
nothing that so much confirms your philosophy as this spectacle of an
accumulation of individual initiatives _all preserved_. I hope both you
and the Pillons are well. I shall never forget their friendliness, nor
the spirit of human kindness that filled their household. I am ashamed
to ask for letters from you, when after so long a silence I can myself
give you so little that is of philosophic interest. But we must take
long views; and, if life be granted, I shall do something yet, both in
the way of reading and writing. Ever truly yours,
WM. JAMES.
* * * * *
At about this time Major Henry L. Higginson, then the junior partner in
the banking house of Lee, Higginson & Company and soon to be widely
known as the founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, undertook to look
after the small patrimony which James had inherited. He tactfully
assumed the initiative respecting whatever had to be done, and continued
to render this friendly service as long as James lived. On his side
James, who knew nothing about investments and was incapable of
considering them without involving himself in excessive and unprofitable
worry, was delighted to leave decisions to his friend's wiser judgment.
Occasional jocose communications like the following came to be almost
his only incursions into his own "affairs."
_To Henry L. Higginson._
_Oct. 14_ [1883?].
MY DEAR HENRY,--I receive today from your office two documents, one
containing some unintelligible hieroglyphics, "C. B.& Q., 138" etc.,
etc.; the other winding up with a statement that I owe you $12,674.97!!
The latter explains your mysterious interest in my affairs. I feared as
much! Go on, Shylock, go on! you have me in your power. The peculiar
combination of ignorance and poverty which I present makes me an easy
victim. And I confess that as a psychologist I am curious to see how far
your instincts of cupidity will carry you. I await eagerly the ulterior
developments. Yours, etc.,
WM. JAMES.
[_Enclosed with the foregoing_]
Extract from a biographic sketch of W. J. soon to be published in the
"Harvard Register":--
"He now fancied himself possessed of immense wealth, and gave without
stint his imaginary riches. He has ever since been under gentle
restraint, and leads a life not merely of happiness, but of bliss;
converses rationally, reads the newspapers, where every talk of distress
attracts his notice, and being furnished with an abundant supply of
blank checks, he fills up one of them with a munificent sum, sends it
off to the sufferer, and sits down to his dinner with a happy conviction
that he has earned the right to a little indulgence in the pleasures of
the table; and yet, on a serious conversation with one of his old
friends, he is quite conscious of his real position; but the conviction
is so exquisitely painful that he will not let himself believe it."
_To H. P. Bowditch._
[Post-card]
CAMBRIDGE, MASS., _Jan. 31_ [1884].
Heute den 31ten Januar wurde mir vor 2 Stunden in rascher
Aufeinander-folge _ein_ (1) wunderschöner jüdischaussehender, kräftiger
und munterer Knabe geboren. Alles geht nach Wunsch, und bittet um
stiller Theilnahme der glückliche Vater.
W. J.
[_Translation._]
Today the 31st of January, two hours since, there was born to me in
rapid succession _one_ (I) wonderfully beautiful, Jewish-looking,
sturdy and lively boy. Everything is going as one would wish, and the
happy father craves your hushed sympathy.
W. J.
_To Thomas Davidson._
CAMBRIDGE, _Mar. 30, 1884_.
MY DEAR DAVIDSON,--I am in receipt of two letters from you since my
last, the latest one of them from Capri. I am very sorry to hear of your
continued bad physical condition. You have a queer constitution,--with
such an unusual amount of strength in most ways,--to be a constant prey
to ailment. I have long ago come to think that the right measure of a
man's health is not how much comfort or discomfort he feels in the year,
but how much work, through thick and thin, he manages to get through.
Judged by that standard, you doubtless score an unusually high number.
But when I hear you talking about Texas, I confess I really begin to
feel alarmed. From Rome to Austin! How can you think of such a thing?
Are you sure M---- is not playing the part of the tailless fox in the
fable? I know not a living soul in Texas, and if I did I should have
moral scruples about becoming an accomplice in any plot for transporting
you there. Why is it that everything in this world is offered us on no
medium terms between either having too much of it or too little? You
pine for a professorship. I pine for your leisure to write and study.
Teaching duties have really devoured the whole of my time this winter,
and with hardly any intellectual profit whatever. I have read nothing,
and written nothing save one lecture on the freedom of the will. How it
is going to end, I don't well see. The four months of non-lecturing
study I had at home last year, when I slept well and led a really
intellectual life, seem like a sort of lost paradise. However, vacations
make amends. This summer I am to edit my poor father's literary remains,
"with a sketch of his writings" which will largely consist of extracts
and no doubt help to the making him better known.
You ask why I don't write oftener. If you could see the arrears of work
under which my table groans, and the number of semi-business letters and
notes I now have to write with my infernal eyesight, you would ask no
longer. In fact I am beginning to ask whether it be not my bounden duty
to stop corresponding with my friends altogether. Only at that price
does there seem to be any prospect of doing any reading at all.
I had neither seen your article in the Unitarian Review[75] nor heard of
it, but ran for it as soon as I got your announcement of its existence.
I know not what to think of it practically; though I confess the idea of
engrafting the bloodless pallor of Boston Unitarianism on the Roman
temperament strikes one at first sight as rather queer. Unitarianism
seems to have a sort of moribund vitality here, because it is a branch
of protestantism and the tree keeps the branch sticking out. But whether
it could be grafted on a catholic trunk seems to me problematic. I
confess I rather despair of any popular religion of a philosophic
character; and I sometimes find myself wondering whether there can be
any popular religion raised on the ruins of the old Christianity without
the presence of that element which in the past has presided over the
origin of all religions, namely, a belief in new _physical_ facts and
possibilities. Abstract considerations about the soul and the reality of
a moral order will not do in a year what the glimpse into a world of new
phenomenal possibilities enveloping those of the present life, afforded
by an extension of our insight into the order of nature, would do in an
instant. Are the much despised "Spiritualism" and the "Society for
Psychical Research" to be the chosen instruments for a new era of faith?
It would surely be strange if they were; but if they are not, I see no
other agency that can do the work.
I like your formula that in consciousness there must be two
irreducibles, "being and feeling," and nothing else. But I can't put
philosophy into letters. When is our long-postponed talk to take place?
_Aufgeschoben_ for another summer, and I fear another winter too, from
what you write. It is too bad!
We have a week's recess in a couple of days and I start to look up
summer lodgings. Alice and the two-month-old baby are very well and send
you love. Always truly yours,
WM. JAMES.
_To G. H. Howison._
CAMBRIDGE, _Feb. 5, 1885_.
MY DEAR HOWISON,--I've just reread (for the fourth time, I believe) your
letter of the 30th November. I need not say how tickled I am at your too
generous words about my Divinity school address on Determinism.[76]
Sweet are the praises of an enemy. There is, thank Heaven! a plane below
all formulas and below enmities due to formulas, where men occasionally
meet each other moving, and recognize each other as brothers inhabiting
the _same depths_. Such is this depth of the _problem_ of
determinism--howe'er we solve it, we are brothers if we know it to be a
_problem_. No man on either side awakens any sense of intellectual
respect in me who regards the solution as a cock-sure and immediately
given thing, and wonders that any one should hesitate to choose his
party. You find fault with my deterministic disjunction, "pessimism or
subjectivism," and ask why I forgot the third way of "objective moral
activity," etc. (You probably remember.) I didn't forget it. It entered
for me into pessimism, for, since such activity has failed to be
universally realized, it was (deterministically) _impossible from
eternity_, and the Universe in so far forth not an object of pure
worship, not an Absolute. My trouble, you see, lies with monism.
Determinism = monism; and a monism like this world can't be an object of
pure optimistic contemplation. By pessimism I simply mean _ultimate_
non-optimism. The Ideal is only a part of this world. Make the world a
Pluralism, and you forthwith have an object to worship. Make it a Unit,
on the other hand, and worship and abhorrence are equally one-sided and
equally legitimate reactions. _Indifferentism_ is the true condition of
such a world, and turn the matter how you will, I don't see how any
philosophy of the Absolute can ever escape from that capricious
alternation of mysticism and satanism in the treatment of its great
Idol, which history has always shown. Reverence is an accidental
personal mood in such a philosophy, and has naught to do with the
essentials of the system. At least, so it seems to me; and in view of
that, I prefer to stick in the wooden finitude of an ultimate pluralism,
because that at least gives me something definite to worship and fight
for.
However, I know I haven't exhausted all wisdom, and am too well aware
that this position, like everything else, is a _parti pris_ and a _pis
aller_,--_faute de mieux_,--to continue the Gallic idiom. Your
predecessor Royce thinks he's got the thing at last. It is too soon for
me to criticize his book; but I must say it seems to me one of the very
freshest, profoundest, solidest, most human bits of philosophical work
I've seen in a long time. In fact, it makes one think of Royce as a man
from whom nothing is too great to expect.
Your list of thirty lectures makes one bow down in reverence before you.
I should be afraid you were over-working. Your Hume-Kant circular shall
be diligently scanned when my Hume lectures come off, in about six
weeks. I am better as to the eyes, which gives me much hope. Am,
however, "maturing" building plans for a house, which is bad for sleep.
I do hope and trust there will be no "Enttäuschung" about Berkeley,[77]
and that not only the work, but the place and the climate, may prove
well adapted to both you and Mrs. Howison. Ever truly yours,
WM. JAMES.
* * * * *
The next letters relate to the "Literary Remains of Henry James," which
had just been published, and in which William James had collected a
number of his father's papers and edited them with an introductory essay
on their author's philosophy. Needless to say, the two letters to Godkin
have not been included among these with any thought of the unfortunate
review to which they refer. They furnish too good an illustration of
James's loyalty and magnanimity to be omitted. If more critics, and more
of the criticized, were to cultivate the manliness and generosity with
which James always entered discussion, there would be less reviewers
"never-quite-forgiven," and less feuds in the world of science.
_To E. L. Godkin._
CAMBRIDGE, [_Feb._] 16, 1885.
MY DEAR GODKIN,--Doesn't the impartiality which I suppose is striven for
in the "Nation," sometimes overshoot the mark "and fall on t'other
side"? Poor Harry's books seem always given out to critics with
antipathy to his literary temperament; and now for this only and last
review of my father--a writer exclusively religious--a personage seems
to have been selected for whom the religious life is complete _terra
incognita_. A severe review by one interested in the subject is one
thing; a contemptuous review by one with the subject out of his sight is
another.
Make no reply to this! One must disgorge his bile.
I was taken ill in Philadelphia the day after seeing you, and had to
return home after some days without stopping in N.Y. I _may_ get there
the week after next, and if so shall claim _one_ dinner, over which I
trust no cloud will be cast by the beginning of this note! With best
respects to Mrs. Godkin, always truly yours
WM. JAMES.
_To E. L. Godkin._
CAMBRIDGE, _Feb. 19, 1885_.
MY DEAR GODKIN,--Your cry of remorse or regret is so "whole-souled" and
complete that I should not be human were I not melted almost to tears by
it, and sorry I "ever spoke to you as I did." I felt pretty sure that
you had no positive oversight of the thing in this case, but I addressed
you as the official head. And my _emotion_ was less that of filial
injury than of irritation at what seemed to me editorial stupidity in
giving out the book to the wrong _sort_ of person altogether--a Theist
of some sort being the only proper reviewer. I am heartily sorry that
the thing should have distressed you so much more than it did me. You
can take your consolation in the fact that it has now afforded you an
opportunity for the display of those admirable qualities of the heart
which your friends know, but which the ordinary readers of the "Nation"
probably do not suspect to slumber beneath the gory surface of that
savage sheet.
I hear that you are soon coming to give us some political economy. I am
very glad on every account, and suppose Mrs. Godkin will come _mit_.
Always truly yours
WM. JAMES.
_To Shadworth H. Hodgson._
CAMBRIDGE, _20 Feb., 1885_.
MY DEAR HODGSON,--Your letter of the 7th was most welcome. Anything
responsive about my poor old father's writing falls most gratefully upon
my heart. For I fear he found _me_ pretty unresponsive during his
lifetime; and that through my means any post-mortem response should come
seems a sort of atonement. You would have enjoyed knowing him. I know of
no one except Carlyle who had such a smiting _Ursprünglichkeit_ of
intuition, and such a deep sort of humor where human nature was
concerned. He bowled one over in such a careless way. He was like
Carlyle in being no _reasoner_ at all, in the sense in which
philosophers are reasoners. Reasoning was only an unfortunate necessity
of exposition for them both. His _ideas_, however, were the exact
inversion of Carlyle's; and he had nothing to correspond to Carlyle's
insatiable learning of historic facts and memory. As you say, the world
of his thought had a few elements and no others ever troubled him.
_Those_ elements were very deep ones, and had theological names. Under
"Man" he would willingly have included all flesh, even that resident in
Sirius or ethereal worlds. But he felt no need of positively looking so
far. He was the humanest and most genial being in his impulses whom I
have ever personally known, and had a bigness and power of nature that
everybody felt. I thank you heartily for your interest. I wish that
somebody could _take up_ something from his system into a system more
articulately scientific. As it is, most people will feel the _presence_
of something real and true for the while they read, and go away and
presently, unable to dovetail [it] into their own framework, forget it
altogether.
I am hoping to write you a letter ere long, a letter philosophical. I am
going over Idealism again, and mean to review your utterances on the
subject. You know that, to quote what Gurney said one evening, to attain
to assimilating your thought is the chief purpose of one's life. But you
know also how hard it is for the likes of me to write, and how much that
is felt is unthought, and that as thought [it] goes and must go
unspoken. Brother Royce tells me he has sent you his "Religious Aspect
of Philosophy." He is a wonderfully powerful fellow, not yet thirty, and
this book seems to me to have a real fresh smell of the Earth about it.
You will enjoy it, I know. I am very curious to hear what you think of
his brand-new argument for Absolute Idealism.
I and mine are well. But the precious time as usual slips away with
little work done. Happy you, whose time is all your own!
WM. JAMES
_To Henry James._
CAMBRIDGE, _Apr. 1, 1885_.
...I am running along quite smoothly, and my eyes,--you never knew such
an improvement! It has continued gradually, so that practically I can
use them all I will. It saves my life. _Why_ it should come now, when,
bully them as I would, it wouldn't come in the past few years, is one of
the secrets of the nervous system which the last trump, but nothing
earlier, may reveal. A week's recess begins today, and the day after
tomorrow I shall start for the South Shore to look up summer quarters. I
want to try how sailing suits me as a summer kill-time. The walking in
Keene Valley suits me not, and driving is too "cost-playful." I have
made a start with my psychology which I shall work at, temperately,
through the vacation and hope to get finished a year from next fall,
_sans faute_. Then shall the star of your romances be eclipst!...
_To Shadworth H. Hodgson._
NEWPORT, _Dec. 30, 1885_.
MY DEAR HODGSON,--I have just read your "Philosophy and Experience"
address, and re-read with much care your "Dialogue on Free Will" in the
last "Mind." I thank you kindly for the address. But isn't philosophy a
sad mistress, estranging the more intimately those who in all other
respects are most intimately united,--although 'tis true she unites them
afresh by their very estrangement! I feel for the first time now, after
these readings, as if I might be catching sight of your foundations.
Always hitherto has there been something elusive, a sense that what I
caught could not be _all_. Now I feel as if it might be all, and yet for
me 'tis not enough.
Your "method" (which surely after _this_ needs no additional expository
touch) I seem at last to understand, but it shrinks in the
understanding. For what is your famous "two aspects" principle more than
the postulate that the world is thoroughly _intelligible_ in nature? And
what the practical outcome of the distinction between _whatness_ and
_thatness_ save the sending us to experience to ascertain the
connections among things, and the declaration that no amount of insight
into their intrinsic qualities will account for their existence? I can
now get no more than that out of the method, which seems in truth to me
an over-subtle way of getting at and expressing pretty simple truths,
which others share who know nothing of your formulations. In fact your
wondrously delicate retouchings and discriminations appear rather to
darken the matter from the point of view of teaching. One gains much by
the way, of course, that he would have lost by a shorter path, but one
risks losing the end altogether. (I reserve what you say at the end of
both articles about Conscience, etc.--which is original and beautiful
and which I feel I have not yet assimilated. I will only ask whether all
you say about the decisions of conscience implying a future verification
does not hold of scientific decisions as well, so that _all_ reflective
_cognitive_ judgments, as well as practical judgments, project
themselves ideally into eternity?)
As for the Free Will article, I have very little to say, for it leaves
entirely untouched what seems to me the only living issue involved. The
paper is an exquisite piece of literary goldsmith's work,--nothing like
it in that respect since Berkeley,--but it hangs in the air of
speculation and touches not the earth of life, and the beautiful
distinctions it keeps making gratify only the understanding which has no
end in view but to exercise its eyes by the way. The distinctions
between _vis impressa_ and _vis insita_, and compulsion and "reaction"
_mean_ nothing in a monistic world; and any world is a monism in which
the parts to come are, as they are in your world, absolutely involved
and presupposed in the parts that are already given. Were such a monism
a palpable optimism, no man would be so foolish as to care whether it
was predetermined or not, or to ask whether he was or was not what you
call a "real agent." He would acquiesce in the flow and drift of things,
of which he found himself a part, and rejoice that it was such a whole.
The question of free will owes its entire being to a difficulty you
disdain to notice, namely that we _cannot_ rejoice in such a whole, for
it is _not_ a palpable optimism, and yet, if it be predetermined, we
_must treat_ it as a whole. Indeterminism is the only way to _break_ the
world into good parts and into bad, and to stand by the former as
against the latter.
I can understand the determinism of the mere mechanical intellect which
will not hear of a moral dimension to existence. I can understand that
of mystical monism shutting its eyes on the concretes of life, for the
sake of its abstract rapture. I can understand that of mental defeat and
despair saying, "it's all a muddle, and here I go, along with it." I can
_not_ understand a determinism like yours, which rejoices in clearness
and distinctions, and which is at the same time alive to moral
ones--unless it be that the latter are purely speculative for it, and
have little to do with its real feeling of the way life _is_ made up.
For life _is_ evil. Two souls are in my breast; I see the better, and in
the very act of seeing it I do the worse. To say that the molecules of
the nebula implied this and _shall have implied it_ to all eternity, so
often as it recurs, is to condemn me to that "dilemma" of pessimism or
subjectivism of which I once wrote, and which seems to have so little
urgency to you, and to which all talk about abstractions erected into
entities; and compulsion _vs._ "freedom" are simply irrelevant. What
living man cares for such niceties, when the real problem stares him in
the face of how practically to meet a world foredone, with no
possibilities left in it?
What a mockery then seems your distinction between determination and
compulsion, between passivity and an "activity" every minutest feature
of which is preappointed, both as to its _whatness_ and as to its
_thatness_, by what went before! What an insignificant difference then
the difference between "impediments from within" and "impediments from
without"!--between being fated to do the thing _willingly_ or not! The
point is not as to how it is done, but as to its being done at all. It
seems a wrong complement to the rest of life, which rest of life
(according to your precious "free-will determinism," as to any other
fatalism), whilst shrieking aloud at its _whatness_, nevertheless exacts
rigorously its _thatness_ then and there. Is that a reasonable world
from the moral point of view? And is it made more reasonable by the fact
that when I brought about the _thatness_ of the evil _whatness_ decreed
to come by the _thatness_ of all else beside, I did so consentingly and
aware of no "impediments outside of my own nature"? With what can I
_side_ in such a world as this? this monstrous indifferentism which
brings forth everything _eodem jure_? Our nature demands something
_objective_ to take sides with. If the world is a Unit of this sort
there _are_ no sides--there's the moral rub! And you don't see it!
Ah, Hodgson! Hodgson _mio!_ from whom I hoped so much! Most spirited,
most clean, most thoroughbred of philosophers! _Perchè di tanto inganni
i figli tuoi?_[78] If you want to reconcile us rationally to
Determinism, write a Theodicy, reconcile us to _Evil_, but don't talk of
the distinction between impediments from within and without when the
within and the without of which you speak are both within that _Whole_
which is the only real agent in your philosophy. There is no such
superstition as the idolatry of the _Whole_.
I originally finished this letter on sheet number one--but it occurred
to me afterwards that the end was too short, so I scratched out the
first lines of the crossed writing, and refer you now to what follows
them.--[_Lines from sheet number I._] It makes me sick at heart, this
discord among the only men who ought to agree. I am the more sick this
moment as I must write to your ancient foe (at least the stimulus to an
old "Mind" article of yours), one F. E. Abbot who recently gave me his
little book "Scientific Theism"--the burden of his life--which makes me
groan that I cannot digest a word of it. Farewell! Heaven bless you all
the same--and enable you to forgive me. We are well and I hope you are
the same. Ever faithfully yours,
W. J.
[_From the final sheet._] Let me add a wish for a happy New Year and the
expression of my undying regard. You are tenfold more precious to me now
that I have braved you thus! Adieu!
_To Carl Stumpf._
CAMBRIDGE, _Jan. 1, 1886_.
MY DEAR STUMPF,--...Let me tell you of my own fate since I wrote you
last. It has been an eventful and in some respects a sad year. We lost
our youngest child in the summer--the flower of the flock, 18 months
old--with a painful and lingering whooping-cough complicated with
pneumonia. My wife has borne it like an angel, however, which is
something to be thankful for. Her mother, close to whom we have always
lived, has had a severe pulmonary illness, which has obliged her to
repair to Italy for health. She is now on the Ocean, with her youngest
and only unmarried daughter, the second one having only a month ago
become the wife of that [W. M.] Salter whose essays on ethics have
lately been translated by von Gizycki in Berlin. So I have gained him as
a brother-in-law, and regard it as a real gain. I have also gained a
full Professorship with an increase of pay, and have moved into a larger
and more commodious house.[79] My eyes, too, are much better than they
were a year ago, and I am able to do more work, so there is plenty of
sweet as well as bitter in the cup.
I don't know whether you have heard of the London "Society for Psychical
Research," which is seriously and laboriously investigating all sorts of
"supernatural" matters, clairvoyance, apparitions, etc. I don't know
what you think of such work; but I think that the present condition of
opinion regarding it is scandalous, there being a mass of testimony, or
apparent testimony, about such things, at which the only men capable of
a critical judgment--men of scientific education--will not even look. We
have founded a similar society here within the year,--some of us thought
that the publications of the London society deserved at least to be
treated as if worthy of experimental disproof,--and although work
advances very slowly owing to the small amount of disposable time on the
part of the members, who are all very busy men, we have already stumbled
on some rather inexplicable facts out of which something may come. It is
a field in which the sources of deception are extremely numerous. But I
believe there is no source of deception in the investigation of nature
which can compare with a fixed belief that certain kinds of phenomenon
are _impossible_.
My teaching is much the same as it was--a little better in quality, I
hope. I enjoy very much a new philosophic colleague, Josiah Royce, from
California, who is just thirty years old and a perfect little Socrates
for wisdom and humor. I still try to write a little psychology, but it
is exceedingly slow work. No sooner do I get interested than bang! goes
my sleep, and I have to stop a week or ten days, during which my ideas
get all cold again. Nothing so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an
uncompleted task.... I try to spend two hours a day in a laboratory for
psycho-physics which I started last year, but of which I fear the
_fruits_ will be slow in ripening, as my experimental aptitude is but
small. But I am convinced that one must guard in some such way as that
against the growing tendency to _subjectivism_ in one's thinking, as
life goes on. I am hypnotizing, on a large scale, the students, and have
hit one or two rather pretty unpublished things of which some day I hope
I may send you an account.... Ever faithfully yours,
WM. JAMES.
* * * * *
When the American Society for Psychical Research was organized in Boston
in the autumn of 1884, Thomas Davidson wrote to comment on its apparent
anti-spiritual bias. In the following reply, dated February 1, 1885, but
more easily understood if inserted here out of its chronological place,
James defined the society's conception of its function. In so doing he
described his own attitude toward psychical research quite exactly:--
"As for any 'antispiritual bias' of our Society, no theoretic basis, or
_bias_ of any sort whatever, so far as I can make out, exists in it. The
one thing that has struck me all along in the men who have had to do
with it is their complete colorlessness philosophically. They seem to
have no preferences for any general _ism_ whatever. I doubt if this
could be matched in Europe. Anyhow, it would make no difference in the
important work to be done, what theoretic bias the members had. For I
take it the urgent thing, to rescue us from the present disgraceful
condition, is to ascertain in a manner so thorough as to constitute
_evidence_ that will be accepted by outsiders, just what the _phenomenal
conditions of certain_ concrete phenomenal occurrences are. Not till
that is done, can spiritualistic or anti-spiritualistic theories be even
mooted. I'm sure that the more we can steer clear of theories at first,
the better. The choice of officers was largely dictated by motives of
policy. Not that scientific men are necessarily better judges of all
truth than others, but that their adhesion would popularly seem better
_evidence_ than the adhesion of others, in the matter. And what we want
is not only truth, but evidence. We shall be lucky if our scientific
names don't grow discredited the instant they subscribe to any
'spiritual' manifestations. But how much easier to discredit literary
men, philosophers or clergymen! I think Newcomb, for President, was an
uncommon hit--if he believes, he will probably carry others. You'd
better chip in, and not complicate matters by talking either of
spiritualism or anti-spiritualism. '_Facts_' are what are wanted."
_To Henry James._
CAMBRIDGE, _May 9, 1886_.
MY DEAR HARRY,--I seize my pen the first leisure moment I have had for a
week to tell you that I have read "The Bostonians" in the full
flamingness of its bulk, and consider it an exquisite production. My
growling letter was written to you before the end of Book I had appeared
in the "Atlantic"; and the suspense of narrative in that region, to let
the relation of Olive and Verena grow, was enlarged by the vacant months
between the numbers of the magazine, so that it seemed to me so slow a
thing had ne'er been writ. Never again shall I attack one of your novels
in the magazine. I've only read one number of the "Princess
Casamassima"--though I hear all the people about me saying it is the
best thing you've done yet. To return to "The Bostonians"; the two last
books are simply sweet. There isn't a hair wrong in Verena, you've made
her neither too little nor too much--but absolutely _liebenswürdig_. It
would have been so easy to spoil her picture by some little excess or
false note. Her moral situation, between Woman's rights and Ransom, is
of course deep, and her discovery of the truth on the Central Park day,
etc., inimitably given. Ransom's character, which at first did not
become alive to me, does so, handsomely, at last. In Washington, Hay
told me that Secretary Lamar was delighted with it; Hay himself ditto,
but especially with "Casamassima." I enclose a sheet from a letter of
Gurney's but just received. You see how seriously he takes it. And I
suppose he's right from a profoundly serious point of view,--_i.e._, he
would be right if the characters were real,--but as the story stands, I
don't feel his objection. The _fancy_ is more tickled by R.'s victory
being complete. I hear very little said of the book, and I imagine it is
being less read than its predecessors. The truth about it, combining
what I said in my previous letter with what I have just written, seems
to be this, that it is superlatively well done, provided one admits that
method of doing such a thing at all. Really the _datum_ seems to me to
belong rather to the region of fancy, but the treatment to that of the
most elaborate realism. One can easily imagine the story cut out and
made into a bright, short, sparkling thing of a hundred pages, which
would have been an absolute success. But you have worked it up by dint
of descriptions and psychologic commentaries into near 500--charmingly
done for those who have the leisure and the peculiar mood to enjoy that
amount of miniature work--but perilously near to turning away the great
majority of readers who crave more matter and less art. I can truly say,
however, that as I have lain on my back after dinner each day for ten
days past reading it to myself, my enjoyment has been complete. I
imagine that inhabitants of other parts of the country have read it more
than natives of these parts. They have bought it for the sake of the
information. The way you have touched off the bits of American nature,
Central Park, the Cape, etc., is exquisitely true and calls up just the
feeling. Knowing you had done such a good thing makes the meekness of
your reply to me last summer all the more wonderful.
I cannot write more--being much overloaded and in bad condition. The
spring is opening deliciously--all the trees half out, and the white,
bright, afternoon east winds beginning. Our household is well....
Don't be alarmed about the labor troubles here. I am quite sure they are
a most healthy phase of evolution, a little costly, but normal, and sure
to do lots of good to all hands in the end. I don't speak of the
senseless "anarchist" riot in Chicago, which has nothing to do with
"Knights of Labor," but is the work of a lot of pathological Germans and
Poles. I'm amused at the anti-Gladstonian capital which the English
papers are telegraphed to be making of it. All the Irish names are among
the killed and wounded policemen. Almost every anarchist name is
Continental. Affectly.,
W. J.
* * * * *
James read "The Bostonians," and wrote to his brother about it, with
that special shade of detachment which is peculiar to fraternal
judgments. He was less careful to measure his praise when he wrote to
other authors about their novels.
_To W. D. Howells._
JAFFREY, N.H., _July 21, 1886_.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--I "snatch" a moment from the limitless vacation peace
and leisure in which I lie embedded and which doesn't leave me "time"
for anything, to tell you that I have been reading your "Indian Summer,"
and that it has given me about as exquisite a kind of delight as
anything I ever read in my life, in the line to which it belongs. How
you tread the narrow line of nature's truth so infallibly is more than I
can understand. Then the profanity, the humor, the humanity, the
morality--the everything! In short, 'tis cubical, and set it up any way
you please 'twill stand. That blessed young female made me squeal at
every page. How _can_ you have got back to the conversations of your
prime?
But I won't discriminate or analyze. This is only meant for an
inarticulate cry of _viva Howells_. I repeat it: long live Howells! God
grant you may do as good things again! I don't believe you can do
better.
With warmest congratulations to Mrs. Howells that you _and_ she were
born, I am ever yours,
WM. JAMES.
* * * * *
Mr. Howells called such letters "whoops of blessing." When a new book
pleased James particularly, he was apt to send a "whoop" to its author.
With respect to the next letter, it will be recalled that Croom
Robertson was the Editor of "Mind." Richard Hodgson was later for many
years the Secretary of the American Branch of the Society for Psychical
Research, in Boston. He became a warm friend. Other allusions to him
occur later.
_To G. Croom Robertson._
_Aug. 13, 1886_.
MY DEAR ROBERTSON,--...I have just been reading the last number of
"Mind," and find it rather below par. R. Hodgson muddled, clotted, dusky
and ineffectual, save for a gleam or two of light in as many separate
points. How can an adult man spend his time in trying to torture an
accurate meaning into Spencer's incoherent accidentalities? It is so
much more easy to do the work over for oneself. I rubbed my eyes at the
Macdonald paper, as a dim sense came over me that it might be a Divinity
student who "sat under" me for a part of last year. I ween it is. Little
did I know the viper I was nourishing. Why don't you have a special
"Neo-Hegelian Department" in "Mind," like the "Children's Department" or
the "Agricultural Department" in our newspapers--which educated readers
skip? With Montgomery's paper I am for the most part in warm sympathy,
though he might make a discrimination or two more. I'm sorry I've not
yet read his first number. His non-empirical style, so different from
that of the British school, will stand in the way of his views'
deglutition by the ordinary reader. I've got the same stuff all neatly
down in black and white, in a very empirical style, which alas! must
wait perhaps years till the other chapters are finished. However, in
these matters, no matter how much different men strike the same vein,
they do it in such different _ways_, that no one of them absolutely
supersedes the need of the others.
Davidson I saw the other day in Cambridge. He was fresh from the Concord
School, where they had been belaboring Goethe as their _pièce de
résistance_ and topping off with pantheism as dessert. He had read aloud
a paper of Montgomery's against pantheism, as well as one of his own on
Goethe's Titanism. Montgomery's is shortly to appear in a journal here.
I am rather curious to read it.
To go on with "Mind," Hull's paper (Donaldson's) is refreshing. X---- is
a little stub-and-twist fellow who also sat under me last year, and now
has a fellowship for next year. He is a silent, mannerless little cub,
but has first-rate stuff in him, I think, as an original worker;
theological training. Have you had time yet to look into Royce's book?
Royce seems to me to be a man of the greatest promise, performance too,
in that book. I wish you would have it worthily reviewed.
Here I have run on about the accidents of the hour, instead of the
eternal things of the soul. No matter; all is a symbol, and these words
will probably waft my presence somehow into yours....
Pray drop me even a short line soon, to let me know about you and Mrs.
Robertson. I've heard nothing _of_ you, even, for many months. Haven't
you a brother, or something, to send over here, since there seems no
hope of having you yourself? Gurney wrote the other day that he was
about to send his brother.
Farewell! I think of you both often, and am with heartiest affection,
Yours always,
WM. JAMES.
_To Shadworth H. Hodgson._
JAFFREY, N.H., _Sept. 12, 1886_.
MY DEAR HODGSON,--I ought long ere this to have written you a genuine
letter in reply to your two of Feb. 3, _respective_ March 6. (The latter
by the way came to me many weeks too late, all blurred and
water-stained, with a notice gummed on it telling as how it had been
rescued from the Oregon sunken on the bottom of the Ocean. This makes it
ex-as well as in-trinsically interesting, and does honor to our
nineteenth-century post-office perfection.) I suppose one reason for my
procrastination has been the shrinking-back of the fleshly man from
another gnashing of the teeth over the free-will business. I have just
been reading your letters again, and beautiful letters they are--also
your pregnant little paper on Monism. But I'm blest if they make me
budge an inch from my inveterate way of looking at the question. I hate
to think that controversy should be useless, and arguments of no avail,
but the history of opinion on this problem is ominous; so I will be very
short, hardly more than "yea, yea! nay, nay!"
The subject of my concern seems entirely different from yours. I care
absolutely nothing whether there be "agents" or no agents, or whether
man's actions be really "_his_" or not.
What I care for is that my moral reactions should find a real outward
application. All those who, like you, hold that the world is a system of
"uniform law" which repels all variation as so much "chaos," oblige, it
seems to me, the world to be judged integrally. Now the only _integral_
emotional reaction which can be called forth by such a world as this of
our experience, is that of dramatic or melodramatic
interest--romanticism--which _is_ the emotional reaction upon it of all
intellects who are neither religious nor moral. The moment you seek to
go deeper, you must break the world into parts, the parts that seem good
and those that seem bad. Whatever Indian mystics may say about
overcoming the bonds of good and evil, for _us_ there is no higher
synthesis in which their contradiction merges, no _one_ way of judging
that world which holds them both. Either close your eyes and adopt an
optimism or a pessimism equally daft; or exclude moral categories
altogether from a place in the world's definition, which leaves the
world _unheimlich_, reptilian, and foreign to man; or else, sticking to
it that the moral judgment _is_ applicable, give up the hope of applying
it to the _whole_, and admit that, whilst some parts are good, others
are bad, and being bad, _ought_ not to have been, "argal," possibly
_might_ not have been. In short, be an indeterminist on moral grounds
with which the differences between compulsory or spontaneous uniformity
and perceptive and conceptive order have absolutely nothing to do.
But enough! I am far beyond the yea and nay I promised, and feel more
like gossiping with you as a friend than wrangling with you as a foe. I
hope things are going well with you in these months and that politics
have not exasperated you beyond the possibility of philosophizing.... I
got successfully through the academic year, in spite of the fact that I
wasted a great deal of time on "psychical research" and had other
interruptions from work which I would fain have done. I intend _per fas
aut nefas_ to make more time for myself next year. The family is very
well; and with the exception of an attack of illness of a couple of
weeks, the vacation has been a delightful and beneficial one. I wish I
could live in the country all the year round, or rather nine months of
it. When I retire from the harness, if that ever happens, I probably
shall.
I have just been on a little trip to the White Mountains and may
possibly buy a small farm which I saw in a convenient and romantic
neighborhood. New England farms are now dirt cheap--the natives going
West, the Irish coming in and making a better living than the Yankees
could. Here were seventy-five acres of land, two thirds of it oak and
pine timber, one third hay, a splendid spring of water, fair little
house and large barn, close to a beautiful lake and under a mountain
3500 feet high, four and a half hours from Boston, for 900 dollars! A
rivulet of great beauty runs through it. I am only waiting to see if I
can get the strip between it and the lake shore to buy....
I have just read, with infinite zest and stimulation, Bradley's "Logic."
I suppose you have read it. It is surely "epoch-making" in English
philosophy. Both empiricists and pan-rationalists must settle their
accounts with it. It breaks up all the traditional lines. And what a
fighter the cuss is! Do you know him? What is he personally? Whether
churlish and sour, or simply redundantly ironical and irrepressible, I
can't make out from his polemic tone; but should apprehend the former.
It will be long ere I settle my accounts with his book.
Well! adieu and good luck to you, in spite of your viciousness in the
matter of determinism! Send me all you write and believe me as ever,
Always most affectionately yours,
WM. JAMES.
* * * * *
With respect to the next letter, and others to James's sister, which
follow, it should now be explained that Miss Alice James had gone abroad
in 1885. The illness which was the cause of her journey developed more
and more serious complications. Being near her brother Henry in England,
she stayed on there during the remaining six years of her life. In
spite of much suffering, she never let herself adopt an invalidish
tone,[80] but kept her attention turned toward things outside her
sick-room, and was apt to greet expressions of commiseration in a way to
discourage their repetition--as the following letter testifies. "K. P.
L." was a devoted friend, Miss Katharine P. Loring of Boston; "A. K."
was the Aunt Kate mentioned in early letters.
_To his Sister._
CAMBRIDGE, _Feb. 5, 1887_.
DEAREST ALICE,--Your card and, a day or two later, K. P. L.'s letter to
A. K., have made us acquainted with your sad tumble-down, for which I am
sorrier than I can express, and can only take refuge in the hope,
incessantly springing up again from its ashes, that you will
"recuperate" more promptly than of late has been the case. I'm glad, at
any rate, that it has got you into Harry's lodgings for a while, and
hope your next permanent arrangement will prove better than the last.
When, as occasionally happens, I have a day of headache, or of real
sickness like that of last summer at Mrs. Dorr's, I think of you whose
whole life is woven of that kind of experience, and my heart sinks at
the horizon that opens, and wells over with pity. But when all is over,
the longest life appears short; and we had better drink the cup,
whatever it contains, for it _is_ life. But I will not moralize or
sympathize, for fear of awakening more "screams of laughter" similar to
those which you wrote of as greeting my former attempts.
We have had but one letter from Harry--soon after his arrival at
Florence. I hope he has continued to get pleasure and profit from his
outing. I haven't written to him since he left London, nor do I now
write him a special letter, but the rest of this is meant for him as
well as you, and if he is still to be away, you will forward it to him.
We are getting along very well, on the whole, I keeping very
continuously occupied, but not seeming to get ahead much, _for the days
grow so short_ with each advancing year. A day is now about a
minute--hardly time to turn round in. Mrs. Gibbens arrived from Chicago
last night, and in ten days she and Margaret will start, with our little
Billy, for Aiken, S.C., to be gone till May. B. is asthmatic, she is
glad to go south for her own sake, and the open-air life all day long
will be much better for him than our arduous winter and spring. He is
the most utterly charming little piece of human nature you ever saw, so
packed with life, impatience, and feeling, that I think Father must have
been just like him at his age....
I have been paying ten or eleven visits to a mind-cure doctress, a
sterling creature, resembling the "Venus of Medicine," Mrs. Lydia E.
Pinkham,[81] made solid and veracious-looking. I sit down beside her and
presently drop asleep, whilst she disentangles the snarls out of my
mind. She says she never saw a mind with so many, so agitated, so
restless, etc. She said my _eyes_, mentally speaking, kept revolving
like wheels in front of each other and in front of my face, and it was
four or five sittings ere she could get them _fixed_. I am now,
_unconsciously to myself_, much better than when I first went, etc. I
thought it might please you to hear an opinion of my mind so similar to
your own. Meanwhile what boots it to be made unconsciously better, yet
all the while consciously to lie awake o' nights, as I still do?
Lectures are temporarily stopped and examinations begun. I seized the
opportunity to go to my Chocorua place and see just what was needed to
make it habitable for the summer. It is a goodly little spot, but we may
not, after all, fit up the buildings till we have spent a summer in the
place and "studied" the problem a little more closely. The snow was
between two and three feet deep on a level, in spite of the recent
thaws. The day after I arrived was one of the most crystalline purity,
and the mountain simply exquisite in gradations of tint. I have a tenant
in the house, one Sanborn, who owes me a dollar and a half a month, but
can't pay it, being of a poetic and contemplative rather than of an
active nature, and consequently excessively poor. He has a sign out
"Attorney and Pension Agent," and writes and talks like one of the
greatest of men. He was working the sewing machine when I was there, and
talking of his share in the war, and why he didn't go to live in
Boston, etc. (namely that he wasn't known), and my heart was heavy in my
breast that so rich a nature, fitted to inhabit a tropical dreamland,
should have nothing but that furnitureless cabin within and snow and sky
without, to live upon. For, however spotlessly pure and dazzlingly
lustrous snow may be, pure snow, always snow, and naught but snow, for
four months on end, is, it must be confessed, a rather lean diet for the
human soul--deficient in variety, chiaroscuro, and oleaginous and
medieval elements. I felt as I was returning home that some intellectual
inferiority _ought_ to accrue to all populations whose environment for
many months in the year consisted of pure snow.--You are better off,
better off than you know, in that great black-earthed dunghill of an
England. I say naught of politics, war, strikes, railroad accidents or
public events, unless the departure of C. W. Eliot and his wife for a
year in Europe be a public event....
Well, dear old Alice, I hope and pray for you. Lots of love to Harry,
and if Katharine is with you, to her. Yours ever,
W. J.
_To Carl Stumpf._
CAMBRIDGE, _6 Feb., 1887_.
MY DEAR STUMPF,--Your two letters from Rügen of Sept. 8th, and from
Halle of Jan. 2 came duly, and I can assure you that their contents was
most heartily appreciated, and not by me alone. I fairly squealed with
pleasure over the first one and its rich combination of good counsel and
humorous commentary, and read the greater part of it to my friend Royce,
assistant professor of philosophy here, who enjoyed it almost as much as
I. There is a heartiness and solidity about your letters which is truly
German, and makes them as nutritious as they are refreshing to receive.
Your _Kater-Gefühl_,[82] however, in your second letter, about your
_Auslassungen_[83] on the subject of Wundt, amused me by its speedy
evolution into _Auslassungen_ more animated still. I can well understand
why Wundt should make his compatriots impatient. Foreigners can afford
to be indifferent for he doesn't _crowd_ them so much. He aims at being
a sort of Napoleon of the intellectual world. Unfortunately he will
never have a Waterloo, for he is a Napoleon without genius and with no
central idea which, if defeated, brings down the whole fabric in ruin.
You remember what Victor Hugo says of Napoleon in the Miserables--"Il
gênait Dieu"; Wundt only _gêners_ his _confrères_; and whilst they make
mincemeat of some one of his views by their criticism, he is meanwhile
writing a book on an entirely different subject. Cut him up like a worm,
and each fragment crawls; there is no _noeud vital_ in his mental
medulla oblongata, so that you can't kill him all at once.
But surely you must admit that, since there must be professors in the
world, Wundt is the most praiseworthy and never-too-much-to-be-respected
type of the species. He isn't a genius, he is a _professor_--a being
whose duty is to know everything, and have his own opinion about
everything, connected with his _Fach_. Wundt has the most prodigious
faculty of appropriating and preserving knowledge, and as for opinions,
he takes _au grand sérieux_ his duties there. He says of each possible
subject, "Here I must have an opinion. Let's see! What shall it be? How
many possible opinions are there? three? four? Yes! just four! Shall I
take one of these? It will seem more original to take a higher position,
a sort of _Vermittelungsansicht_[84] between them all. That I will do,
etc., etc." So he acquires a complete assortment of opinions of his own;
and, as his memory is so good, he seldom forgets which they are! But
this is not reprehensible; it is admirable--from the professorial point
of view. To be sure, one gets tired of that point of view after a while.
But was there ever, since Christian Wolff's time, such a model of the
German Professor? He has utilized to the uttermost fibre every gift that
Heaven endowed him with at his birth, and made of it all that mortal
pertinacity could make. He is the finished example of how much mere
_education_ can do for a man. Beside him, Spencer is an ignoramus as
well as a charlatan. I admit that Spencer is occasionally more _amusing_
than Wundt. His "Data of Ethics" seems to me incomparably his best book,
because it is a more or less frank expression of the man's personal
_ideal of living_--which has of course little to do with science, and
which, in Spencer's case, is full of definiteness and vigor. Wundt's
"Ethics" I have not yet seen, and probably shall not "tackle" it for a
good while to come.
I was much entertained by your account of F----, of whom you have seen
much more than I have. I am eager to see him, to hear about his visit to
Halle, and to get his account of you. But [F.'s place of abode] and
Boston are ten hours asunder by rail, and I never go there and he never
comes here. He seems a very promising fellow, with a good deal of
independence of character; and if you knew the conditions of education
in this country, and of the preparation to fill chairs of philosophy in
colleges, you would not express any surprise at his, or mine, or any
other American's small amount of "Information über die philosophische
Literatur." Times are mending, however, and within the past six or eight
years it has been possible, in three or four of our colleges, to get
really educated for philosophy as a profession. The most promising man
we have in this country is, in my opinion, the above-mentioned Royce, a
young Californian of thirty, who is really built for a metaphysician,
and who is, besides that, a very complete human being, alive at every
point. He wrote a novel last summer, which is now going through the
press, and which I am very curious to see. He has just been in here,
interrupting this letter, and I have told him he must send a copy of his
book, the "Religious Aspect of Philosophy," to you, promising to urge
you to read it when you had time. The first half is ethical, and very
readable and full of profound and witty details, but to my mind not of
vast importance philosophically. The second half is a new argument for
monistic idealism, an argument based on the possibility of truth and
error in knowledge, subtle in itself, and rather lengthily expounded,
but seeming to me to be one of the few big original suggestions of
recent philosophical writing. I have vainly tried to escape from it. I
still suspect it of inconclusiveness, but I frankly confess that I am
_unable_ to overthrow it. Since you too are an anti-idealist, I wish
very much you would try your critical teeth upon it. I can assure you
that, if you come to close quarters with it, you will say its author
belongs to the genuine philosophic breed.
I am myself doing very well this year, rather light work, etc., but
still troubled with bad sleep so as to advance very slowly with private
study and writing. However, few days without a line at least. I found to
my surprise and pleasure that Robertson was willing to print my chapter
on Space in "Mind," even though it should run through all four numbers
of the year.[85] So I sent it to him. Most of it was written six or even
seven years ago. To tell the truth, I am _off_ of Space now, and can
probably carry my little private ingenuity concerning it no farther than
I have already done in this essay; and fearing that some evil fiend
might put it into Helmholtz's mind to correct all his errors and tell
the full truth in the new edition of his "Optics," I felt it was high
time that what I had written should see the light and not be lost. It is
dry stuff to read, and I hardly dare to recommend it to you; but if you
do read it, there is no one whose favorable opinion I should more
rejoice to hear; for, as you know, you seem to me, of all writers on
Space, the one who, on the whole, has thought out the subject most
_philosophically_. Of course, the experimental patience, and skill and
freshness of observation of the Helmholtzes and Herings are altogether
admirable, and perhaps at bottom _worth_ more than philosophic ability.
Space is really a direfully difficult subject! The third dimension
bothers me very much still.
I have this very day corrected the proofs of an essay on the Perception
of Time,[86] which I will send you when it shall appear in the "Journal
of Speculative Philosophy" for October last. (The number of "July, 1886"
is not yet out!) I rather enjoyed the writing of it. I have just begun a
chapter on "Discrimination and Comparison," subjects which have been
long stumbling-blocks in my path. Yesterday it seemed to me that I could
perhaps do nothing better than just translate 6 and 7 of the first
_Abschnitt_ of your "Tonpsychologie," which is worth more than
everything else put together which has been written on the subject. But
I will stumble on and try to give it a more personal form. I shall,
however, borrow largely from you....
Have you seen [Edmund] Gurney's two bulky tomes, "Phantasms of the
Living," an amazingly patient and thorough piece of work? I should not
at all wonder if it were the beginning of a new department of natural
history. But even if not, it is an important chapter in the statistics
of _Völkerpsychologie_, and I think Gurney worthy of the highest praise
for his devotion to this unfashionable work. He is not the kind of stuff
which the ordinary pachydermatous fanatic and mystic is made of....
_To Henry P. Bowditch._
[Post-card]
CAMBRIDGE, _Mar. 26_ [1887].
My live-stock is increased by a _Töchterchen_, modest, tactful,
unselfish, quite different from a boy, and in fact a really
_epochmachendes Erzeugniss_.[87] I shall begin to save for her dowry and
perhaps your Harold will marry her. Their ages are suitable.
Grüsse an die gnädige Frau.
W. J.
_To Henry James._
CAMBRIDGE, _Apr. 12, 1887_.
MY DEAR HARRY,--...I got back yesterday from five days spent at my
sylvan home at Lake Chocorua, whither I had gone to see about getting
the buildings in order for the summer. The winter has been an
exceptionally snowy one back of the coast, and I found, when I arrived,
four feet of snow on a level and eight feet where it had drifted. The
day before yesterday the heat became summer-like, and I took a long walk
in my shirt-sleeves, going through the snow the whole length of my leg
when the crust broke. It was a queer combination--not exactly agreeable.
The snow-blanket keeps the ground from freezing deep; so that very few
days after the snow is gone the soil is dry, and spring begins in good
earnest. I tried snow-shoes but found them clumsy. They were making the
maple-sugar in the woods; I had excellent comfort at the hotel hard by;
with whose good landlord and still better landlady I am good friends; I
rested off the fumes of my lore-crammed brain, and altogether I smile at
the pride of Greece and Rome--from the height of my New Hampshire home.
I'm afraid it will cost nearer $2000 than $800 to finish all the work.
But we shall have ten large rooms (two of them 24 x 24), and three small
ones--not counting kitchen, pantries, etc., and if you want some real,
roomy, rustic happiness, you had better come over and spend all your
summers with us. I can see that the thought makes you sick, so I'll say
no more about it, but my permanent vision of your future is that your
pen will fail you as a means of support, and, having laid up no income,
you will return like the prodigal son to my roof. You will then find
that, with a wood-pile as large as an ordinary house, a hearth four feet
wide, and the American sun flooding the floor, even a New Hampshire
winter is not so bad a thing. With house provided, two or three hundred
dollars a year will support a man comfortably enough at Tamworth Iron
Works, which is the name of our township. But, enough! My vulgarity
makes you shudder....
College begins tomorrow, and there are seven weeks more of lectures. I
never did my work so easily as this year, and hope to write two more
chapters of psychology ere the vacation. That immortal work is now more
than two thirds done. To you, who throw off two volumes a year, I must
seem despicable for my slowness. But the truth is that (leaving other
impediments out of account) the "science" is in such a confused and
imperfect state that every paragraph presents some unforeseen snag, and
I often spend many weeks on a point that I didn't foresee as a
difficulty at all. American scholarship is looking up in that line.
Three first-class works, in point both of originality and of learning,
have appeared here within four months. Stanley Hall's and mine will make
five. Meanwhile in England they are doing little or nothing. The
"psychical researchers" seem to be the only active investigators....
_To his Sister._
CHOCORUA, N.H., _July 2, 1887_.
DEAREST SISTER,--It is an unconscionable time since I have written
either to you or to Harry. Too little eyesight, and too much use
thereof, is the reason. I thought I should go wild during the
examination period. I have now got some presbyopic spectacles and hope
for an improvement. I think I've been straining my eyes for three or
four months past by not having them on.
A short dictated letter from you came the other day, and has been sent
back to Alice in Cambridge, so I cannot give its date. I am grieved in
the extreme to hear of another breakdown in your health.... But I make
no sympathetic comment, as you would probably "roar" over it. There is
this to be said, that it is probably less tragic to be sick all the time
than to be sometimes well and incessantly tumbling down again.
I thought of the difference in our lots yesterday as I was driving home
in the evening with a wagon in tow, which I had started at six-thirty
to get at a place called Fryeburg, 19 miles away. All day in the open
air, talking with the country people, trying horses which they had to
swap, but concluding to stick to my own--a most blessed feeling of
freedom, and change from Cambridge life. I never knew before how much
freedom came with having a horse of one's own. I am becoming quite an
expert jockey, having examined and tried at least two dozen horses in
the last six weeks; and I don't know a more fascinating occupation. The
day before yesterday, I spent most of both forenoon and afternoon in the
field under the blazing sun, sprinkling my potato plants with Paris
green. The house comes on slowly, but in a fortnight we shall surely be
inside of the larger half of it, and the rest can then drag on. Three or
four men can't get ahead very fast. It has some delightful rooms, and, I
have no doubt, will make us all happy for several years to come. Not for
eternity, for everything fades, and I can see that some day we shall be
glad to sell out and move on, to something grander, perhaps. For simple
harmonious loveliness, however, this can't be beat....
What a grotesque sort of time you have been having with your Queen's
jubilee! What a chance for a woman to give some human shove to things,
by the smallest _real_ word or act, and what incapacity to guess its
existence or to profit by it! One can see the ground for
Bonaparte-worship, when one contemplates the results of the orthodox and
conservative crowned-head education. He, at least, could have dropped an
unconventional word, done something to pierce the cuticle. But the
density of British unintellectuality is a spectacle for gods. One can't
imagine it or describe it. One can only _see_ it....
W. J.
* * * * *
Such enterprises as the horse-swapping just alluded to were not always
conducted with that circumspection which marks your true horse-trader.
The companion of one search for a horse reported James as accosting a
man whom he met driving along the road and asking, "Do you know anyone
who wants to sell a horse?" At Chocorua everyone was willing to sell a
horse, and accordingly the man answered that he "didn't know as he did,"
but what might James be ready to pay? James replied that he was looking
for a horse "for about $150, but _might_ pay $175." There was a pause
before the man spoke: "I've got a horse in my barn that would be just
what you want--_for one hundred and seventy five_."
The buyer was ready enough to laugh over such an incident; but he could
not mend his trustful ways. The great thing was to have the fun of
poking about the country-side and of talking business, or anything else,
with its people whenever occasion offered; and, after all, the horses
James bought usually turned out to be sound and serviceable enough.
Perhaps it was because he looked at every living creature with a
discriminating eye, and had not been a comparative anatomist for
nothing. In the end, too, he was suited by any horse that pulled
willingly and was safe for man, woman, and child to drive. There were no
motor-cars then, and few other summer residents or visitors at Chocorua.
James's two-seated "democrat" wagon, full of family and guests, and
often followed by a child on the pony and by one or two other riders,
used to travel quietly along the secluded and hilly roads for many hours
a day.
During this summer, and yearly during the next four, James found real
rest and refreshment on his Chocorua farm. The conditions were simple
and the place yielded him all the joys of proprietorship without
involving him in responsibilities to cattle and fields. Anyone who
knows central New Hampshire will realize how rudimentary "farming" in
one of the most barren parts of rocky New England necessarily was. The
glacial soil produced nothing naturally except woods and apple trees.
But the country was very beautiful, and on his own acres James was lord
of part of the Earth. Clearing away bushes and stones from one of the
little fields near the house; causing something to be planted which,
during those first years, always seemed as if it _must_ be responsive
enough to grow; cutting out trees to improve the look of the woods or to
open an interesting view; dragging stones out of the bathing-hole in the
brook; buying a horse or two and a cow on some lonely roadside at the
beginning of each summer--these were fascinating adventures.
James was an insatiable lover of landscape, and particularly of wide
"views." His inclination was to "open" the view, to cut down obstructing
trees, even at the expense of the foreground. In drives and walks about
Chocorua he usually made for some high hill that commanded the Ossipee
Valley or the peaks of the Sandwich Range and White Mountains. Most
hills in the neighborhood were topped by granite ledges and deserted
pastures, and each commanded a different prospect. So the expedition
often took the form of a picnic on one of these ledges. Axes were taken
along; permission was sometimes obtained to cut down any worthless tree
that had sprung up to shut off the horizon.
Before the end of such an afternoon James was more than likely to have
fallen in love with the spot and to be talking of buying it. Indeed he
was forever playing with projects for buying this or that hill-top or
high farm and establishing a new dwelling-place of some sort on it. He
was usually restrained by the price or by remembering the housekeeping
cares with which his wife was already over-burdened. But he actually did
buy two--one near Chocorua and one on a shoulder of Mt. Hurricane in the
Adirondacks; and about the Chocorua region there is hardly a
high-perched pasture which he did not at some time nourish the hope of
possessing.
Another consideration that usually deterred him from buying was the
difficulty of combining hill-tops with brooks. He used often to bewail
this dispensation of nature; for a vacation without a brook or a pond to
bathe in was as unthinkable as a summer dwelling-place that did not
command a splendid view was "inferior." The little house at Chocorua
stood at no great elevation, but it was near the Lake, and the place
boasted its own brook, with a little pool, overhung by trees, into which
the cold water splashed noisily over a natural dam. Thither, rain or
shine, James used to walk across the meadow for an early morning dip;
and after a walk or a drive or a couple of hours of chopping, or a warm
half-day with a book in the woods, he used to plunge into it again.
A few lines, through which breathes the happiest Chocorua mood, may be
added here, although they were written during a later summer.
_To Henry James._
CHOCORUA, _July 10_.
...I have been up here for ten days reveling in the deliciousness of the
country, dressed in a single layer of flannel, shirt, breeches and long
stockings, exercising my arms as well as my legs several hours a day,
and already feeling that bodily and spiritual freshness that comes of
health, and of which no other good on earth is worthy to unlatch the
shoe....
* * * * *
The next letter also rejoices over Chocorua, although it turns first to
academic amenities. The correspondent addressed, now Sir Charles
Walston, and Henry Jackson, both of the English Cambridge, had sent
James two cases of audit ale.
_To Charles Waldstein._
CAMBRIDGE, _July 20, 1887_.
MY DEAR WALDSTEIN,--It never rains but it pours. The case of beer from
_you_ also came duly. Day after day I wondered about its _provenance_,
but your letter dispels the mystery. I had begun to believe that all the
colleges of Cambridge and Oxford were going to vie with each other in
wooing my appreciation of their respective brews. The dream is shattered
but the reality remains. Five dozen is enough for me to fall back
upon--in the immediate present, at all events.
As for that unknown but thrice-blest Jackson, Henry Jackson of Trinity
(_dulcissimum mundi nomen_)--is that the way he always acts, or is he
only so towards _me_? I thank him from the bottom of my heart, and swear
an eternal friendship with him. If ever he is in need of meat, drink,
advice or defence, let him henceforth know to whom to apply--purse,
house, life, all shall be at his disposal. Such a magnanimous heart as
his was ne'er known before.
I wish I knew his _Fach_! But my ignorance is too encyclopedic. He must
be a very great philosopher. Goddard shall have some of the stuff.--Of
course you mean George Goddard--I know him well.
This has been written in the midst of interruptions. I am back in
Cambridge for only a couple of days, to send furniture up to my New
Hampshire farmlet. You may play the swell, but I play the yeoman. Which
is the better and more godly life? Surely the latter. The mother earth
is in my finger-nails and my back is aching and my skin sweating with
the ache and sweat of Father Adam and all his _normal_ descendants. No
matter! Swells and artists have their place too. Farewell! I am called
off again by the furniture. Remember me! And as for the divine Henry
Jackson, thank him again and again. His ale is royal stuff. I will make
no comparisons between his and yours. Ever affectionately yours,
WM. JAMES.
* * * * *
In explanation of the next letters, it should be said that in 1888 it
seemed advisable to get the children into a warmer winter climate than
that of Cambridge. Accordingly Mrs. James carried the three ("Harry,"
"Billy," and "Margaret Mary," aged respectively eight, five, and two
years), and a German governess off to Aiken, South Carolina, for three
months. James was thus left in the Garden Street house with no other
member of the family except--for he counted as one--a small pug-dog
named Jap. Dr. Hildreth, who is referred to, was a next-door neighbor,
whose children were somewhat older than the James children.
_To his Son Henry (age 8)._
CAMBRIDGE, _Mar. 1, 1888_.
BELOVED HEINRICH,--You lazy old scoundrel, why don't you write a letter
to your old Dad? Tell me how you enjoy your riding on horseback, what
Billy does for a living, and which things you like best of all the new
kinds of things you have to do with in Aiken. How do you like the
darkeys being so numerous? Everything goes on quietly here. The house so
still that you can hear a pin drop, and so clean that everything makes a
mark on it. All because there are no brats and kids around. Jap is my
only companion, and he sneezes all over me whenever I pick him up. Mrs.
Hildreth and the children are gone to Florida. The Emmets seem very
happy. I will close with a fable. A donkey felt badly because he was not
so great a favorite as a lap-dog. He said, I must act like the lap-dog,
and then my mistress will like me. So he came into the house and began
to lick his mistress, and put his paws on her, and tried to get into her
lap. Instead of kissing him for this, she screamed for the servants, who
beat him and put him out of the house. Moral: It's no use to try to be
anything but a donkey if you are one. But neither you nor Billy are one.
Good-night! you blessed boy. Stick to your three R's and your riding, so
as to get on _fast_. The ancient Persians only taught their boys to
ride, to shoot the bow and to tell the truth. Good-night!
Kiss your dear old Mammy and that belly-ache of a Billy, and little
Margaret Mary for her Dad. Good-night.
YOUR FATHER.
_To his Son Henry._
CAMBRIDGE, _Mar. 27_ [1888].
BELOVED HEINRICH,--Your long letter came yesterday P.M. Much the best
you ever writ, and the address on the envelope so well written that I
wondered whose hand it was, and never thought it might be yours. Your
tooth also was a precious memorial--I hope you'll get a better one in
its place. Send me the other as soon as it is tookin out. They ought to
go into the Peabody Museum. If any of George Washington's baby-teeth had
been kept till now, they would be put somewhere in a public museum for
the world to wonder at. I will keep this tooth, so that, if you grow up
to be a second Geo. Washington, I may sell it to a Museum. When
Washington was only eight years old his mother didn't know he was going
to be Washington. But he did be it, when the time came.
I will now tell you about what Dr. Hildreth is doing. The family is in
Florida, and he is building himself a new house. They are just starting
the foundation. The fence is taken down between our yard and his, by the
stable, and teams are driving through with lumber. Our back yard is
filled with lumber for the frame of the house. It is to be cut, squared,
mortised, etc., in our yard and then carried through to his.
I dined last night at the Dibblees'. The boys had been to
dancing-school. I like their looks. All the boys and girls together kept
up such a talking that I seemed to be in a boiler factory where they
bang the iron with the hammers so. It's just so with them every day. But
they're very good-natured, even if they don't let the old ones speak.
Say to Fräulein that "ich lasse Sie grüssen von Herzensgrund!"[88]
Thump Bill for me and ask him if he likes it so nicely.
Jap's nose is all dry and brown with holding it so everlastingly towards
the fire.
We are having ice-cream and the Rev. George A. Gordon to lunch today.
The ice-cream is left over from the Philosophical Club last night.
Now pray, old Harry, stick to your books and let me see you do sums and
read _fast_ when you get back.
The best of all of us is your mother, though.
Good-bye!
Your loving Dad.
W. J.
_To his Son William._
18 GARDEN STREET, _Apr. 29, 1888_.
9:30 A.M.
BELOVED WILLIAMSON,--This is Sunday, the sabbath of the Lord, and it has
been very hot for two days. I think of you and Harry with such longing,
and of that infant whom I know so little, that I cannot help writing you
some words. Your Mammy writes me that she can't get _you_ to _work_
much, though Harry works. You _must_ work a little this summer in our
own place. How nice it will be! I have wished that both you and Harry
were by my side in some amusements which I have had lately. First, the
learned seals in a big tank of water in Boston. The loveliest beasts,
with big black eyes, poking their heads up and down in the water, and
then scrambling out on their bellies like boys tied up in bags. They
play the guitar and banjo and organ, and one of them saves the life of a
child who tumbles in the water, catching him by the collar with its
teeth, and swimming him ashore. They are both, child and seal, trained
to do it. When they have done well, their master gives them a lot of
fish. They eat an awful lot, scales, and fins, and bones and all,
without chewing. That is the worst thing about them. He says he never
beats them. They are full of curiosity--more so than a dog for far-off
things; for when a man went round the room with a pole pulling down the
windows at the top, all their heads bobbed out of the water and followed
him about with their eyes _aus lauter_[89] curiosity. Dogs would hardly
have noticed him, I think. Now, speaking of dogs, Jap was _nauseated_
two days ago. I thought, from his licking his nose, that he was going to
be sick, and got him out of doors just in time. He vomited most awfully
on the grass. He then acted as if he thought I was going to punish him,
poor thing. He can't discriminate between sickness and sin. He leads a
dull life, without you and Margaret Mary. I tell him if it lasts much
longer, he'll grow into a common beast; he hates to be a beast, but
unless he has human companionship, he will sink to the level of one. So
you must hasten back and make much of him.
I also went to the panorama of the battle of Bunker Hill, which is as
good as that of Gettysburg. I wished Harry had been there, because he
knows the story of it. You and he shall go soon after your return. It
makes you feel just as if you lived there.
Well, I will now stop. On Monday morning the 14th or Sunday night the
13th of May, I will take you into my arms; that is, I will meet you with
a carriage on the wharf, when the boat comes in. And I tell you I shall
be glad to see the whole lot of you come roaring home. Give my love to
your Mammy, to Aunt Margaret, to Fräulein, to Harry, to Margaret Mary,
and to yourself. Your loving Dad,
WM. JAMES.
_To Henry James._
CHOCHURA, N.H., _July 11, 1888_.
MY DEAR HARRY,--Your note announcing Edmund Gurney's death came
yesterday, and was a most shocking surprise. It seems one of Death's
stupidest strokes, for I know of no one whose life-task was begun on a
more far-reaching scale, or from whom one expected with greater
certainty richer fruit in the ripeness of time. I pity his lovely wife,
to whom I wrote a note yesterday; and also a brief notice for the
"Nation."[90] To me it will be a cruel loss; for he recognized me more
than anyone, and in all my thoughts of returning to England he was the
Englishman from whom I awaited the most nourishing communion. We ran
along on very similar lines of interest. He was very profound, subtle,
and voluminous, and bound for an intellectual synthesis of things much
solider and completer than anyone I know, except perhaps Royce. Well!
such is life! all these deaths make what remains here seem strangely
insignificant and ephemeral, as if the weight of things, as well as the
numbers, was all on the other side.[91]
I have to thank you for a previous letter three or four weeks old,
which, having sent to Aunt Kate, I cannot now date. I must also thank
for "Partial Portraits" and "The Reverberator." The former, I of course
knew (except the peculiarly happy Woolson one), but have read several of
'em again with keen pleasure, especially the Turguenieff. "The
Reverberator" is masterly and exquisite. I quite squealed through it,
and all the household has amazingly enjoyed it. It shows the technical
ease you have attained, that you can handle so delicate and difficult a
fancy so lightly. It is simply delicious. I hope your other magazine
things, which I am following your advice and not reading [in magazine
form], are only half as good. How you can keep up such a productivity
and live, I don't see. All your time is your own, however, barring
dinner-parties, and that makes a great difference.
Most of my time seems to disappear in college duties, not to speak of
domestic interruptions. Our summer starts promisingly. How with my lazy
temperament I managed to start all the things we put through last
summer, now makes me wonder. The place has yet a good deal to be done
with it, but it can be taken slowly, and Alice is a most _vaillante_
partner. We have a trump of a hired man.... Some day I'll send you a
photograph of the little place. Please send this to Alice, for whose
letters I'm duly grateful. I only hope she'll keep decently well for a
little while. Yours ever,
W. J.
P.S. I have just been downstairs to get an envelope, and there on the
lawn saw a part of the family which I will describe, for you to insert
in one of your novels as a picture of domestic happiness. On the newly
made lawn in the angle of the house and kitchen ell, in the shadow of
the hot afternoon sun, lies a mattress taken out of our spare-room for
an airing against Richard Hodgson's arrival tomorrow. On it the madonna
and child--the former sewing in a nice blue point dress, and smiling at
the latter (named Peggy), immensely big and fat for her years, and who,
with quite a vocabulary of adjectives, proper names, and a mouthful of
teeth, shows as yet, although in her sixteenth month, no disposition to
walk. She is rolling and prattling to herself, now on mattress and now
on grass, and is an exceedingly good-natured, happy, and intelligent
child. It conduces to her happiness to have a hard cracker in her fist,
at which she mumbles more or less all day, and of which she is never
known to let go, even taking it into her bath with her and holding it
immersed till that ceremony is o'er. A man is papering and painting one
of our parlors, a carpenter putting up a mantelpiece in another.
Margaret and Harry's tutor are off on the backs of the two horses to the
village seven miles off, to have 'em shod. I, with naught on but gray
flannel shirt, breeches, belt, stockings and shoes, shall now proceed
across the Lake in the boat and up the hill, to get and carry the mail.
Harry will probably ride along the shore on the pony which Aunt Kate has
given him, and where Billy and Fräulein are, Heaven only knows.
Returning, I shall have a bath either in lake or brook--doesn't it sound
nice? On the whole it is nice, but very hot.
_To Miss Grace Norton._
[Post-card]
[CHOCORUA,] _Aug. 12, 1888_.
It would take G[uy] de M[aupassant] himself to just fill a post-card
chock-full and yet leave naught to be desired, with an account of
"Pierre et Jean." It is a little cube of bronze; or like the body of the
Capitaine Beausire, "plein comme un oeuf, dur comme une balle"--dur
surtout! Fifteen years ago, I might have been _enthused_ by such art;
but I'm growing weak-minded, and the charm of this admirable precision
and adequacy of art to subject leaves me too cold. It is like these
modern tools and instruments, so admirably compact, and strong, and
reduced to their fighting weight. One of those little metallic pumps,
_e.g._, so oily and powerful, with a handle about two feet long, which
will throw a column of water about four inches thick 100 feet.
Unfortunately, G. de M.'s pump only throws dirty water--and I am
_beginning_ to be old fogy eno' to like even an old shackly wooden
pump-handle, if the water it fetches only carries all the sweetness of
the mountain-side. Yrs. ever,
W.J.
The dying fish on p[in]s stick most in my memory. Is that right in a
novel of human life?
_To G. Croom Robertson._
_Oct. 7, 1888._
...I am teaching ethics and the philosophy of religion for the first
time, with that dear old duffer Martineau's works as a text. It gives me
lots to do, as I only began my systematic reading in that line three
weeks ago, having wasted the summer in farming (if such it can be
called) and philosophizing. My "Psychology" will therefore have to be
postponed until another year; for with as much college work as I have
this year, I can't expect to write a line of it....
_To Henry James._
_Oct. 14, 1888._
...The Cambridge year begins with much vehemence--I with a big class in
ethics, and seven graduates from other colleges in advanced psychology,
giving me a good deal of work. But I feel uncommonly hearty, and shall
no doubt come out of it all in good shape.... I am to have lots of
reading and no writing to speak of this year and expect to enjoy it
hugely. It does one good to read classic books. For a month past I've
done nothing else, in behalf of my ethics class--Plato, Aristotle, Adam
Smith, Butler, Paley, Spinoza, etc., etc. No book is celebrated without
deserving it for some quality, and recenter books, certain never to be
celebrated, have an awfully squashy texture....
_To E. L. Godkin._
CAMBRIDGE, _Apr. 15, 1889_.
MY DEAR GODKIN,--Harry's address is 34 De Vere Gardens, W. I imagine
that he will be there till midsummer.
I hope 'tis yourself that's going! You must need it awfully. I fully
meant to call on you when I was in N. Y. a fortnight ago. But I was so
dead tired that I slept on my hotel bed all the only afternoon I had,
went to Daly's theatre in the evening and then had to come away. You are
the noblest Roman of them all; and what a man shall do for a newspaper
with sanity, intellect and backbone in it, when your editorial pen has
ceased to trickle, I don't know. There must be plenty of morals in the
world, plenty of brains, plenty of education, plenty of literary skill,
but was there ever a time or country when they seemed less to coalesce,
in the field of journalism? In the earlier years I may say that my whole
political education was due to the "Nation"; later came a time when I
thought you looked on the doings of Terence Powderly and Co. too much
from without and too little from within; now I turn to you again as my
only solace in a world where nothing stands straight. You have the most
curious way of always being _right_, so I never dare to trust myself now
when you're agin me. I read my "Nation" rather quicker than I used, but
I depend on it perhaps more than ever, and cannot forbear seizing this
passing occasion to tell you so.
I hope, once more, that you're going abroad yourself. It will do you no
end of good to _take in_ after your daily giving out for so long. Harry
will be delighted to see you. Poor Alice is stranded at Leamington,
unable to use her legs or brain to any account, but never complaining,
and living apparently on the Irish question, being a violent Parnellite.
I settle the affairs of the Universe in my College courses, and have got
so far ahead as to be building a big new house on that part of it known
as the Norton estate.[92] A new street passes before your old house, now
Grace Norton's. I am a little north of it, facing it, and squatting
right across the old Norton Avenue. Four other houses are going up
there immediately, two of 'em actually under way. No answer to this is
expected, from a man as busy as you. Please give my best respects to
Mrs. Godkin, and believe me ever affectionately yours,
WM. JAMES.
_To Henry James._
CAMBRIDGE, _May 12, 1889_.
MY DEAR HARRY,--I have been feeling so dead-tired all this spring that I
believe a long break from my usual scenes is necessary. It is like the
fagged state that drove me abroad the last two times. I have been pretty
steadily busy for six years and the result isn't wonderful, considering
what a miserable nervous system I have anyhow. The upshot of it is that
I have pretty much made up my mind to invest $1000 (if necessary) of
Aunt Kate's legacy in my constitution, and spend the summer abroad. This
will give me the long-wished opportunity of seeing you and Alice, and
enable me to go to an international congress of "physiological
psychologists" which I have had the honor of an invitation to attend in
the capacity of "honorary committee"-man for the U. S. It will be
instructive and inspiring, no doubt, and won't last long, and [will]
give me an opportunity to meet a number of eminent men. But for these
three reasons, I think I should start for the Pacific coast as being
more novel. I confess I find myself caring more for landscapes than for
men--strange to say, and doubtless shameful; so my stay in London will
probably be short.
I learn from Godkin that he is to be with you about the same time that I
shall be in London. I don't suppose you have room for both of us, but
pray don't let that trouble you. I can easily find a lodging somewhere
for a few days, which are all that I shall stay. I am heartily glad
Godkin is about to go abroad; I know of no one who so richly deserves a
vacation. My heart is warming up again to the "Nation," as it hasn't for
many years.
I long to have a good long talk with you about yourself, Alice, and
10,000 old things. Alice used to be so perturbed at _expecting_ things
that in my ignorance of her present condition I don't venture to
announce to her my arrival. But do you use your discretion as to where
and how she shall be informed. Send her this, if it is the best way.
It's a bad summer for me to be gone, with the house-building here, the
Chocorua place unfinished, and the crowds set in motion by the Paris
exhibition; and _perhaps_, if I find myself unexpectedly hearty when
lectures end two weeks hence, I may not go after all. But I can't help
feeling in my bones that I _ought_ to go, so I probably shall. It will
then be the Cephalonia, sailing June 22, and I shall get off at
Queenstown, as I am on the whole more curious to see the Emerald Isle
than any other part of Europe, except Scotland, which I probably shan't
see at all. The "Congress" in Paris begins Aug. 5.
How good it will be to see poor Alice again, and to hear you discourse!
Ever affectly, yours,
W.J.
* * * * *
In late June James did, in fact, sail on the Cephalonia and disembark at
Queenstown. Thence he proceeded _via_ Cork to Killarney and on to
Dublin, where he spent a day at Trinity College before going to Glasgow
and Oban. Having, in the briefest time and at first sight, fallen "dead
in love wi' Scotland both land and people" he traveled on _via_
Edinburgh, and reached London by the 17th of July. There he stayed with
Henry James for ten days and saw his sister. A letter from London to
Mrs. James may be included in part.
_To Mrs. James._
34 DE VERE GARDENS, LONDON,
_July 29, 1889_.
... [After seeing Mrs. Gurney I went] to Brighton, where I spent a night
at Myers's lodgings, and the evening with him and the Sidgwicks trying
thought-transference experiments which, however, on that occasion did
not succeed.... The best thing by far which I saw in Brighton, and a
thing the impression of which will perhaps outlast everything else on
this trip, was four cuttle-fish (octopus) in the Aquarium. I wish we had
one of them for a child--such flexible intensity of life in a form so
inaccessible to our sympathy. Next day to Haslemere to the Pearsall
Smiths, where I spent a really _gemüthlich_ evening and morning.
Pearsall himself as engaging as of yore. The place and country
wonderfully rich and beautiful. Returning yesterday, went with H. to
National Gallery in the afternoon, and read Brownell on France in the
P.M. Yesterday, Sunday, Harry went to the country after breakfast,
whilst I wrote a lot of notes and read Zola's "Germinal," a story of
mines and miners, and a truly magnificent work, if successfully to
reproduce the horror and pity of certain human facts and make you see
them as if real can make a book magnificent.
Towards four o'clock (the weather fine) I mounted the top of a bus and
went (with thousands of others similarly enthroned) to Hampton Court,
through Kew, Richmond, Bushey Park, etc.; about 30 miles there and back,
all for 4_s._ 6_d._ I strolled for an hour or more in the Hampton Court
Gardens, and overlooked the Thames all _bizarrée_ with row-boats and
male and female rowers, and got back, _perdu dans la foule_, at 10
P.M.--a most delightful and interesting six hours, with but the usual
drawback, that _you_ were not along. How you would have enjoyed every
bit of it, especially the glimpses, between Richmond and Hampton, over
the high brick walls and between the bars of the iron gates, of these
extraordinary English gardens and larger grounds, all black with their
tufted vegetation. More different things can grow in a square foot here,
if they're taken care of, than I've ever seen elsewhere, and one of
these high ivy-walled gardens is something the _like_ of which is
altogether unknown to us. Like all human things (except wives) they grow
banal enough, if one stays long in their company, but the first
acquaintance between Alice Gibbens and them is something which I would
fain see. The crowd was immense and the picturesqueness of everything
quite medieval, as were also the good manners and the tendency to a
certain hearty sociability, shown in the chaffing from vehicle to
vehicle along the road. I'm glad I had this sight of the greatness of
the English people, and glad I had no social duties to perform....
Harry is as nice and simple and amiable as he can be. He has covered
himself, like some marine crustacean, with all sorts of material
growths, rich sea-weeds and rigid barnacles and things, and lives hidden
in the midst of his strange heavy alien manners and customs; but these
are all but "protective resemblances," under which the same dear old,
good, innocent and at bottom very powerless-feeling Harry remains,
caring for little but his writing, and full of dutifulness and affection
for all gentle things....
* * * * *
From London James crossed to Paris, to attend the International Congress
of Physiological Psychology which had been arranged to coincide with the
International Exposition of that year. He found between 60 and 120
colleagues, most of them European, of course, in attendance at its
sessions. This incident in his life may be summarized in a few sentences
from his own report of the Congress, in "Mind": "The most striking
feature of the discussions was, perhaps, their tendency to slope off to
some one or other of those shady horizons with which the name of
"psychic-research" is now associated.... The open results were, however
(as always happens at such gatherings), secondary in real importance to
the latent ones--the friendships made, the intimacies deepened, and the
encouragement and inspiration which came to everyone from seeing before
them in flesh and blood so large a portion of that little army of fellow
students from whom and for whom all contemporary psychology exists. The
individual worker feels much less isolated in the world after such an
experience." To Stumpf he wrote similarly (Aug. 15): "The sight of 120
men all actively interested in psychology has made me feel much less
lonely in the world, and ready to finish my book this year with a great
deal more _entrain_. A book hanging so long on one's hands at last gets
outgrown, and even disgusting to one."
On his way home James went again to see his sister, and her account of
him is not to be omitted.
"William, instead of going to Switzerland, came suddenly back from Paris
and went home, having, as usual, exhausted Europe in a few weeks,
finding it stale, flat and unprofitable. The only necessity being to get
home, the first letter after his arrival, was, of course, full of plans
for his return _plus_ wife and infants; he is just like a blob of
mercury--you can't put a mental finger upon him. H. and I were laughing
over him, and recalling Father, and William's resemblance (in his ways)
to him. Tho' the results are the same, they seem to come from such a
different nature in the two; in W., an entire inability or indifference
to 'stick to a thing for the sake of sticking,' as some one said of him
once; whilst Father, the delicious infant! couldn't submit even to the
thralldom of his own whim; and then the dear being was such a prey to
the demon homesickness.... But to return to our mutton, William: he came
with H. on August 14 on his way to Liverpool. He told all about his
Paris experience, where he was a delegate to the Psychological Congress,
which was a most brilliant success. The French most polite and
hospitable. They invited W. to open the Congress, and they always had a
foreigner in the Chair at the different meetings. I extracted with great
difficulty from him that 'Monsieur Willyam James' was frequently
referred to by the speakers. He liked the Henry Sidgwicks and Fred.
Myers. Mrs. Myers paid him the following enigmatic compliment: 'We are
so glad that you are _as_ you are.'"
* * * * *
[Illustration: Francis James Child.
Caricature from a Pocket Note-Book.]
On getting back to Cambridge in the autumn, James moved his family into
a house which he had just built in Irving Street--a street which had
been newly opened through what used to be called Norton's Woods. He had
planned this house with such eager interest in all its details that he
had even designed doors and windows and had practically been his own
architect with respect to everything except structural specifications.
The result was a detached wooden house of pleasantly square outer
appearance, covered with shingles which soon weathered brown, and having
dark green trimmings. Inside there was one room which deserves
particular mention. James loved to have "space" about him[93] and he
planned a library that was the largest and sunniest room the house
could provide. It was about 22-1/2 feet wide and 27 feet long. The walls
were lined with book-shelves from floor to ceiling, except where James
hung a portrait of his father over the open fireplace. On the southern
side there was a triple window whose total width was nearly half the
length of the room, and which let in a flood of sunlight. Through it one
looked out upon a small lawn overhung by a large elm, and upon more
grass and trees beyond. This was his study and living-room for the rest
of his life. Here most of the Cambridge letters that follow may be
assumed to have been written.
* * * * *
After James moved to 95 Irving Street, several people referred to in the
letters became his very near neighbors. Josiah Royce, Francis J. Child,
C. E. Norton, Miss Theodora Sedgwick were all within three minutes walk
of his door. Miss Grace Norton lived across the way.
_To Miss Grace Norton._
CAMBRIDGE, _Dec. 25, 1889_.
DEAR MISS NORTON,--Will you accept, as a Christmas offering, the
accompanying bottles of California Champagne, _extremely_ salubrious in
its after-effects, quite as intoxicating, almost as good-tasting and
only half as "cost-playful" as French Champagne--in short, a beverage
which no household should be without.
I should gladly have sought out something more sentimental,--though
after a bottle or so, this seems rosy with sentiment,--but I have no
gifts of invention in the _present_ line, and took something useful,
merely to testify to the affection and admiration with which I am ever
yours,
WM. JAMES.
_To Charles Eliot Norton._
Undated [1889].
MY DEAR MR. NORTON,--This introduces to you Mr. X----, from South
Abington, a workman in a tack factory since boyhood, who has
nevertheless gone quite deeply into studies philosophic, mathematical
and sociological. He will tell you more about himself, and I wish if
convenient that you would "draw him out"--I should like much to hear
your impression. I want, if possible, to help him to a start in life
here. Palmer has invited him to stay with him for a week. And we are
busy studying him and trying to cast his horoscope, to feel whether we
can conscientiously recommend him to some millionaire to support in
college for a year (as unmatriculated), and so give him a chance to make
himself known and find some better avocation for himself than the making
of tacks ten hours a day. He knows nothing of our plan, thinks this a
mere spree, so please don't let it out! Very truly yours,
WM. JAMES.
* * * * *
The workman from the tack factory, like more than one other lame duck
before and after him, had aroused what Professor Palmer once aptly
called James's "inclination toward the under-dog and his insistence on
keeping the door open for every species of human experiment." It made no
difference what X----'s doctrines were, or whether or not they were akin
to James's way of thinking. And if such a man was unfitted to arouse
other people's sympathies, James's own were the more readily challenged.
The erratics of the philosophical world were significant phenomena, and
sometimes interested him most just when they were most "queer"--when
they were perhaps aberrant to the point of being pathological specimens.
It mattered as little to James where such people sprang from, or by
what strange processes they had arrived at their ideas, as it matters to
a naturalist that beetles have to be hunted for in all sorts of places.
He filled the "Varieties of Religious Experience" with the records of
abnormal cases and with accounts of the mental and emotional adventures
of people whom the everyday world called cranks and fanatics. He was not
only curious about such men, but endlessly patient and helpful to them.
To some indeed his encouragement was more comforting than profitable,
and among them must be numbered the X---- of this letter--an uncouth and
helpless creature, who has since achieved his only immortality in
another sphere of being. The poor man never got over this "spree," but
withdrew from the tack factory forever, spent many years in a Mills
Hotel working over an unsalable _magnum opus_, and every now and then
appealing for funds. A letter on a later page recurs to this case.
* * * * *
In the spring of 1890 James finished the remaining chapters of the
"Psychology." The next letters were written during the final weeks of
work on the book.
_To Henry Holt._
CAMBRIDGE, _May 9, 1890_.
MY DEAR HOLT,--I was in hopes that you would propose to break away from
the famous "Series" and publish the book independently, in two volumes.
An abridgement could then be prepared for the Series. If there be
anything which I loathe it is a mean overgrown page in small type, and I
think the author's feelings ought to go for a good deal in the case of
the enormous _rat_ which his ten years gestation has brought forth.
In any event, I dread the summer and next year, with two new courses to
teach, and, I fear, no vacation. What I wrote you, if you remember, was
to send you the "heft" of the MS. by May 1st, the rest to be done in the
intervals of proof-correcting. You however insisted on having the entire
MS. in your hands before anything should be done. It seems to me that
this delay is, _now_ at any rate, absurd. There is certainly less than
two weeks' work on the MS. undone. And every day got behind us now means
a day of travel and vacation for me next September. I really think,
considering the sort of risk I am running by the delay, that I must
_insist_ on getting to press now as soon as the page is decided on.
No one could be more disgusted than I at the sight of the book. _No_
subject is worth being treated of in 1000 pages! Had I ten years more, I
could rewrite it in 500; but as it stands it is this or nothing--a
loathsome, distended, tumefied, bloated, dropsical mass, testifying to
nothing but two facts: _1st_, that there is no such thing as a _science_
of psychology, and _2nd_, that W. J. is an incapable.
Yours provided you hurry up things,
WM. JAMES.
* * * * *
When Mrs. James took the children to Chocorua for the summer, James
remained in Cambridge to finish the book.
_To Mrs. James._
CAMBRIDGE, _May 17_, 7:50 P.M.
...Wrote hard pretty much all day, lectured on Ansel Bourne, etc., had
three students to lunch, Chubb being gone to Milton. Visit this A.M.
from Bishop Keane of the New Catholic University at Washington, to get
advice about psycho-physic laboratory. Feel very well, though I drink
coffee daily. "Psychology" will certainly be finished by Sunday noon!...
* * * * *
_Sunday, May_ [18], 9:50 P.M.
...The job is done! All but some paging and half a dozen little
footnotes, the work is completed, and as I see it as a unit, I feel as
if it might be rather a vigorous and richly colored chunk--for that kind
of thing at least!...
* * * * *
_May 22_, 5:45 P.M.
...I sot up till two last night putting the finishing touches on the
MS., which now goes to Holt in irreproachable shape, woodcuts and all. I
insured it for $1000.00 in giving it to the express people this A.M.
That will make them extra careful at a cost of $1.50. This morning a
great feeling of weariness came over me at 10 o'clock, and I was taking
down a volume of Tennyson intending to doze off in my chair, when X----
arrived....
* * * * *
_May 24._
...I came home very weary, and lit a fire, and had a delicious two hours
all by myself, thinking of the big _étape_ of my life which now lay
behind me (I mean that infernal book done), and of the possibilities
that the future yielded of reading and living and loving out from the
shadow of that interminable black cloud.... At any rate, it does give me
some comfort to think that I don't live _wholly_ in projects,
aspirations and phrases, but now and then have something done to show
for all the fuss. The joke of it is that I, who have always considered
myself a thing of glimpses, of discontinuity, of _aperçus_, with no
power of doing a big job, suddenly realize at the _end_ of this task
that it is the biggest book on psychology in any language except
Wundt's, Rosmini's and Daniel Greenleaf Thompson's! Still, if it burns
up at the printing-office, I shan't much care, for I shan't ever write
it again!!
_To Henry James._
CHOCORUA, _June 4, 1890_.
MY DEAR HARRY, ...The great event for me is the completion at last of my
tedious book. I have been at my desk with it every day since I got back
from Europe, and up at four in the morning with it for many a day of the
last month. I have written every page four or five times over, and
carried it "on my mind" for nine years past, so you may imagine the
relief. Besides, I am glad to appear at last as a man who has done
something more than make phrases and projects. I will send you a copy,
in the fall, I trust, though [the printer] is so inert about starting
the proofs that we may not get through till midwinter or later. As
"Psychologies" go, it is a good one, but psychology is in such an
ante-scientific condition that the whole present generation of them is
predestined to become unreadable old medieval lumber, as soon as the
first genuine tracks of insight are made. The sooner the better, for
me!...
_To Mrs. Henry Whitman._
CAMBRIDGE, _July 24, 1890_.
MY DEAR MRS. WHITMAN,--How good a way to begin the day, with a letter
from you, and a composition of yours to correct!
To take the latter first, I trembled a little when, after looking over
the printed document, I found you beginning so sympathetically to stroke
down Mr. Jay; but you made it all right ere the end. Since the movement
is on foot, it is time that rational people like yourself should get an
influence in it. I doubt whether the earth supports a more genuine enemy
of all that the Catholic Church _inwardly_ stands for than I
do--_écrasez l'infâme_ is the only way I can feel about it. But the
concrete Catholics, including the common priests in this country, are an
entirely different matter. Their wish to educate their own, and to do
what proselytizing they can, is natural enough; so is their wish to get
state money. "Destroying American institutions" is a widely different
matter; and instead of this vague phrase, I should like to hear one
specification laid down of an "institution" which they are now
threatening. The only way to resist them is absolute firmness and
impartiality, and continuing in the line which you point out, bless your
'art! Down with demagogism!--this document is not quite free
therefrom....
As for the style, I see in it nothing but what is admirable. A pedant
might object (near the end) to a _drop_ of (even Huguenot) blood
_beating high_; but how can I object to anything from your pen?
And now 10,000 thanks for your kind words about the proofs. The pages I
sent you are probably the most _continuously_ amusing in the
book--though occasionally there is a passing gleam elsewhere. If there
is aught of good in the style, it is the result of ceaseless toil in
rewriting. Everything comes out wrong with me at first; but when once
objectified in a crude shape, I can torture and poke and scrape and pat
it till it offends me no more. I take you at your word and send you some
more sheets--only, to get something pithy and real, I go back to some
practical remarks at the end of a chapter on Habit, composed with a view
of benefiting the _young_. May they accordingly be an inspiration to
_you_!
Most of the book is altogether unreadable from any human point of view,
as I feel only too well in my deluge of proofs. My dear wife will come
down next week (I think) to help me through. Thank you once more, and
believe me, with warm regards to your husband, Yours always,
WM. JAMES.
_To W. D. Howells._
CHOCORUA, _Aug. 20, 1890_.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--You've done it this time and no mistake! I've had a
little leisure for reading this summer, and have just read, first your
"Shadow of a Dream," and next your "Hazard of New Fortunes," and can
hardly recollect a novel that has taken hold of me like the latter. Some
compensations go with being a mature man, do they not? You couldn't
possibly have done so solid a piece of work as that ten years ago, could
you? The steady unflagging flow of it is something wonderful. Never a
weak note, the number of characters, each intensely individual, the
observation of detail, the everlasting wit and humor, and beneath all
the bass accompaniment of the human problem, the entire Americanness of
it, all make it a very great book, and one which will last when we shall
have melted into the infinite azure. Ah! my dear Howells, it's worth
something to be able to write such a book, and it is so peculiarly
_yours_ too, flavored with your idiosyncrasy. (The book is so d--d
humane!) Congratulate your wife on having brought up such a husband.
_My_ wife had been raving about it ever since it came out, but I
couldn't read it till I got the larger printed copy, and naturally
couldn't credit all she said. But it makes one love as well as admire
you, and so o'er-shadows the equally exquisite, though slighter "Shadow
of a Dream," that I have no adjectives left for that. I hope the summer
is speeding well with all of you. I have been in Cambridge six weeks and
corrected 1400 pages of proof. The year which shall have witnessed the
apparition of your "Hazard of New Fortunes," of Harry's "Tragic Muse,"
and of _my_ "Psychology" will indeed be a memorable one in American
Literature!! Believe me, with warm regards to Mrs. Howells, yours ever
affectionately,
WM. JAMES.
* * * * *
The "Principles of Psychology" appeared in the early autumn.
X
1890-1893
_The "Briefer Course" and the Laboratory--A Sabbatical Year in Europe_
THE publication of the "Principles" may be treated as making a date--at
any rate in the story of James's life. Although conceived originally as
a manual or textbook, it had gone far beyond that mere summary of a
subject which it is the rôle of most textbooks to be, and had finally
assumed the form of a philosophic survey. "It was a declaration of
independence (defining the boundary lines of a new science with
unapproachable genius.)"[94] In the scientific world it established
James's already high reputation and greatly extended his influence.
Beyond scientific circles the book's style, its colloquial directness,
its humor, and its moral depth and appeal, won it an instantaneous
popularity. Even before it appeared, the compositor at the
printing-press was reported as so enthralled by his "copy" that he was
reading the manuscript out of hours. Passages, among which the chapter
on Habit is the most widely known, "went home" with the force of
eloquent sermons. "I can't tell you what the book has _meant_ to me."
Such was the burden of countless messages that began to come in from
non-professional readers. During the course of the first winter after
its appearance, it became clear that the only obstacle to its almost
universal use in American colleges was its size. And so James spent the
summer of 1891 in making an abridgment which appeared that autumn under
the title "Briefer Course." In one form or the other, either in the
two-volume edition or the one-volume abridgment,--either in "James" or
in "Jimmy," as the two books were soon nicknamed,--James's "Psychology"
was soon in use in most of the colleges. During the thirty years that
have passed since then, the majority of the English-speaking students
who have entered the field of psychology have entered by the door which
James's pages threw wide to them.
But by this time the inclination of James's own mind was more and more
strongly toward philosophy, and the experimental laboratory was becoming
a burden to him. It is true that the laboratory with which he had thus
far done his own work would not nowadays be reckoned as at all a big
affair. But owing to advances which had been made in the science during
the previous ten years, an enlarged laboratory was a necessity for
further progress and for right teaching. It would then require more time
and attention from its director; James wished to give less time than
heretofore. "I naturally hate experimental work," he said, "and all my
circumstances conspired (during the important years of my life) to
prevent me from getting into a routine of it, so that now it is always
the duty that gets postponed. There are plenty of others, to keep my
time as fully employed as my working powers permit."[95] There appeared
to be one solution for the difficulty, and in 1892 he set about to
arrange it. He raised enough money to establish the Harvard Laboratory
on such a basis that an able experimenter could be invited to make its
direction his chief concern. He recommended the appointment of Hugo
Münsterberg to take charge for three years. He had been much impressed
by the originality and promise implied by some experimental work which
Münsterberg had already done at Freiburg, and his conviction--in respect
to all academic appointments--was that youth and originality should be
sought rather than "safety"; that the way to organize a strong
philosophical department was to get men of different schools into its
faculty, and that they should expound dissimilar rather than harmonious
points of view and doctrines.
When this appointment had been made, James saw his way clear to taking
the sabbatical year of absence from college duties to which he was
already more than entitled. For nine years he had allowed himself only
the briefest interruptions of work, and by 1892 he was in a badly
fatigued condition. He sailed for Antwerp in May, and took his family
with him. He had no more definite purpose than to escape all literary
and academic obligations and "lie fallow" in Europe for the next fifteen
months. Letters will show that he accomplished this with fair success.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, those which immediately follow were written from Cambridge.
The first of them was to a Boston neighbor and correspondent, one letter
to whom has already been given and to whom there will be a number more.
Sarah Whitman, who had lived in Baltimore before her marriage to Henry
Whitman of Boston made her a resident of that city and of Beverly, was a
person to whose charm and talents and taste it would be impossible to do
justice here. She was a lover of every art, and worked, herself, at
painting, and with more success and great distinction in stained glass.
Eager and generous of spirit, she was constantly confided in and
consulted by a small host of friends. She was, in an eminent degree, one
of those happy mortals who possess a native gift for friendship and
hospitality. At the date of the next letter she was, for a season, in
England.
_To Mrs. Henry Whitman._
CAMBRIDGE, _Oct. 15, 1890_.
MY DEAR MRS. WHITMAN,--It does me good to hear from you, and to come in
contact with the spirit with which you "chuck" yourself at life. It is
medicinal in a way which it would probably both surprise and please you
to know, and helps to make me ashamed of those pusillanimities and
self-contempts which are the bane of my temperament and against which I
have to carry on my lifelong struggle. Enough! As for you, beat Sargent,
play round Chamberlain, extract the goodness and wisdom of Bryce, absorb
the autumn colors of the land and sea, mix the crimson and the opal fire
in the glass, charm everyone you come in contact with by your humanity
and amiability; in short, _continue_, and we shall have plenty to talk
about at the next (but for that, tedious) dinner at which it may be my
blessing to be placed by your side! Also enough!
You will probably erelong be receiving the stalwart [Henry M.] Stanley
and his accomplished bride. I am reading with great delight his book.
How delicious is the fact that you can't cram individuals under cut and
dried heads of classification. Stanley is a genius all to himself, and
on the whole I like him right well, with his indescribable mixture of
the battering ram and the orator, of hardness and sentiment, egotism and
justice, domineeringness and democratic feeling, callousness to others'
insides, yet kindliness, and all his other odd contradictions. He is
probably on the whole an innocent. At any rate, it does me a lot of good
to read about his heroic adventures.
As for "detail," of which you write, it is the ever-mounting sea which
is certain to engulf one, soul and body. You have a genius to cope with
it.--But again, enough!
Naturally I "purr" like your cat at the handsome words you let fall
about the "Psychology." Go on! But remember that you can do so just as
well without reading it: I shan't know the difference. Seriously, your
determination to read that fatal book is the one flaw in an otherwise
noble nature. I wish that I had never written it.
I hope to get my wife and the rest of the family down from New Hampshire
this week, though it does seem a sin to abandon the feast of light,
color, and purity, for the turbid town.
Good-night! Yours faithfully,
WM. JAMES.
* * * * *
James was now beginning to prepare the condensed edition of the
"Principles of Psychology," which appeared the next year as the "Briefer
Course."
Professor Howison, who was informed of the project, had uttered a
protest against the irreverent irony with which James treated the
Hegelian dialectics in the "Principles,"[96] and had expressed a hope
that such passages would be omitted from the Briefer Course.
_To G. H. Howison._
CAMBRIDGE, _Jan. 20, 1891_.
MY POOR DEAR DARLING HOWISON,--Your letter is received and wrings my
heart with its friendliness and animosity combined. But don't think me
more frivolous than I am. "Those bagatelle diatribes about Hegelism,"
etc., are not reprinted in this book, not a single syllable of them! I
make some jokes about Caird on a certain page, but Caird already
forgives me, and writes that I am sophisticated by Hegel myself. If you
carefully ponder the _note_ on that same page or the next one (Volume I,
page 370), you will see the real inwardness of my whole feeling about
the matter. I am not as low as I seem, and some day (D. v.) may get out
another and a more "metaphysical" book, which will steal all your
Hegelian thunder except the dialectical method, and show me to be a true
child of the gospel. Heartily and everlastingly yours,
WM. JAMES.
_To F. W. H. Myers._
NEWPORT, R.I., _Jan. 30, 1891_.
MY DEAR MYERS,--Your letter of the 12th came duly, but not till now have
I had leisure to write you a line of reply. Verily you are the stuff of
which world-changers are made! What a despot for Psychical Research! I
always feel guilty in your presence, and am, on the whole, glad that the
broad blue ocean rolls between us for most of the days of the year;
although I should be glad to have it intermit occasionally, on days when
I feel particularly larky and indifferent, when I might meet you without
being bowed down with shame.
To speak seriously, however, I agree in what you say, that the position
I am now in (Professorship, book published and all) does give me a very
good pedestal for carrying on psychical research effectively, or rather
for disseminating its results effectively. I find however that
_narratives_ are a weariness, and I must confess that the reading of
narratives for which I have no personal responsibility is almost
intolerable to me. Those that come to me at first-hand, incidentally to
the Census, I get interested in. Others much less so; and I imagine my
case is a very common case. One page of experimental thought-transference
work will "carry" more than a hundred of "Phantasms of the Living." I
shall stick to my share of the latter, however; and expect in the summer
recess to work up the results already gained in an article[97] for
"Scribner's Magazine," which will be the basis for more publicity and
advertising and bring in another bundle of Schedules to report on at the
Congress. Of course I wholly agree with you in regard to the _ultimate_
future of the business, and fame will be the portion of him who may
succeed in naturalizing it as a branch of legitimate science. I think it
quite on the cards that you, with your singular tenacity of purpose, and
wide look at all the intellectual relations of the thing, may live to be
the ultra-Darwin yourself. Only the facts are _so_ discontinuous so far
that possibly all our generation can do may be to get 'em called facts.
I'm a bad fellow to investigate on account of my bad memory for
anecdotes and other disjointed details. Teaching of students will have
to fill most of my time, I foresee; but of course my weather eye will
remain open upon the occult world.
Our "Branch," you see, has tided over its difficulties temporarily; and
by raising its fee will enter upon the new year with a certain momentum.
You'll have to bleed, though, ere the end, devoted creatures that you
are, over there!
I thank you most heartily for your kind words about my book, and am
touched by your faithful eye to the errata. The volumes were run through
the press in less than seven weeks, and the proof-reading suffered. My
friend G. Stanley Hall, leader of American Psychology, has written that
the book is the most complete piece of self-evisceration since Marie
Bashkirtseff's diary. Don't you think that's rather unkind? But in this
age of nerves all philosophizing is really something of that sort. I
finished yesterday the writing of an address on Ethics which I have to
give at Yale College; and, on the way hither in the cars, I read the
last half of Rudyard Kipling's "The Light that Failed"--finding the
latter indecently true to nature, but recognizing after all that my
ethics and his novel were the same sort of thing. All literary men are
sacrifices. "Les festins humains qu'ils servent à leurs fêtes
ressemblent la plupart à ceux des pélicans," etc., etc. Enough!...
_To W. D. Howells._
CAMBRIDGE, _Apr. 12, 1891_.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--You made me what seemed at the time a most reckless
invitation at the Childs' one day--you probably remember it. It seemed
to me improper then to take it up. But it has lain rankling in my mind
ever since; and now, as the spring weather makes a young man's fancy
lightly turn away from the metaphysical husks on which he has fed
exclusively all winter to some more human reading, I say to myself, Why
shouldn't I have copies, from the Author himself, of "Silas Lapham" and
of the "Minister's Charge"--which by this time are almost the only
things of yours which I have never possessed? Take this as thou wilt!...
_To W. D. Howells._
CAMBRIDGE, _June 12, 1891_.
MY DEAR HOWELLS,--You are a sublime and immortal genius! I have just
read "Silas Lapham" and "Lemuel Barker"--strange that I should not have
read them before, after hearing my wife rave about them so--and of all
the perfect works of fiction they are the perfectest. The truth, in
gross and in detail; the concreteness and solidity; the geniality,
humanity, and unflagging humor; the steady way in which it keeps up
without a dead paragraph; and especially the fidelity with which you
stick to the ways of human nature, with the ideal and the un-ideal
inseparably beaten up together so that you never give them "clear"--all
make them a feast of delight, which, if I mistake not, will last for all
future time, or as long as novels _can_ last. Silas is the bigger total
success because it deals with a more important story (I think you ought
to have made young Corey _angrier_ about Irene's mistake and its
consequences); but the _work_ on the much obstructed Lemuel surely was
never surpassed. I hope his later life was happy!
Altogether _you_ ought to be happy--you can fold your arms and write no
more if you like. I've just got your "Criticism and Fiction," which
shall speedily be read. And whilst in the midst of this note have
received from the postman your clipping from Kate Field's "Washington,"
the author of which I can't divine, but she's a blessed creature whoever
she is. Yours ever,
WM. JAMES.
_To Mrs. Henry Whitman._
CAMBRIDGE, _June 20, 1891_.
MY DEAR MRS. WHITMAN,--You _are_ magnificent. Here comes your letter at
6 o'clock, just as I am looking wearily out of the window for a change,
and makes me feel like an aspiring youth again. But I can't go to
Beverly tomorrow, nor indeed leave my room, I fear; for I've had every
kind of _-itis_ that can afflict one's upper breathing channels, and
although convalescent, am as weak as a blade of grass, and feel as
antique as Methusalem. A fortnight hence I shall be like a young
puppy-dog again, however, and shall turn up inevitably between two
trains more than once ere the summer is over.
I've managed to get through Volume I of Scott's Journal in the last two
days. The dear old boy! But who would not be "dear" who could have such
a mass of doggerel running in his head all the time, and make a hundred
thousand dollars a year just by letting his pen trickle? Bless his dear
old "unenlightened" soul all the same! The Scotch are the finest race in
the world--except the Baltimoreans[98] and Jews--and I think I enjoyed
my twenty-four hours of Edinburgh two summers ago more than any
twenty-four hours a city ever gave me.
Good-bye! I'm describing W. S.'s character when I ought to be describing
yours--but you never give me a chance. When I get that task performed,
we shall settle down to a solid basis; though probably all that will be
in "the dim future." Meanwhile my love to all the Youth and Beauty
(including your own) and best wishes for their happiness and freedom
from influenzas of every description till the end of time.
Affectionately yours,
W. J.
_To his Sister._
CHOCORUA, N.H., _July 6, 1891_.
DEAREST ALICE,--...Of course [this medical verdict on your case may
mean] as all men know, a finite length of days; and then, good-bye to
neurasthenia and neuralgia and headache, and weariness and palpitation
and disgust all at one stroke--I should think you would be reconciled to
the prospect with all its pluses and minuses! I know you've never cared
for life, and to me, now at the age of nearly fifty, life and death seem
singularly close together in all of us--and life a mere farce of
frustration in all, so far as the realization of the innermost ideals go
to which we are made respectively capable of feeling an affinity and
responding. Your frustrations are only rather more flagrant than the
rule; and you've been saved many forms of self-dissatisfaction and
misery which appertain to such a multiplication of responsible relations
to different people as I, for instance, have got into. Your fortitude,
good spirits and unsentimentality have been simply unexampled in the
midst of your physical woes; and when you're relieved from your post,
just _that_ bright note will remain behind, together with the
inscrutable and mysterious character of the doom of nervous weakness
which has chained you down for all these years. As for that, there's
more in it than has ever been told to so-called science. These
inhibitions, these split-up selves, all these new facts that are
gradually coming to light about our organization, these enlargements of
the self in trance, etc., are bringing me to turn for light in the
direction of all sorts of despised spiritualistic and unscientific
ideas. Father would find in me today a much more receptive listener--all
_that_ philosophy has got to be brought in. And what a queer
contradiction comes to the ordinary scientific argument against
immortality (based on body being mind's condition and mind going _out_
when body is gone), when one must believe (as now, in these neurotic
cases) that some infernality in the body _prevents_ really existing
parts of the mind from coming to their effective rights at all,
suppresses them, and blots them out from participation in this world's
experiences, although they are _there_ all the time. When that which is
_you_ passes out of the body, I am sure that there will be an explosion
of liberated force and life till then eclipsed and kept down. I can
hardly imagine _your_ transition without a great oscillation of both
"worlds" as they regain their new equilibrium after the change! Everyone
will feel the shock, but you yourself will be more surprised than
anybody else.
It may seem odd for me to talk to you in this cool way about your end;
but, my dear little sister, if one has things present to one's mind, and
I know they are present enough to _your_ mind, why not speak them out? I
am sure you appreciate that best. How many times I have thought, in the
past year, when my days were so full of strong and varied impression and
activities, of the long unchanging hours in bed which those days stood
for with you, and wondered how you bore the slow-paced monotony at all,
as you did! You can't tell how I've pitied you. But you _shall_ come to
your rights erelong. Meanwhile take things gently. Look for the little
good in each day as if life were to last a hundred years. Above all
things, save yourself from bodily pain, if it can be done. You've had
too much of that. Take all the morphia (or other forms of opium if that
disagrees) you want, and don't be afraid of becoming an opium-drunkard.
What was opium created for except for such times as this? Beg the good
Katharine (to whom _our_ debt can never be extinguished) to write me a
line every week, just to keep the currents flowing, and so farewell
until I write again. Your ever loving,
W. J.
* * * * *
The reader should not fail to realize, in reading the letter which
follows, that it was written, not only while Münsterberg was still a
remote young psychologist in Germany, with no claim on James's
consideration, but before there was any question of calling him to
Harvard.
_To Hugo Münsterberg._
CHOCORUA, _July 8, 1891_.
DEAR DR. MÜNSTERBERG,--I have just read Prof. G. E. Müller's review of
you in the G. G. H., and find it in many respects so brutal that I am
impelled to send you a word of "consolation," if such a thing be
possible. German polemics in general are not distinguished by
mansuetude; but there is something peculiarly hideous in the business
when an established authority like Müller, instead of administering
fatherly and kindly admonition to a youngster like yourself, shows a
malign pleasure in knocking him down and jumping up and down upon his
body. All your merits he passes by parenthetically as
_selbstverständlich_; your sins he enlarges upon with unction. Don't
mind it! Don't be angry! Turn the other cheek! Make no ill-mannered
reply!--and great will be your credit and reward! Answer by continuing
your work and making it more and more irreproachable.
I can't myself agree in some of your theories. _A priori_, your muscular
sense-theory of psychic measurements seems to me incredible in many
ways. Your general mechanical _Welt-anschauung_ is too abstract and
simple for my mind. But I find in you just what is lacking in this
critique of Müller's--a sense for the perspective and proportion of
things (so that, for instance, you _don't_ make experiments and quote
figures to the 100th decimal, where a coarse qualitative result is all
that the question needs). Whose _theories_ in Psychology have any
_definitive_ value today? No one's! Their only use is to sharpen
farther reflexion and observation. The man who throws out most new ideas
and immediately seeks to subject them to experimental control is the
most useful psychologist, in the present state of the science. No one
has done this as yet as well as you. If you are only _flexible_ towards
your theories, and as ingenious in testing them hereafter as you have
been hitherto, I will back you to beat the whole army of your critics
before you are forty years old. Too much ambition and too much rashness
are marks of a certain type of genius in its youth. The _destiny_ of
that genius depends on its power or inability to assimilate and get good
out of such criticisms as Müller's. Get the good! forget the bad!--and
Müller will live to feel ashamed of his tone.
I was very much grieved to learn from Delabarre lately that the doctors
had found some weakness in your heart! What a wasteful thing is Nature,
to produce a fellow like you, and then play such a trick with him!
Bah!--But I prefer to think that it will be no serious impediment, if
you only go _piani piano_. You will do the better work doubtless for
doing it a little more slowly. Not long ago I was dining with some old
gentlemen, and one of them asked, "What is the best assurance a man can
have of a long and active life?" He was a doctor; and presently replied
to his own question: "To be entirely broken-down in health before one is
thirty-five!"--There is much truth in it; and though it applies more to
nervous than to other diseases, we all can take our comfort in it. _I_
was entirely broken-down before I was thirty. Yours cordially,
WM. JAMES.
Delabarre and Mackaye wrote to me of you with great admiration and
gratitude for all they have gained.
_To Henry Holt._
CHOCORUA, N.H., _July 24, 1891_.
MY DEAR HOLT,--I expect to send you within ten days the MS. of my
"Briefer Course," boiled down to possibly 400 pages. By adding some
twaddle about the senses, by leaving out all polemics and history, all
bibliography and experimental details, all metaphysical subtleties and
digressions, all quotations, all humor and pathos, all _interest_ in
short, and by blackening the tops of all the paragraphs, I think I have
produced a tome of pedagogic classic which will enrich both you and me,
if not the student's mind.
The difficulty is about when to correct the proofs. I've practically had
no vacation so far, and won't touch them during August. I can start them
September first up here. I can't rush them through in Cambridge as I did
last year; but must do them leisurely, to suit this northern mail and
its hours. I _could_ have them done by another man in Cambridge, if
there were desperate hurry; but on the whole I should prefer to do them
myself.
Write and propose something! The larger book seems to be a decided
success--especially from the literary point of view. I begin to look
down upon Mark Twain! Yours ever,
WM. JAMES.
_To Henry James._
ASHEVILLE, N.C., _Aug. 20, 1891_.
MY DEAR HARRY,--...Of poor Lowell's death you heard. I left Cambridge
the evening of the funeral, for which I had waited over, and meant to
write to you about it that very afternoon. But as it turned out, I
didn't get a moment of time.... He had never been ill in his life till
two years ago, and didn't seem to understand or realize the fact as
most people do. I doubt if he dreamed that his end was approaching until
it was close at hand. Few images in my memory are more touching than the
picture of his attitude in the last visits I paid him. He was always up
and dressed, in his library, with his velvet coat and tobacco pipes, and
ready to talk and be talked to, alluding to his illness with a sort of
apologetic and whimsical plaintiveness that had no querulousness in it,
though he coughed incessantly, and the last time I was there (the last
day of June, I think) he was strongly narcotized by opium for a sciatica
which had lately supervened. Looking back at him, what strikes one most
was his singularly boyish cheerfulness and robustness of temperament. He
was a sort of a boy to the end, and makes most others seem like
premature old men....[99]
* * * * *
Miss Grace Ashburner, next addressed, and her sister Miss Anne
Ashburner, were two old ladies, friends of James's parents, for whom he
felt an especially affectionate regard. They, and their niece Miss
Theodora Sedgwick, lived in Kirkland Street, next door to Professor
Child and near the Norton family. They had become near neighbors as well
as friends when James moved into his new house.
_To Miss Grace Ashburner._
LINVILLE, N.C., _Aug. 25, 1891_.
MY DEAR MISS GRACE,--The time has come for that letter to be written! I
have been thinking of you ever since I left home; but every
letter-writing moment so far has been taken up by the information
necessary to be imparted to my faithful spouse about my whereabouts,
expenses, health, longings for home and the children, etc.; then a
long-due letter to Harry had to be written, another to Alice, and one to
Katharine Loring; finally, one to my Cousin Elly Emmet who is about to
marry _en secondes noces_ a Scotchman, until at the last the moment is
ripe for the most ideal correspondent of all!
I have at last "struck it rich" here in North Carolina, and am in the
most peculiar, and one of the most poetic places I have ever been in.
Strange to say, it is on the premises of a land speculation and would-be
"boom." A tract of twenty-five square miles of wilderness, 3800 feet
above the sea at its lowest part, has been bought; between 30 and 40
miles of the most admirable alpine, evenly-graded, zigzagging roads
built in various directions from the centre, which is a smallish cleared
plateau; an exquisite little hotel built; nine cottages round about it;
and that is all. Not a loafer, not a fly, not a blot upon the scene! The
serpent has not yet made his appearance in this Eden, around which stand
the hills covered with primeval forest of the most beautiful
description, filled with rhododendrons, laurels, and azaleas which,
through the month of July, must make it ablaze with glory.
I went this morning on horseback with the manager of the concern, a
really charming young North Carolinian educated at our Institute of
Technology, to the top of "Grandfather Mountain" (close by, which the
Company owns) and which is only a couple of hundred feet lower than Mt.
Washington. The road, the forest, the view, the crags were as good as
such things can be. Apparently the company had just planted a couple of
hundred thousand dollars in _pure esthetics_--a most high-toned
proceeding in this degenerate age. Later, doubtless, a railroad,
stores, and general sordidness with wealth will creep in. Meanwhile let
us enjoy things! There "does be" advantages in creation as opposed to
evolution, in the railway, in the telegraph and the electric light, and
all that goes with them. This peculiar combination of virgin wilderness
with perfectly planned roads, Queen Anne cottages, and a sweet little
modern hotel, has never been realized until our day.
But what am I doing? I always held a descriptive letter in abhorrence:
sentiment is the only thing that should be allowed a place in a
correspondence between two persons of opposite genders. But to feel
sentiment is one thing, and to express it both forcibly and gracefully
is another. Had I but the pen of an F. J. Child, I might do something.
As it is, my dear, dear Miss Grace, I can only rather dumbly say how
everlastingly tender was, is and ever shall be the emotion which
accompanies my thoughts of you. Especially in these days when your
patience and good spirits add such a halo to you and to your sister too.
I am fast overtaking you in age, and it gives the deepest sort of
satisfaction to feel the process of growing together with one's old
friends as one does. "Thought is deeper than all speech," so I will say
no more. I shall hope to see you, and see you feeling well, before the
week is over. Meanwhile, with heartiest affection to your dear sister,
and to Theodora as well as to yourself, I am always, your loving,
WM. JAMES.
_To Henry James._
CAMBRIDGE, _Apr. 11, 1892_.
MY DEAR HARRY,--...I have been seething in a fever of politics about the
future of our philosophy department. Harvard must lead in psychology;
and I, having founded her laboratory, am not the man to carry on the
practical work. I have _almost_ succeeded, however, in clinching a
bargain whereby Münsterberg, the ablest experimental psychologist in
Germany, allowance made for his being only 28 years old,--he is in fact
the Rudyard Kipling of psychology,--is to come here. When he does he
will scoop out all the other universities as far as that line of work
goes. We have also had another scheme, at the various stages of which
you, Balzac or Howells ought to have been present, to work up for a
novel or the stage. There's a great comedy yet to be made out of the
University newly founded by the American millionaire. In this case the
millionaire had announced his desire to found a professorship of
psychology applied to education. The thing was to get it for Harvard,
which he mistrusted. I went at him tooth and nail, trying to persuade
him that Royce was the man. Letters, _pour-parlers_, visits (he lives in
N. Y.), finally a two-days' visit at this house, and a dinner for him.
He is a real Balzackian figure--a regular porker, coarse, vulgar, vain,
cunning, mendacious, etc., etc. The worst of it is that he will probably
give us nothing,--having got all the attention and flattery from us at
which he aimed,--so that we have our labor for our pains, and the gods
laugh as they say "served them right."
I have long been meaning to write of my intense enjoyment of Du
Maurier's "Peter Ibbetson," which I verily believe will be one of the
classics of the English tongue. The _beauty_ of it goes beyond
everything--and the light and happy touch--the rapid style! Please tell
him if you see him that we are all on our knees. Your last book fell
into Margaret Gibbens's hands, and I have barely seen it. I shan't have
time to read it till the voyage....
_To Miss Mary Tappan._
CAMBRIDGE, _April 29, 1892_.
MY DEAR MARY,--Your kind letter about poor Alice came today, and makes
me do what I have long been on the _point_ of doing--write a friendly
word to you. Yes, Alice's death is a great release to her; she longed
for it; and it is in a sense a release to all of us. In spite of its
terrific frustrations her life was a triumph all the same, as I now see
it. Her particular burden was borne well. She never whimpered or
complained of her sickness, and never seemed to turn her face towards
it, but up to the very limit of her allowance attended to outer things.
When I went to London in September to bid her good-bye, she altogether
refused to waste a minute in talking about her disease, and conversed
only of the English people and Harry's play. So her soul was not
subdued! I wish that mine might ever be as little so! Poor Harry is left
rather disconsolate. He habitually stored up all sorts of things to tell
her, and now he has no ear into which to pour their like. He says her
talk was better than anyone's he knew in London. Strange to say, altho'
practically bedridden for years, her mental atmosphere, barring a little
over-vehemence, was altogether that of the _grand monde_, and the
information about both people and public affairs which she had the art
of absorbing from the air was astonishing.
We are probably all going to Europe on the 25th of May--[SS.] Friesland
[to] Antwerp. Both Alice and I need a "year off," and I hope we shall
get it. Our winter abode is yet unknown. I wish you were going to stay
and we could be near you. I wish anyhow we might meet this summer and
talk things over. It doesn't pay in this short life for good old friends
to be non-existent for each other; and how can one write letters of
friendship when letters of business fill every chink of time? I _do
hope_ we shall meet, my dear Mary. Both of us send you lots of love, and
plenty to Ellen too. Yours ever,
W.J.
* * * * *
James sailed for Antwerp with his family on May 25, and escaped not only
from college duties but from the postman and from his writing-table. He
spent the summer in the Black Forest and Switzerland before moving down
to Florence in September. It happened that a few weeks were passed in a
_pension_ at Vers-chez-les-Blanc above the Lake of Geneva, in which
Professor Theodore Flournoy of the University of Geneva, to whom the
next letter but one is addressed, was also spending his vacation with
his family. Flournoy had reviewed the "Principles" in the "Journal de
Genève," and there had already been some correspondence between the two
men. At Vers-chez-les-Blanc a real friendship sprang up quickly. It grew
deeper and closer as the years slipped by, for in temperament and mental
outlook the Swiss and the American were close kin.
_To Miss Grace Ashburner._
GRYON, SWITZERLAND, _July 13, 1892_.
MY DEAR MISS GRACE, or rather, let me say, MY DEAR GRACE,--since what
avails such long friendship and affection, if not that privilege of
familiarity? I have thought of you often and of the quiet place that
harbors you, but have been too distracted as yet to write any letters
but necessary ones on business. We have been in Europe five and a half
weeks and are only just beginning to see a ray of daylight on our path.
How could Arthur, how could Madame Lucy,[100] see us go off and not
raise a more solemn word of warning? It seems to me that the most
solemn duty _I_ can have in what remains to me of life will be to save
my inexperienced fellow beings from ignorantly taking their little ones
abroad when they go for their own refreshment. To combine novel
anxieties of the most agonizing kind about your children's education,
nocturnal and diurnal contact of the most intimate sort with their
shrieks, their quarrels, their questions, their rollings-about and
tears, in short with all their emotional, intellectual and bodily
functions, in what practically in these close quarters amounts to one
room--to combine these things (I say) with a _holiday_ for _oneself_ is
an idea worthy to emanate from a lunatic asylum. The wear and tear of a
professorship for a year is not equal to one week of this sort of thing.
But let me not complain! Since I am responsible for their being, I will
launch them worthily upon life; and if a foreign education is required,
they shall have it. Only why talk of "sabbatical" years?--there is the
hideous mockery! Alice, if she writes to you, will (after her feminine
fashion) gloze over this aspect of our existence, because she has been
more or less accustomed to it all these years and _on the whole does not
dislike it_ (!!), but I for once will speak frankly and not disguise my
sufferings. Here in this precipitous Alpine village we occupy rooms in
an empty house with a yellow-plastered front and an iron balcony above
the street. Up and down that street the cows, the goats, the natives,
and the tourists pass. The church-roof and the pastor's house are across
the way, dropped as it were twenty feet down the slope. Close beside us
are populous houses either way, and others beside _them_. Yet on that
iron balcony all the innermost mysteries of the James family are
blazoned and bruited to the entire village. _Things_ are dried there,
quarrels, screams and squeals rise incessantly to Heaven, dressing and
undressing are performed, punishments take place--recriminations,
arguments, execrations--with a publicity after which, if there _were_
reporters, we should never be able to show our faces again. And when I
think of that cool, spacious and quiet mansion lying untenanted in
Irving Street, with a place in it for everything, and everything in its
place when _we_ are there, I could almost weep for "the pity of it." But
we may get used to this as other travelers do--only Arthur and Lucy
ought to have dropped some word of warning ere we came away!
Our destiny seems relentlessly driving us towards Paris, which on the
whole I rather hate than otherwise, only the educational problem
promises a better solution there. The boys meanwhile have got started on
French lessons here, and though we must soon "move on" like a family of
wandering Jews, we shall probably leave one behind in the pastor's
family hard-by. The other boy we shall get into a family somewhere else,
and then have none but Peg and the baby to cope with. Perhaps strength
will be given us for that.
Switzerland meanwhile is an unmitigated blessing, from the mountains
down to the bread and butter and the beds. The people, the arrangements,
the earth, the air and the sky, are satisfactory to a degree hard to
imagine beforehand. There is an extraordinary absence of feminine
beauty, but great kindliness, absolute honesty, fixed tariffs and prices
for everything, etc., etc., and of course absolutely clean hotels at
prices which, though not the "dirt cheap" ones of former times, are yet
very cheap compared with the American standard. We stayed for ten days
at a _pension_ on the Lake of Lucerne which was in all respects as
beautiful and ideal as any scene on the operatic stage, yet we paid
just about what the Childs pay at Nickerson's vile and filthy hotel at
Chocorua. Of course we made the acquaintance of Cambridge people there
whose acquaintance we had not made before--I mean the family of Joseph
Henry Thayer of the Divinity School, whose daughter Miriam, with her
splendid playing and general grace and amiability, was a proof of how
much hidden wealth Cambridge contains.
But I have talked too much about ourselves and ought to talk about you.
What can I do, however, my dear Grace, except express hopes? I know that
you have had a hot summer, but I know little else. Have you borne it
well? Have you had any relief from your miserable suffering state? or
have you gone on as badly or worse than ever? Of course you can't answer
these questions, but some day Theodora will. I devoutly trust that
things have gone well and that you may even have been able to see some
friends, and in that way get a little change. Your sister, to whom pray
give the best love of both of us, is I suppose holding her own as
bravely as ever; only I should like to know the fact, and that too
Theodora will doubtless ere long acquaint us with. To that last-named
exemplary and delightful Being give also our best love; and with any
amount of it of the tenderest quality for yourself, believe me, always
your affectionate,
WM. JAMES.
Love to all the Childs, please, and all the Nortons who may be within
reach.
_To Theodore Flournoy._
PENSIONE VILLA MAGGIORE
(PALLANZA), _Sept. 19, 1892_.
MY DEAR FLOURNOY,--Your most agreeable letter--one of those which one
preserves to read in one's old age--came yesterday.... I am much
obliged to you for the paper by Sécretan, and (unless you deny me the
permission) I propose to keep it, and let you get a new one, which you
can do more easily than I. It is much too oracular and brief, but its
_pregnancy_ is a good example of what an intellect gains by growing old:
one says vast things simply. I read it stretched on the grass of Monte
Motterone, the Rigi of this region, just across the Lake, with all the
kingdoms of the earth stretched before me, and I realized how exactly a
philosophic _Weltansicht_ resembles that from the top of a mountain. You
are driven, as you ascend, into a choice of fewer and fewer paths, and
at last you end in two or three simple attitudes from each of which we
see a great part of the Universe amazingly simplified and summarized,
but nowhere the entire view at once. I entirely agree that Renouvier's
system fails to satisfy, but it seems to me the classical and consistent
expression of _one_ of the great attitudes: that of insisting on
logically intelligible formulas. If one goes beyond, one must abandon
the hope of _formulas_ altogether, which is what all pious
sentimentalists do; and with them M. Sécretan, since he fails to give
any articulate substitute for the "Criticism" he finds so
unsatisfactory. Most philosophers give formulas, and inadmissible ones,
as when Sécretan makes a _memoire sans oubli_ = _duratio tota simul_ =
eternity!
I have been reading with much interest the articles on the will by
Fouillée, in the "Revue Philosophique" for June and August. There are
admirable descriptive pages, though the final philosophy fails to
impress me much. I am in good condition now, and must try to do a little
methodical work every day in Florence, in spite of the temptations to
_flânerie_ of the sort of life.
I did hope to have spent a few days in Geneva before crossing the
mountains! But perhaps, for the holidays, you and Madame Flournoy will
cross them to see us at Florence. The Vers-chez-les-Blanc days are
something that neither she nor I will forget!
You and I are strangely contrasted as regards our professorial
responsibilities: you are becoming entangled in laboratory research and
demonstration just as I am getting emancipated. As regards
_demonstrations_, I think you will not find much difficulty in
concocting a programme of classical observations on the senses, etc.,
for students to verify; it worked much more easily at Harvard than I
supposed it would when we applied it to the whole class, and it improved
the spirit of the work very much. As regards _research_, I advise you
not to take that duty too conscientiously, if you find that ideas and
projects do not abound. As long as [a] man is working at anything, he
must give up other things at which he might be working, and the best
thing he can work at is usually the thing he does most spontaneously.
You philosophize, according to your own account, more spontaneously than
you work in the laboratory. So do I, and I always felt that the
occupation of philosophizing was with me a valid excuse for neglecting
laboratory work, since there is not time for both. Your work as a
philosopher will be more _irreplaceable_ than what results you might get
in the laboratory out of the same number of hours. Some day, I feel
sure, you will find yourself impelled to publish some of your
reflections. Until then, take notes and read, and feel that your true
destiny is on the way to its accomplishment! It seems to me that a great
thing would be to add a new course to your instruction. Au revoir, my
dear friend! My wife sends "a great deal of love" to yours, and says she
will write to her as soon as we get settled. I also send my most cordial
greetings to Madame Flournoy. Remember me also affectionately to those
charming young _demoiselles_, who will, I am afraid, incontinently
proceed to forget me. Always affectionately yours,
WM. JAMES.
_To William M. Salter._
FLORENCE, _Oct. 6, 1892_.
...So the magician Renan is no more! I don't know whether you were ever
much subject to his spell. If so, you have a fine subject for Sunday
lectures! The queer thing was that he so slowly worked his way to his
natural mental attitude of irony and persiflage, on a basis of moral and
religious material. He levitated at last to his true level of
superficiality, emancipating himself from layer after layer of the
inhibitions into which he was born, and finally using the old moral and
religious vocabulary to produce merely musical and poetic effects. That
moral and religious ideals, seriously taken, involve certain refusals
and renunciations of freedom, Renan seemed at last entirely to forget.
On the whole, his sweetness and mere literary coquetry leave a
displeasing impression, and the only way to handle him is not to take
him heavily or seriously. The worst is, he was a prig in his ideals....
_To James J. Putnam._
16 PIAZZA DELL'INDIPENDENZA,
FLORENCE, _Oct. 7, 1892_.
MY DEAR JIM,--We got your delightful letter ever so long ago, and
nothing but invincible lethargy on my part, excusing itself to
conscience by saying, "I mustn't write till I have something definitive
to announce," is responsible for this delay. The lethargy was doubtless
the healthy reversion of the nervous system to its normal equilibrium
again, so I let it work. And the conscientious sophism was not so
unreasonable after all. My brain has gradually got working in a natural
manner again, and we are definitively settled for the winter, so the
time for a line to you has come.
To begin with, your letter sounded delicious, and I like to think of you
as enjoying the neighborhood of our good little [Chocorua] lake so much,
and particularly as expressing such satisfaction in the look of our
little place. If it hasn't "style," it has at least a harmonious
domesticity of appearance. A recent letter referred to "Dr. Putnam's"
place on the hill across the lake, as if you or Charlie might have been
buying over there too. Is this so? I shall be very glad if it is so.
As for ourselves, coming abroad with a pack of children is not the same
thing in reality as it is on paper. A summer full of passive enjoyment
is one thing, a summer full of care for the present and anxious schemes
for the coming winter is another. When you come abroad, come with Marian
for the summer only and leave the children at home. Of course they have
gained perception and intelligence, and if this Florence school only
turns out well, they will have a good deal of French, and other
experiences which will be precious to them hereafter; so that on their
[account] there will be nothing to regret. But the parental organism in
sore need of recuperative vacation gets a great deal more of it per
dollar and per day if allowed to wander by itself. Enough now of this
philosophy!...
I am telling you nothing of our summer, most all of which was passed in
Switzerland. Germany is good, but Switzerland is better. _How_ good
Switzerland is, is something that can't be described in words. The
healthiness of it passes all utterance--the air, the roads, the
mountains, the customs, the institutions, the people. Not a breath of
art, poetry, esthetics, morbidness, or "suggestions"! It is all there,
solid meat and drink for the sick body and soul, ready to be turned to,
and do you infallible good when the nervous and gas-lit side of life has
had too much play. What a see-saw life is, between the elemental things
and the others! We must have both; but aspiration for aspiration, I
think that of the over-cultured and exquisite person for the insipidity
of health is the more pathetic. After the suggestiveness, decay and
over-refinement of Florence this winter, I shall be hungry enough for
the eternal elements to be had in Schweiz. I didn't do any high
climbing, for which my legs and _Schwindeligkeit_ both unfit me, but any
amount of solid moderate walking (say four to six hours a day), which
did me a lot of good. I envy the climbers, though!
Now that my brain begins to work again, I have mapped out a profitable
course of winter reading, _Naturphilosophie_ and _Kunstgeschichte_, and,
if the boys' school is only as good as it is cracked up to be, we shall
have had a good year. Alice is very well, and much refreshed in spite of
maternal cares and perplexities.... Love from both of us to both of you,
and wishes for a good winter. Love also to all your family circle,
especially Annie, and to Mrs. Wynne if she be near.
W. J.
_To Miss Grace Ashburner._
6 PIAZZA DELL INDIPENDENZA
FLORENCE, _Oct. 19, 1892_.
MY DEAR GRACE,--It is needless to say that your long and delightful
reply written by Theodora's self-effacing hand reached us duly, and that
I have "been on the point" of writing to you again ever since. That
"point" as you well know, is one to which somehow one seems long to
cleave without jumping off. But at last here goes--irrevocably! I did
not expect that in your condition you would be either so conscientious
or so energetic as to send so immediate and full a return, and I must
expressly stipulate, my dear old friend, that the sole condition upon
which I write now is that you shall not feel that I expect a single word
of answer. (Needless to say, however, how much any infringement of this
condition on your part will be _enjoyed_.)
Well! Cold and wet drove us out of Switzerland that first week in
September, though, as it turned out, we should have had a fine rest of
the month if we had stayed. We crossed the Simplon to Pallanza on Lake
Maggiore, where we stayed ten days, till the bad fare made us sick; and
then came straight to Florence by the 21st. As almost no strangers had
arrived, we had the pick of all the furnished apartments, most of which
threatened great bleakness or gloominess for the winter, with their high
ceilings, and _some_ rooms in all of them lit from court or well. Our
family seems to be of the maximum size for which apartments are made! We
found but this one into all the rooms of which the sun can come either
before- or after-noon. It is clean, and abundantly furnished with sofas
and chairs, but not a "convenience for housekeeping" of any kind
whatsoever. No oven in which to make the macaroni _au gratin_, no place
to keep more than a week's supply of charcoal, or I fear more than three
or four days' supply of wood for the fire when the cold weather comes,
as come it will with a vengeance, from all accounts. I hope our children
won't freeze!
Harry and Billy started school at last two days ago, and glad I am to
see them at it. In the immortal words of our townsman Rindge in his
monumental inscription, "every man" (and "every" boy!) "should have an
honest occupation."[101] What they need is comrades of their own age,
and competitive play and work, rather than monuments of antiquity or
landscape beauty. Animal, not vegetable or mineral life is their
element. The school is English, they'll get no more French or German
there than at Browne and Nichols's [school at home] and they'll have to
begin Italian, I'm afraid, which will be pure interruption and leave not
a rack behind after they've been home a year. Still one mustn't always
grumble about one's children, and they are getting an amount of
perception over here, and a freedom from prejudices about American
things and ways, which will certainly be of general service to their
intelligence, and be worth more to them hereafter than their year would
have been if spent in drill for the Harvard exams--even if what they
lose do amount to a whole year, which I much doubt. But I think it may
be called certain that they shan't be kept abroad a _second_ year!
For ourselves, Florence is delicious. I have a sort of organic
protestation against certain things here, the toneless air in the
streets, which feels like used-up indoor air, the "general debility"
which pervades all ways and institutions, the worn-out faces, etc., etc.
But the charming sunny manners, the old-world picturesqueness wherever
you cast your eye, and above all, the magnificent remains of art, redeem
it all, and insidiously spin a charm round one which might well end by
turning one into one of these mere northern loungers here for the rest
of one's days, recreant to all one's native instincts. The stagnancy of
the thermometer is the great thing. Day after day a changeless air,
sometimes sun and sometimes shower, but no other difference except
possibly from week to week the faintest possible progress in the
direction of cold. It must be very good for one's nerves after our
acrobatic climate. We have an excellent man-cook, the most faithful of
beings, at two and a half dollars a week. He never goes out except to
market, and understands, strange to say, the naked Latin roots without
terminations in which we hold _un_sweet discourse with him. But on Dante
and Charles Norton's _admirable_ "pony" I am getting up the lingo fast!
All this time I am saying nothing about you or your sister, or the dear
Childs, or the Nortons, or anyone. Of your own condition we have got
very scanty news indeed since your letter.... Perhaps Theodora will just
sit down and write two pages,--not a letter, if she isn't ready; but
just two pages--to give some authentic account of how the fall finds you
all, especially you. I hope the opium business and all has not given you
additional trouble, and that the pain has not made worse havoc than
before. When one thinks of your patience and good cheer, my dear, dear
Grace, through all of life, one feels grateful to the Higher Powers for
the example. Please take the heartfelt love of both of us, give some to
your dear sister and to Theodora, and believe me ever your affectionate,
WM. JAMES.
Love too, to the Nortons, old and young, and to the Childs.
_To Josiah Royce._
FLORENCE, _Dec. 18, 1892_.
BELOVED JOSIAH,--Your letter of Oct. 12, with "missent Indian mail"
stamped upon its envelope in big letters, was handed in only ten days
ago, after I had long said in my heart that you were no true friend to
leave me thus languishing so long in ignorance of all that was
befalling in Irving St. and the country round about. Its poetical
hyperboles about the way I was missed made amends for everything, so I
am not now writing to ask you for my diamonds back, or to return my
ringlet of your hair. It was a beautiful and bully letter and filled the
hearts of both of us with exceeding joy. I have heard since then from
the Gibbenses that you are made Professor--I fear at not more than
$3000. But still it is a step ahead and I congratulate you most heartily
thereupon.
What I most urgently wanted to hear from you was some estimate of
Münsterberg, and when you say, "he is an immense success," you may
imagine how I am pleased. He has his foibles, as who has not; but I have
a strong impression that that youth will be a great man. Moreover, his
naïveté and openness of nature make him very lovable. I do hope that
[his] English will go--of course there can be no question of the
students liking him, when once he gets his communications open. He has
written me exhaustive letters, and seems to be outdoing even you in the
amount of energizing which he puts forth. May God have him in his holy
keeping!
From the midst of my laziness here the news I get from Cambridge makes
it seem like a little seething Florence of the XVth Century. Having all
the time there is, to myself, I of course find I have no time for doing
any particular duties, and the consequence is that the days go by
without anything very serious accomplished. But we live well and are
comfortable by means of sheet-iron stoves which the clammy quality of
the cold rather than its intensity seems to necessitate, and Italianism
is "striking in" to all of us to various degrees of depth, shallowest of
all I fear in Peg and the baby. When _Gemüthlichkeit_ is banished from
the world, it will still survive in this dear and shabby old country;
though I suppose the same sort of thing is really to be found in the
East even more than in Italy, and that we shall seek it there when Italy
has got as tram-roaded and modernized all over as Berlin. It is a
curious smell of the past, that lingers over everything, speech and
manners as well as stone and stuffs!
I went to Padua last week to a Galileo anniversary. It was splendidly
carried out, and great fun; and they gave all of us foreigners honorary
degrees. I rather like being a doctor of the University of Padua, and
shall feel more at home than hitherto in the "Merchant of Venice." I
have written a letter to the "Nation" about it, which I commend to the
attention of your gentle partner.[102] ...
Mark Twain is here for the winter in a villa outside the town, hard at
work writing something or other. I have seen him a couple of times--a
fine, soft-fibred little fellow with the perversest twang and drawl, but
very human and good. I should think that one might grow very fond of
him, and wish he'd come and live in Cambridge.
I am just beginning to wake up from the sort of mental palsy that has
been over me for the past year, and to take a little "notice" in matters
philosophical. I am now reading Wundt's curiously long-winded "System,"
which, in spite of his intolerable sleekness and way of _soaping_
everything on to you by plausible transitions so as to make it run
continuous, has every now and then a compendiously stated truth, or
_aperçu_, which is nourishing and instructive. Come March, I will send
you proposals for my work next year, to the "Cosmology" part of which I
am just beginning to wake up. [A. W.] Benn, of the history of Greek
Philosophy, is here, a shy Irishman (I should judge) with a queer
manner, whom I have only seen a couple of times, but with whom I shall
probably later take some walks. He seems a good and well-informed
fellow, much devoted to astronomy, and I have urged your works on his
attention. He lent me the "New World" with your article in it, which I
read with admiration. Would that belief would ensue! Perhaps I shall get
straight.
I have just been "penning" a notice of Renouvier's "Principes de la
Nature" for Schurman.[103] Renouvier cannot be _true_--his world is so
much _dust_. But that conception is a _zu überwindendes Moment_, and he
has given it its most energetic expression. There is a theodicy at the
end, a speculation about this being a world fallen, which ought to
interest you much from the point of view of your own Cosmology.
Münsterberg wrote me, and I forgot to remark on it in my reply, that
Scripture wanted him to contribute to a new Yale psychology review, but
that he wished to publish in a volume. I confess it disgusts me to hear
of each of these little separate college tin-trumpets. What I should
really like would be a philosophic _monthly_ in America, which would be
all sufficing, as the "Revue Philosophique" is in France. If it were a
monthly, Münsterberg could find room for all his contributions from the
laboratory. But I don't suppose that Scripture will combine with
Schurman any more than Hall would, or for the matter of that, I don't
know whether Schurman himself would wish it....
What are you working at? Is the Goethe work started? Is music raging
round you both as of yore? How are the children? We heard last night the
new opera by Mascagni, "I Rantzau," which has made a _furore_ here and
which I enjoyed hugely. How is Santayana, and what is he up to? You
can't tell how thick the atmosphere of Cambridge seems over here?
"Surcharged with vitality," in short. Write again whenever you can spare
a fellow a half hour, and believe me, with warmest regards from both of
us to both of you, yours always,
WM. JAMES.
Pray give love to Palmer, Nichols, Santayana, Münsterberg, and all.
_To Miss Grace Norton._
FLORENCE, _Dec. 28, 1892_.
MY DEAR GRACE,--I hope that my silence has not left you to think that I
have forgotten all the ties of friendship. Far from it!--but have _you_
never felt the rapture of day after day with no letter to write, nor the
shrinking from breaking the spell by changing a limitless possibility of
future outpouring into a shabby little actual scrawl? Remote, unwritten
to and unheard from, you seem to me something ideal, off there in your
inaccessible Cambridge palazzo, bathed in the angelic American light,
occupying your mind with noble literature, pure, solitary,
incontaminate--a station from which the touch of this vulgar epistle
will instantly bring you down; for you will have been imagining your
poor correspondent in the same high and abstract fashion until what he
says breaks the charm (as infallibly it must), and with the perception
of his finiteness must also come a faint sense of discouragement as if
_you_ were finite too--for communications bring the communicants to a
common level. All of which sounds, my dear Grace, as if I were
refraining from writing to you out of my well-known habit of
"metaphysical politeness"; or trying to make you think so. But I think I
can trust you to see that all these elaborate conceits (which seem
imitated from the choice Italian manner, and which I confess have flowed
from my pen quite unpremeditatedly and somewhat to my own surprise) are
nothing but a shabby cloak under which I am trying to hide my own
palpable _laziness_--a laziness which even the higher affections can
only render a little restless and uncomfortable, but not
dispel.--However, it _is_ dispelled at last, isn't it? So let me begin.
You will have heard stray tidings of us from time to time, so I need
give you no detailed account of our peregrinations or decisions. We had
a delicious summer in Switzerland, that noble and medicinal country, and
we have now got into first-rate shape at Florence, although there is a
menace of "sociability" commencing, which may take away that wonderful
and unexampled sense of peace. I have been enjoying [myself] of late in
sitting under the lamp until midnight, secure against any possible
interruption, and reading what things I pleased. I believe that last
year in Cambridge I counted one single night in which I could sit and
read passively till bedtime; and now that the days have begun to
lengthen and that the small end of winter appears looking through the
future, I begin to count them here as something unspeakably precious
that may ne'er return.
The boys are at an English school which, though certainly very good,
gives them rather less French and German than they would have at Browne
and Nichols's. Peg is having first-rate "opportunities" in the way of
dancing, gymnastics and other accomplishments of a bodily sort. We have
a little shred of a half-starved, but very cheerful, ex-ballet dancer
who brings a poor little, humble, peering-eyed fiddler--"Maestro" she
calls him--three times a week to our big salon, and makes supple the
limbs of Peg and the two infants of Dr. Baldwin by the most wonderful
patience and diversity of exercises at five francs a lesson. When one
thinks of the sort of lessons the children at Cambridge get, and of the
sort of price they pay, it makes one feel that geography is a tremendous
frustrator of the so-called laws of demand and supply.
Alice and I lunched this noon with young Loeser, whose name you may
remember some years ago in Cambridge. He is devoted to the scientific
study of pictures, and I hope to gain some truth from him ere we leave.
He is a dear good fellow. Baron Ostensacken is also here--I forget
whether you used to know him. The same quaint, cheerful, nervous,
intelligent, rather egotistic old bachelor that he used to be, who also
runs to pictures in his old age, after the strictly entomological
method, I fancy, this time; for I doubt whether he cares near as much
for the pictures themselves as for the science of them. But you can't
keep science out of anything in these bad times. Love is dead, or at any
rate seems weak and shallow wherever science has taken possession. I am
glad that, being incapable cf anything like scholarship in any line, I
still can take some pleasure from these pictures in the way of love;
particularly glad since some years ago I thought that my care for
pictures had faded away with youth. But with better opportunities it has
revived. Loeser describes Bôcher as _basking_ in the presence of
pictures, as if it were an amusing way of taking them, whereas it is the
true way. Is Mr. Bôcher giving his lectures or talks again at your
house?
Duveneck[104] is here, but I have seen very little of him. The professor
is an oppressor to the artist, I fear; and metaphysical politeness has
kept me from pressing him too much. What an awful trade that of
professor is--paid to talk, talk, talk! I have seen artists growing
pale and sick whilst I talked to them without being able to stop. And I
loved them for not being able to love me any better. It would be an
awful universe if _everything_ could be converted into words, words,
words.
I have been so sorry to hear of the miserable condition of so many of
your family circle this summer.... Give my love to your brother Charles,
to Sally, Lily, Dick, Margaret and all the dear creatures. Also to the
other dears on both sides of the Kirkland driveway. I hope and trust
that your winter is passing cheerfully and healthily away. With warm
good wishes for a happy new year, and affectionate greetings from both
of us, believe me always yours,
WM. JAMES.
* * * * *
It will be recalled that Miss Gibbens, to whom the next letter was
addressed, was Mrs. James's sister.
_To Miss Margaret Gibbens (Mrs. L. R. Gregor)._
FLORENCE, _Jan. 3, 1893_.
BELOVED MARGARET,--A happy New Year to you all! My immediate purpose in
writing is to celebrate Alice's social greatness, and to do humble
penance for the obstacles I have persistently thrown in her path. By
which I mean that the dinner which we gave on Sunday night, and which
she with great equanimity got up, was a perfect success. She began,
according to her wont, after we had been in the apartment a fortnight,
to say that we must give a dinner to the Villaris, etc. If you could
have seen the manner of our ménage at that time, you would have excused
the terrible severity of the tones in which I rebuked her, and the
copious eloquence in which I described our past, present, and future
life and circumstances and expressed my doubts as to whether she ought
not to inhabit an asylum rather than an apartment. As time wore on we
got a waitress, and added dessert spoons, fruit knives, etc., etc., to
our dining-room resources; also got some silver polish, etc.; and Alice
would keep returning to the idea in a way which made _me_, I confess,
act like the madman with whose conversation at such times (dictated I
must say by the highest social responsibility) you are acquainted. At
last she invited the Lorings, I. Ostensacken and Loeser for New Year's
night; I groaning, she smiling; I hopeless and abusive, she confident
and defensive, of our resources; I doing all I could to add to her
burden and make things impossible, she explaining to Raffaello in her
inimitable Italian, drilling the handmaids, screening the direful lamp
most successfully with three Japanese umbrellas after I contended that
it was impossible to do so, procuring the only two little red petticoats
in the city to put on our two candles, making a bunch of flowers, so
small in the centre of a star of fern leaves that I bitterly laughed at
it, look exquisitely lovely--and then, with her beautiful countenance,
which always becomes transfigured in the presence of company, keeping
the conversation going till after eleven o'clock. I humbly prostrated
myself before her after it was over,--for the table really looked
sweet--no human being would have believed it beforehand,--threw the
wood-ashes on my head, and swore that she should have the Villaris, and
the King of Italy if she wished and whenever she wished, and that I
would write to you in token of my shame. It will please your mother to
hear what a successful creature she is. Her diet is still
eccentric,--flying from one extreme of abstinence to another,--and her
sleep fitful and accidental in its times and seasons. She sits up very
late at night, and slumbers publicly when afternoon visitors come in,
upright in her chair, with the lamp shining full on her beautiful
countenance from which all traces of struggle have disappeared and
[where] sleep reigns calmly victorious--at least she did this once
lately....
P.S. On reading this to Alice she says she doesn't see what call I had
to write it, and that as for my obstructing the dinner, I hadn't made it
more impossible than I always make everything. This with a sweet
ironical smile which I can't give on paper....
_To Francis Boott._
FLORENCE, _Jan. 30, 1893_.
DEAR MR. BOOTT,--Your letter of Dec. 15th was very welcome, with its
home gossip and its Florentine advice. Our winter has worn away, as you
see, with very little discomfort from cold. It is true that I have been
irritated at the immovable condition of my bed-room thermometer which,
for five weeks, has been at 40°F., not shifting in all that time more
than one degree either way, until I longed for a change; but how much
better such steadfastness than the acrobatic performances of our
American winter-thermometer. You and other sybarites scared us so, in
the fall, about the arctic cold we should have, that I used daily to
make vows to the Creator and the Saints that, if they would only carry
us safely to the first of February, I never would ask them for another
favor as long as I lived. With the impending winter once _overcome_ I
thought life would be one long vista of relief thenceforth. But
practically there has been nothing _to_ overcome. I am glad, however,
that now that January disappears, we may have some warm days, coming
more and more frequently. The spring must be really delicious. We are
keeping as shy of "Society" as we can, but still we see a good many
people, and the interruptions to study (from that, and the domestic
causes which abound in our narrow quarters--narrow in winter-time, broad
enough when fires go out) are very great.
Duveneck[105] spent a most delightful evening here a while ago, and left
a big portfolio of photos of Böcklin's pictures and a big bunch of
cigars for me two days later. I wish I didn't always feel like a
_phrase-monger_ with honest artists like him. However there are some
fellows who seem phrase-mongers to me, X----, _e.g._, so it's
"square."... We have a cook, Raffaello, the most modest and faithful of
his sex. Our manner of communication with him is _awful_; but he
finishes all our sentences for us, and, strange to say, just as we would
have finished them if we could. Alice swears we must bring him home to
America. Should you think it safe? He seems to have no friends or
diversions here, and no love except for his saucepans. But I dread the
responsibility of being foster-father to him in our cold and uncongenial
land. It would be different if I spoke his lingo.--What do _you_ think?
And _what_ a pretty lingo it is! Italian and German seem to me _the_
languages. The mongrels French and English might drop out!
Apropos to English, I return your slip [about the teaching of English?]
"as per request," having been amused at the manifestation of the ruling
passion in you. I don't care how incorrect language may be if it only
has fitness of epithet, energy and clearness. But I do pity the poor
English Department. I see they are talking in England of more study of
their own tongue in the schools being required.... Mark Twain dined with
us last night, in company with the good Villari and the charming Mrs.
Villari; but there was no chance then to ask him to sing Nora McCarty.
He's a dear man, and there'll be a chance yet. He is in a delightful
villa at Settignano, and says he has written more in the past four
months than he could have done in two years at Hartford. Well! good-bye,
dear old friend. Yours ever,
WM. JAMES.
_To Henry James._
FLORENCE, _Mar. 17, 1893_.
...I don't wonder that it seems strange to you that we should be leaving
here just in the glory of the year. _Your_ view of Italy is that of the
tourist; and that is really the only way to _enjoy_ any place. Ours is
that of the resident in whom the sweet decay breathed in for six months
has produced a sort of physiological craving for a change to robuster
air. One ends by craving one's own more permanent attitude, and a
country whose language I can speak and where I can settle into my own
necessary work (which has been awfully prevented here of late), without
a guilty sense that I am neglecting the claims of pictures and
monuments, is the better environment now. In short, Italy has well
served its purpose by us and we shall be eternally grateful. But we have
no farther use for it, and the spring is also beautiful in lands that
will [be] fresher to our senses. There are moments when the Florentine
debility becomes really hateful to one, and I don't see how the Lorings
and others can come and make their home with it. You have done the best
thing, in putting yourself in the strongest _milieu_ to be found on
earth. But Italy is incomparable as a refreshing refuge, and I am sorry
that you are likely to lose it this year....
_To François Pillon._
[Post-card]
LONDON, _June 17, 1893_.
You can hardly imagine how strong my disappointment was in losing you in
Paris--when we might have found you by going to Alcan's on Monday, or by
writing you before we came. It seems now sheer folly! But I didn't think
of the possibility of your being gone so early in the summer. Our three
young children are all in Switzerland, the older boy in Munich, and my
wife and I are like middle-aged omnibus-horses let loose in a pasture.
The first time we have had a holiday together for 15 years. I feel like
a barrel without hoops! We shall be here in England for a month at
least. After that everything is uncertain. I _may_ not even pass through
Paris again.
W. J.
_To Shadworth H. Hodgson._
LONDON, _June 23, 1893_.
MY DEAR HODGSON,--I am more different kinds of an ass, or rather I am
(without ceasing to be different kinds) the same kind more often than
any other living man! This morning I knocked at your door, inwardly
exultant with the certainty that I should find you, and learned that you
had left for Saltburn just one hour ago! A week ago yesterday the same
thing happened to me at Pillon's in Paris, and because of the same
reason, my having announced my presence a day too late.
My wife and I have been here six days. As it was her first visit to
England and she had a lot of clothes to get, having worn out her
American supply in the past year, we thought we had better remain
_incog._ for a week, drinking in London irresponsibly, and letting the
dressmakers have their will with her time. I early asked at your door
whether you were in town and visible, and received a reassuring reply,
so I felt quite safe and devoted myself to showing my wife the sights,
and enjoying her naïf wonder as she drank in Britain's greatness. Four
nights ago at 9:30 P.M. I pointed out to her (as possibly the climax of
greatness) your library windows with one of them open and bright with
the inner light. She said, "Let's ring and see him." My heart palpitated
to do so, but it was late and a hot night, and I was afraid you might be
in tropical costume, safe for the night, and my hesitation lost us. We
came home. It is too, too bad! I wanted much to see you, for though, my
dear Hodgson, our correspondence has languished of late (the effect of
encroaching eld), my sentiments to you-ward (as the apostle would say)
are as lively as ever, and I recognize in you always the friend as well
as the master. Are you likely to come back to London at all? Our plans
didn't exactly lie through Yorkshire, but they are vague and may
possibly be changed. But what I wanted my wife to see was S. H. H. in
his own golden-hued library with the rumor of the cab-stand filling the
air.... But write, you noble old philosopher and dear young man, to
yours always,
WM. JAMES.
_To Dickinson S. Miller._
LONDON, _July 8, 1893_.
DARLING MILLER,--I must still for a while call you darling, in spite of
your Toryism, ecclesiasticism, determinism, and general diabolism, which
will probably result in your ruthlessly destroying me both as a man and
as a philosopher some day. But sufficient unto that day will be its
evil, so let me take advantage of the hours before "black-manhood comes"
and still fondle you for a while upon my knee. And both you and Angell,
being now colleagues and not students, had better stop Mistering or
Professoring me, or I shall retaliate by beginning to "Mr." and "Prof."
you....
What you say of Erdmann, Uphues and the atmosphere of German academic
life generally, is exceedingly interesting. If we can only keep our own
humaner tone in spite of the growing complication of interests! I think
we shall in great measure, for there is nothing here in English academic
circles that corresponds to the German savagery. I do hope we may meet
in Switzerland shortly, and you can then tell me what Erdmann's
greatness consists in....
I have done hardly any reading since the beginning of March. My genius
for being frustrated and interrupted, and our unsettled mode of life
have played too well into each other's hands. The consequence is that I
rather long for settlement, and the resumption of the harness. If I only
had working strength not to require these abominably costly vacations!
Make the most of these days, my dear Miller. They will never exactly
return, and will be looked back to by you hereafter as quite ideal. I am
glad you have assimilated the German opportunities so well. Both Hodder
and Angell have spoken with admiration of the methodical way in which
you have forged ahead. It is a pity you have not had a chance at
England, with which land you seem to have so many inward affinities. If
you are to come here let me know, and I can give you introductions.
Hodgson is in Yorkshire and I've missed him. Myers sails for the Chicago
Psychic Congress, Aug. 2nd. Sidgwick may still be had, perhaps, and
Bryce, who will give you an order to the Strangers' Gallery. The House
of Commons, cradle of all free institutions, is really a wonderful and
moving sight, and at bottom here the people are more good-natured on
the Irish question than one would think to listen to their strong words.
The cheery, active English temperament beats the world, I believe, the
Deutschers included. But so cartilaginous and unsentimental as to the
_Gemüth_! The girls like boys and the men like horses!
I shall be greatly interested in your article. As for Uphues, I am duly
uplifted that such a man should read me, and am ashamed to say that
amongst my pile of sins is that of having carried about two of his books
with me for three or four years past, always meaning to read, and never
actually reading them. I only laid them out again yesterday to take back
to Switzerland with me. Such things make me despair. Paulsen's
_Einleitung_ is the greatest treat I have enjoyed of late. His synthesis
is to my mind almost lamentably unsatisfactory, but the book makes a
station, an _étape_, in the expression of things. Good-bye--my wife
comes in, ready to go out to lunch, and thereafter to Haslemere for the
night. She sends love, and so do I. Address us when you get to
Switzerland to M. Cérésole, as above, "la Chiesaz sur Vevey (Vaud), and
believe me ever yours,
WM. JAMES.
_To Henry James._
THE SALTERS' HILL-TOP
[near CHOCORUA], _Sept. 22, 1893_.
...I am up here for a few days with Billy, to close our house for the
winter, and get a sniff of the place. The Salters have a noble hill with
such an outlook! and a very decent little house and barn. But oh! the
difference from Switzerland, the thin grass and ragged waysides, the
poverty-stricken land, and sad American sunlight over all--sad because
so empty. There is a strange thinness and femininity hovering over all
America, so different from the stoutness and masculinity of land and air
and everything in Switzerland and England, that the coming back makes
one feel strangely sad and hardens one in the resolution never to go
away again unless one can go to end one's days. Such a divided soul is
very bad. To you, who now have real practical relations and a place in
the old world, I should think there was no necessity of ever coming back
again. But Europe has been made what it is by men staying in their homes
and fighting stubbornly generation after generation for all the beauty,
comfort and order that they have got--we must abide and do the
same.[106] As England struck me newly and differently last time, so
America now--force and directness in the people, but a terrible
grimness, more ugliness than I ever realized in things, and a greater
weakness in nature's beauty, such as it is. One must pitch one's whole
sensibility first in a different key--then gradually the quantum of
personal happiness of which one is susceptible fills the cup--but the
moment of change of key is lonesome....
We had the great Helmholtz and his wife with us one afternoon, gave them
tea and invited some people to meet them; she, a charming woman of the
world, brought up by her aunt, Madame Mohl, in Paris; he the most
monumental example of benign calm and speechlessness that I ever saw. He
is growing old, and somewhat weary, I think, and makes no effort beyond
that of smiling and inclining his head to remarks that are made. At
least he made no response to remarks of mine; but Royce, Charles Norton,
John Fiske, and Dr. Walcott, who surrounded him at a little table where
he sat with tea and beer, said that he spoke. Such power of calm is a
great possession.
I have been twice to Mrs. Whitman's, once to a lunch and reception to
the Bourgets a fortnight ago. Mrs. G----, it would seem, has kept them
like caged birds (probably because they wanted it so); Mrs. B. was
charming and easy, he ill at ease, refusing to try English unless
compelled, and turning to _me_ at the table as a drowning man to a
"hencoop," as if there were safety in the presence of anyone connected
with you. I could do nothing towards inviting them, in the existent
state of our ménage; but when, later, they come back for a month in
Boston, I shall be glad to bring them into the house for a few days. I
feel quite a fellow feeling for him; he seems a very human creature, and
it was a real pleasure to me to see a Frenchman of B.'s celebrity _look_
as ill at ease as I myself have often _felt_ in fashionable society.
They are, I believe, in Canada, and have only too much society.
I shan't go to Chicago, for economy's sake--besides I _must_ get to
work. But _everyone_ says one ought to sell all one has and mortgage
one's soul to go there; it is esteemed such a revelation of beauty.
People cast away all sin and baseness, burst into tears and grow
religious, etc., under the influence!! _Some_ people evidently....
The people about home are very pleasant to meet.... Yours ever
affectionately,
WM. JAMES.
END OF VOLUME I
MCGRATH-SHERRILL PRESS
GRAPHIC ARTS BLDG.
BOSTON
* * * * *
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
He tried to make up for the deficiences=>He tried to make up for the
deficiencies
"little genuises"=>"little geniuses"
I am desirious of reading=>I am desirous of reading
Et peut-on savoir jusqu'ou=>Et peut-on savoir jusqu'où
Dés que ma santé=>Dès que ma santé
Journal of Speculative Philsophy=>Journal of Speculative Philosophy
end was apporaching until it was close at hand=>end was approaching
until it was close at hand
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Literary Remains of Henry James_, p. 151.
[2] Henry James (in _A Small Boy and Others_, p. 5) says of Catherine
Barber; "She represented for us in our generation the only English
blood--that of both her own parents--flowing in our veins." She may well
have seemed to her grandson to be of a different type from other members
of the family, who were more recently, and doubtless obviously, Irish or
Scotch; but the statement is incorrect. John Barber was the son of
Patrick Barber, who came from Longford County, Ireland, about 1750 and
settled at Neelytown near Newburgh (after having lived in New York City
and Princeton) about 1764, and of Jannet Rhea (or Rea) whose parents
were well-to-do people in old Shawangunk in 1790. Whatever may have been
the previous history of the Rhea family, their name does not suggest an
English origin. Both Patrick Barber and Matthew Rhea were pillars of
Goodwill Presbyterian Church in Montgomery.
[3] See _Literary Remains_, p. 149.
[4] If the reader were familiar, as he cannot be presumed to have been,
with the elder Henry James or his writings, he would be in no danger of
finding anything cold or qualifying in these words, but would discern a
true adoration expressing itself in a way that was peculiarly
characteristic of their writer. For Henry James, Senior, a spiritual
democracy deeper than that of our political jargon was not a mere
conception: it was an unquestioned reality. The outer wrappings in which
people swathed their souls excited him to anger and ridicule more often
than praise; but when men or women seemed to him beautiful or adorable
he thought it was because they betrayed more naturally than others the
inward possession of that humble "social" spirit which he wanted to
think of as truly a common possession--God's equal gift to each and all.
To say of his mother that _that_ could be felt in her, that she was
_merely_ that, was his purest praise. The reader may find this habit of
his thought expressing itself anew in William James by turning to a
letter on page 210 below. That letter might have been written by Henry
James, Senior.
[5] The places of two of the eleven who died early were taken by their
orphaned children.
[6] According to the Rev. Hugh Walsh of Newburgh, who has worked out the
Walsh genealogy. _A Small Boy and Others_ (page 6) says "Killyleagh."
[7] _A Small Boy and Others_, p. 8.
[8] _Literary Remains of Henry James_, Introduction, p. 9.
[9] See, further, _Notes of a Son and Brother_, pp. 181 _et seq._
[10] _Society of the Redeemed Form of Man_, quoted in the Introduction
to _Literary Remains_, p. 57, _et seq._
[11] Letter to Shadworth H. Hodgson, p. 241 _infra_.
[12] _A Small Boy and Others_, p. 216.
[13] _Vide_ also a passage in the _Literary Remains_, at p. 104.
[14] _Life of E. L. Godkin_, vol. II, p. 218. New York, 1907.
[15] _Early Years of the Saturday Club_; E. W. Emerson's chapter on
Henry James, Senior, p. 328. There follows a delightful account of a
"Conversation" at R. W. Emerson's house in Concord, at which Henry
James, Senior, upset a prepared discourse of Alcott's and launched
himself into an attack on "Morality." Whereupon Miss Mary Moody Emerson,
"eighty-four years old and dressed underneath without doubt, in her
shroud," seized him by the shoulders and shook him and rebuked him. "Mr.
James beamed with delight and spoke with most chivalrous courtesy to
this Deborah bending over him."
[16] Some passages in William James's early letters to his family might
seem labored. They should be read with this in mind. An especially
high-sounding phrase or a flight into a grand style was understood as a
signal meaning "fun," and such passages are never to be taken as
serious.
[17] _A Small Boy and Others_, p. 207.
[18] "I have fully decided to try being a painter. I shall know in a
year or two whether I am made to be one. If not, it will be easy to
retreat. There's nothing in the world so despicable as a bad artist."
(1860.)
[19] For James's use of Touchstone's question, see p. 190 _infra_.
[20] _Cf._ Henry James's _Life of W. W. Story_, vol. II, p. 204, where
there is a passage which sounds reminiscent of the author's father and
brother.
[21] The following entries occur among some "notes on his students"
which President Eliot made at the time--
"First term, '61-'62, James, W., entered this term, passed examination
on qualitative analysis well."
"Second term, '61-'62, James, W., studied quantitative analysis.
Irregular in attendance at laboratory, passed examination on Fownes's
Organic Chemistry, mark 85."
"First term, '62-'63, James, W., studied quantitative analysis and was
tolerably punctual at recitations till Thanksgiving, when he began an
investigation of the effects of different bread-raising materials on the
urine. He worked steadily on this until the end of the term, mastering
the processes, and studying the effect of yeast on bicarbonate of sodium
and bitartrate of potash." The investigation referred to consisted of
experiments of which he himself was the subject.
There is no record for the second term of 1862-63.
President Eliot has generously supplied the Editor with a memorandum on
William James's connection with the College, from which these, and
several statements below, have been drawn.
[22] The expression was undoubtedly recognized in Kay Street as borrowed
from the Lincolnshire boor, in Fitzjames Stephen's Essay on
Spirit-Rapping, who ended his life with the words, "What with faith, and
what with the earth a-turning round the sun, and what with the railroads
a-fuzzing and a-whizzing, I'm clean stonied, muddled and beat."
[23] A diary of Mr. T. S. Perry's has fixed the date of this visit as
Oct. 31-Nov. 4.
[24] W. J. could make much better drawings than the ones which he
enclosed in this letter.
[25] A horse.
[26] N. S. Shaler, _Autobiography_, pp. 105 _ff._
[27] _Harvard Advocate_, Oct. 1, 1874.
[28] The "great anthropomorphological collection" consisted of
photographs of authors, scientists, public characters, and also people
whose only claim upon his attention was that their physiognomies were in
some way typical or striking. James never arranged the collection or
preserved it carefully, but he filled at least one album in early days,
and he almost always kept some drawer or box at hand and dropped into it
portraits cut from magazines or obtained in other ways. He seemed to
crave a visual image of everybody who interested him at all.
[29]
All theory is gray, dear friend,
But the golden tree of life is green.
[30] See _Memories and Studies_, pp. 6, 8, and 9; and the address on
Agassiz, _passim_.
[31] The case of small-pox left no scar whatever. Indeed James afterward
regarded it as having been perhaps no small-pox at all, but only
varioloid, and by October he described himself as being in better health
than ever before. During several weeks of convalescence that followed
his distressing experience in quarantine he was, however, quite
naturally, "blue and despondent."
[32] This house has since been enlarged and converted into the Colonial
Club.
[33] John A. Allen, another of the Brazilian party.
[34] Miss Dixwell became Mrs. O. W. Holmes; the other two, Mrs. E. W.
Gurney and Mrs. William E. Darwin respectively.
[35] Miss Kate Havens of Stamford, Conn., a fellow _pensionnaire_ at
Frau Spannenberg's, has kindly supplied a helpful memorandum.
[36] An accompanying drawing presented a telescopic exaggeration of
features, which are hardly appropriate to the Christian Strasse.
[37] The notice of Grimm's _Unüberwindliche Mächte_ appeared under the
title "A German-American Novel" in the _Nation_, 1867; vol. V, p. 432.
[38] The Herr Professor was later identified as W. Dilthey.
[39] I send you a thousand kisses.
[40] "When in his grotesque moods [the elder Henry James] maintained
that, to a right-minded man, a crowded Cambridge horse-car 'was the
nearest approach to Heaven upon earth.'" E. L. Godkin, _Life_, vol. II,
p. 117.
[41] An allusion to a picture in the parlor which had formerly belonged
to the Thieses.
[42] A devoted family servant.
[43] A daughter of Henry James, Senior's, English friend J. J. Garth
Wilkinson. "Wilky" James had been named after Mr. Wilkinson. See _Notes
of a Son and Brother_, p. 196.
[44] A note-book in which there are many pages of titles, under dates
between 1867 and 1872, appears to have been a record of reading; it was
not kept systematically and is incomplete. The following entries were
made between the date "June 21, '69--M.D."--the date of graduation from
the Medical School--and the end of the year 1869. It will be understood
that "R 2 M" signified the _Revue des deux Mondes_. The original entries
stand in a column, without punctuation, and occupy two and a half pages.
Amplifications are added in brackets:--
"A. Dumas, fils; Père prod[igue], 1/2 Monde; Fils naturel, Question
D'Argent. / Jung; Stilling's Leben. [5 vols. 1806]. / J. S. Mill;
Subjection of Women [1869]. / H[orace] Bushnell; Woman suffrage, etc.
[1869]. / Balzac; Le curé de Tours. / Browning; The Ring and the Book. /
Ravaison [Mollien]; Rapport s. l. Philosophie [La philosophie en France
au xixe Siècle. Paris, 1868]. / Goethe; Aus meinem Leben. / Coquerel
fils; [Perhaps Athanase Josué Coquerel, 1820-1875, author of "Libres
études" (1867)]. / Em. Burnouf; [La] Sc[ience] des Relig[ions, vi. Les
orthodoxies, comment elles se forment et déclinent] R2M. July 1, 69. /
Leblais; Matérialisme and Sp[iri]t[ua]l[i]sme. [Paris, 1865]. / Littré;
Paroles de [la] Philos[ophie] pos[itive, 1859]. / Caro; le
Mat[érialis]me and la Science [1868]. / Comte and Littré; principes de
Phil. pos. [Comte, Auguste. Cours de philosophie positive, 6 vols., 2nd
ed. with preface by Littré. Paris, 1864]. / Littré, Bridges; replies to
Mill. [Bridges, John Henry. Unity of Comte's life and doctrine; a reply
to strictures on Comte's later writings, addressed to J. S. Mill.
London, 1866]. / H. Spencer; Reasons for dissenting from Comte. /
Secrétan; Preface to Phil. de la Liberté [1848]. / Schopenhauer; das
Metaph. Bedürfniss. / H[enry] James [sen.]; Moralism and Christianity
[N.Y. 1850]. / Jouffroy; Dist. ent. Psych. and Phys. [Part of the
"Mélanges Philosophiques"?]. / Benedikt; Electrotherap[ie], first 100
pp. / Lecky; History of Morals [2 vols. 1869]. / Froude; Short Studies,
etc. (skimmed). / Duke of Argyle; Primeval Man [1869]. / Turgeneff;
Nouvelles Moscovites. / Lewes: [Biographical] Hist. of Phil.,
Prolegomena, Kant, Comte. / Geo. Sand; Constance Verrier. / Mérimée;
Lokis. R2M. 15 Sept. 69. / J. Grote; Exploratio philosophica, [1865]. /
H[enry] James [Sen.]; Lectures and Miscellanies. [1852]. / [K. J?]
Simrock. / C. Reade; Griffith Gaunt. / G. Droz; Autour d'une Source. /
O. Feuillet. / D. F. Strauss; Chr[istian] Marklin. Mannheim. 1851. / M.
Müller; Chips [from a German workshop] vol. I and vol. II partly. / Lis
[Elisa?] Maier; W. Humboldt's Leben. [1865]. / Lis Maier; Geo. Forster's
[Leben, 1856]. / Schleiermacher; Correspondenz. vol. I. / Réville;
Israelitic monotheism, R2M, 1er Sept. 69. [La religion primitive
d'Israel et le développement du monothéisme]. / Deutsch; Islam.
Quarterly Rev. Oct. '69. / Fichte; Best[immung] des Gelehrten. i and ii
Vorlesungen. / Ste.-Beuve; Art[icle on] Leopardi, [in] Port[raits]
cont[emporains] iii. / Westm[inster]: Rev[iew] Art. on Lecky. Oct. 69. /
[T. G. von] Hippel; Selbstleben. / Vita de Leopardi. / Fichte;
Bestim[mung] des Menschen. / Gwinner; Schopenhauer. /"
Thanks are due to Mr. E. F. Walbridge, Librarian of the New York Harvard
Club, for identifying a number of abbreviated titles.
[45] _Psychology_, vol. I, p. 130, note. The quotation is literal. The
subject of the foot-note in the _Psychology_ is "the author."
[46] See, for example, the use made of Touchstone's question, in the
_Nation_ in 1876 (quoted on page 190 _infra_). James was certainly
unconscious of the repetition when he wrote page 7 of _Some Problems of
Philosophy_. Consider also, a few sentences from a notice of Morley's
_Voltaire_ (_Atlantic Monthly_, 1872, vol. XXX, p. 624). "As the
opinions of average men are swayed more by examples and types than by
mere reasons, so a personality so accomplished as Mr. Morley's cannot
fail by its mere attractiveness to influence all who come within its
reach and inspire them with a certain friendliness toward the faith that
animates it. The standard example, Goethe, is ever at hand. But to be
thus widely effective, a man must not be a specialist. Mr. John Mill,
weighty and many-sided as he is by nature and culture, is yet deficient
in the æsthetic direction; and the same is true of M. Littré in France.
Their lances lack that final tipping with light that made Voltaire's so
irresistible. What Henry IV's soldiers followed was his white plume; and
that imponderable superfluity, grace, in some shape, seems one factor
without which no awakening of men's sympathies on a large scale can take
place."
[47] _William James_, by Theodore Flournoy (Geneva, 1911), p. 149 note.
[48] Grubbing among subtleties.
[49] Regardings, or contemplative views.
[50] MS. doubtful.
[51] "I made a discovery in sending in my credentials to the Dean which
gratified me. It was that, adding in conscientiously every week in which
I have had anything to do with medicine, I can't sum up more than three
years and two or three months. Three years is the minimum with which one
can go up for examination; but as I began away back in '63, I have been
considering myself as having studied about five years, and have felt
much humiliated by the greater readiness of so many younger men to
answer questions and understand cases." To Henry James, June 12, 1869.
[52] Ephraim W. Gurney and T. S. Perry.
[53] It ought perhaps to be noted, even if only to dismiss the subject
and prevent misapprehension, that at about this time a man whose
philosophic ability was great and whose thought was vigorously
materialistic was often at the house in Quincy Street. This was Chauncey
Wright. He was twelve years James's senior; a man whose best work was
done in conversation--who wrote little, and whose talents are now to be
measured chiefly by the strong impression that he made on some of his
contemporaries. "Of the two motives to which philosophic systems owe
their being, the craving for consistency or unity in thought, and the
desire for a solid outward warrant for our emotional ends, his mind was
dominated only by the former. Never in a human head was contemplation
more separated from desire." (_Vide_ James's obituary notice of Wright,
contributed to the _Nation_ for Sept. 23, 1875.) It has been suggested
that Wright influenced James's thinking. If so, his influence was not
lasting and, in the opinion of the editor, can easily be overstated.
James was not limited to any one philosophic companionship even at this
time; and if he felt Wright's influence, it is remarkable that there
should be no mention of him in any of the letters or memoranda that have
survived and that there was never any acknowledgment in James's
subsequent writings. He was ever inclined to make acknowledgment, even
to his opponents.
[54] _Cf._ the description of Henry James, Senior's, home-comings in _A
Small Boy and Others_, p. 72.
[55] The early history of experimental psychology in America once
occasioned discussion. But the discussion seems to have arisen from its
being assumed that some particular formality or event should be
recognized as marking the coming into being, or the coming of age, of a
"Department" or a "Laboratory." James has stated the facts as to the
history of the Harvard Laboratory in his own words: "I, myself,
'founded' the instruction in experimental psychology at Harvard in
1874-5, or 1876, I forget which. For a long series of years the
laboratory was in two rooms of the Scientific School building, which at
last became choked with apparatus, so that a change was necessary. I
then, in 1890, resolved on an altogether new departure, raised several
thousand dollars, fitted up Dane Hall, and introduced laboratory
exercises as a regular part of the undergraduate psychology
course."--_Vide Science_, (N. S.) vol. II, pp. 626, 735. Also, p. 301
_infra_.
[56] The name of a rocky promontory near Newport.
[57] Being and Non-Being.
[58] _Harvard Graduates' Magazine_, vol. XVIII, p. 631 (June, 1910).
[59] "The only decent thing I have ever written" appeared in _Mind_
under the title "The Sentiment of Rationality." A footnote (p. 346) ran
as follows: "This article is the first chapter of a psychological work
on the motives which lead men to philosophize. It deals with the purely
theoretic or logical impulse. Other chapters treat of practical and
emotional motives, and in the conclusion an attempt is made to use the
motives as tests of the soundness of different philosophies."
[60] "The Spatial Quale," _Journal of Speculative Philosophy_, 1879,
vol. XIII, p. 64.
[61] Bastien-Lepage's Les Foins (The Hay-Makers).
[62] _Vide_ Introduction, p. 9 _supra_.
[63] That I was intimate with their writings and did not wish to leave
Prague without exchanging a few words with them.
[64] Loquacity.
[65] Service is service.
[66] The true names of three compatriots, who may be living, are not
given.
[67] "My tour in Germany was pleasant, and from the pedagogic point of
view instructive; although its chief result was to make me more
satisfied than ever with our Harvard College methods of teaching, and to
make me feel that in America we have perhaps a more cosmopolitan post of
observation than is elsewhere to be found." To Renouvier, Dec. 18, 1882.
[68] See p. 179 _supra_, and note.
[69] See an unsigned review of Epes Sargent's "Planchette," in the
Boston _Advertiser_ of March 10, 1869. "The present attitude of society
on this whole question is as extraordinary and anomalous as it is
discreditable to the pretension of an age which prides itself on
enlightenment and the diffusion of knowledge.... The phenomena seem, in
their present state, to pertain more to the sphere of the disinterested
student of nature than to that of the ordinary layman." The review was
reprinted in _Collected Essays and Reviews_.
[70] As an example of this James once quoted Huxley: "I take no interest
in the subject. The only case of 'Spiritualism' I have had the
opportunity of examining into for myself was as gross an imposture as
ever came under my notice. But supposing the phenomena to be
genuine--they do not interest me. If anybody would endow me with the
faculty of listening to the chatter of old women and curates in the
nearest cathedral town, I should decline the privilege, having better
things to do. And if the folk in the spiritual world do not talk more
wisely and sensibly than their friends report them to do, I put them in
the same category. The only good that I can see in the demonstration of
the truth of 'Spiritualism' is to furnish an additional argument against
suicide. Better live a crossing-sweeper, than die and be made to talk
twaddle by a 'medium' hired at a guinea a séance." _Life and Letters_,
vol. I, p. 452 (New York, 1900).
James's comment should be added: "Obviously the mind of the excellent
Huxley has here but two whole-souled categories, namely, revelation or
imposture, to apperceive the case by. Sentimental reasons bar revelation
out, for the messages, he thinks, are not romantic enough for that;
fraud exists anyhow; therefore the whole thing is nothing but imposture.
The odd point is that so few of those who talk in this way realize that
they and the spiritists are using the same major premise and differing
only in the minor. The major premise is: 'Any spirit-revelation must be
romantic.' The minor of the spiritist is: 'This _is_ romantic'; that of
the Huxleyan is: 'This is dingy twaddle'--whence their opposite
conclusions!" (_Memories and Studies_, pp. 185, 186.)
[71] _The Will to Believe_, etc., p. 302.
[72] _Cf._ _The Will to Believe_, etc., p. 319.
[73] It is not the province of this book to estimate the importance of
the work done by James and the other men--Sidgwick, Myers, Gurney,
Richard Hodgson, Sir Oliver Lodge, and Richet, to go no further--who
supported and guided the S. P. R. It must be traced in the literature of
automatisms, hypnosis, divided personality, and the "subliminal." In
James's own writings the reader may be referred to the above named
chapter of _The Will to Believe_, etc., two papers included in _Memories
and Studies_, and a review of Myers's _Human Personality_ in Proc. of
the (Eng.) S. P. R., vol. XVIII, p. 22 (1903). See also p. 306 _infra_,
and note.
[74] _Mind_, 1884, vol. IX, pp. 1-26.
[75] _Unitarian Review_, Dec., 1883; vol. XX, p. 481.
[76] "The Dilemma of Determinism." _Unitarian Review_, Sept., 1884.
Republished in _The Will to Believe and Other Essays_.
[77] Professor Howison had accepted an appointment at the University of
California (Berkeley).
[78]
"Why so heartlessly deceive your sons?"
LEOPARDI, _To Sylvia_.
[79] From 15 Appian Way to 18 Garden Street.
[80] "It's amusing to see how, even upon my microscopic field, minute
events are perpetually taking place illustrative of the broadest facts
of human nature. Yesterday Nurse and I had a good laugh, but I must
allow that decidedly she 'had' me. I was thinking of something that
interested me very much, and my mind was suddenly flooded by one of
those luminous waves that sweep out of consciousness all but the living
sense, and overpower one with joy in the rich, throbbing complexity of
life, when suddenly I looked up at Nurse, who was dressing me, and saw
her primitive, rudimentary expression (so common here), as of no
inherited quarrel with her destiny of putting petticoats over my head;
the poverty and deadness of it, contrasted to the tide of speculation
that was coursing through my brain, made me exclaim, 'Oh, Nurse, don't
you wish you were inside of _me_?' Her look of dismay, and vehement
disclaimer--'Inside of you, Miss, when you have just had a sick-headache
for five days!'--gave a greater blow to my vanity than that
much-battered article has ever received. The headache had gone off in
the night and I had clean forgotten it when the little wretch confronted
me with it, at this sublime moment, when I was feeling within me the
potency of a Bismarck, and left me powerless before the immutable law
that, however great we may seem to our own consciousness, no human being
would exchange his for ours, and before the fact that _my_ glorious rôle
was to stand for _sick-headache_ to mankind! What a grotesque being I
am, to be sure, lying in this room, with the resistance of a
thistle-down, having illusory moments of throbbing with the pulse of the
race, the mystery to be solved at the next breath, and the fountain of
all happiness within me--the sense of vitality, in short, simply
proportionate to the excess of weakness. To sit by and watch these
absurdities is amusing in its way, and reminds me of how I used to
_listen_ to my 'company manners' in the days when I had 'em, and how
ridiculous they sounded.
"Ah! Those strange people who have the courage to be unhappy! _Are_ they
unhappy, by the way?" [From a diary of Alice James's.]
[81] Whose picture used to adorn the numerous advertisements of a patent
medicine called "Mrs. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound."
[82] The state of self-reproachful irritation described by
_Kater-Gefühl_ cannot be justly rendered by any English word.
[83] Outbursts.
[84] Mediatory attitude (view).
[85] "The Perception of Space." _Mind_, 1887; vol. XII, pp. 1-30,
183-211, 321-353, 516-548.
[86] _Journal of Speculative Philosophy_, 1886, vol. XX, p. 374.
[87] Epochmaking manifestation.
[88] I send her heartiest greetings.
[89] From pure.
[90] If it was printed, this notice has escaped identification.
[91] "How I shall miss that man's presence in the world!... Our problems
were the same and for the most part our solutions."
"He is a terrible loss to me. I didn't know till the news came how much
I mentally referred to him as a critic and sympathizer, or how much I
counted on seeing more of him hereafter." (From letters to G. Croom
Robertson.)
_Vide_, also, _The Will to Believe_, etc., pp. 306-7.
[92] _Vide_, pp. 290-91 _infra_.
[93] "I write every morning at one of the card tables in the parlor, all
alone in a room 120 feet long--just about the right size for one man."
(Letter from the Hotel Del Monte, Sept. 8, 1898.)
[94] J. M. Cattell. Address upon the 25th Anniversary of the American
Psychological Association, Dec. 1916. _Science_ (N.S.), vol. XLV, p.
276.
[95] To Hugo Münsterberg, Aug. 22, 1890.
[96] _E.g._, _Principles of Psychology_, vol. I, p. 369. "One is almost
tempted to believe that the pantomime state of mind and that of the
Hegelian dialectics are, emotionally considered, one and the same thing.
In the pantomime all common things are represented to happen in
impossible ways, people jump down each other's throats, houses turn
inside out, old women become young men, everything 'passes into its
opposite' with inconceivable celerity and skill; and this, so far from
producing perplexity, brings rapture to the beholder's mind. And so, in
the Hegelian logic, relations elsewhere recognized under the insipid
name of distinctions (such as that between knower and object, many and
one) must first be translated into impossibilities and contradictions,
then 'transcended' and identified by miracles, ere the proper temper is
induced for thoroughly enjoying the spectacle they show."
[97] "What Psychical Research has Accomplished," was first published in
_The Forum_, 1892, vol. XIII, p. 727.
[98] It will be recalled that Mrs. Whitman had been a Baltimorean before
she came to live in Boston.
[99] _Aug. 14._ "Lowell's funeral at mid-day.... Went to Child's to say
good-bye, and found Walcott, Howells, Cranch, etc. Poor dear old Child!
We drank a glass standing to the hope of seeing Lowell again."
[100] Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Sedgwick. Mr. Sedgwick was Miss Ashburner's
nephew.
[101] See vol. II, p. 39 _infra_.
[102] See "The Galileo Festival at Padua": _Nation_ (New York), Jan. 5,
1893; a four-column account of the Festival.
[103] _Philosophical Review_ (1893), vol. II, p. 213
[104] Mr. Frank Duveneck, painter and sculptor, now of Cincinnati.
[105] Mr. Duveneck was Mr. Boott's son-in-law. _Vide_ page 153 _supra_.
[106] Jan. 24, '94. To Carl Stumpf. "One should not be a cosmopolitan,
one's soul becomes 'disintegrated,' as Janet would say. Parts of it
remain in different places, and the whole of it is nowhere. One's native
land seems foreign. It is not wholly a good thing, and I think I suffer
from it."
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Letters of William James, Vol. 1" ***
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