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_.