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.