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_