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.