The Letters of William James Volume I Part 25

_To G. Croom Robertson._

_Oct. 7, 1888._

...I am teaching ethics and the philosophy of religion for the first time, with that dear old duffer Martineau's works as a text. It gives me lots to do, as I only began my systematic reading in that line three weeks ago, having wasted the summer in farming (if such it can be called) and philosophizing. My "Psychology" will therefore have to be postponed until another year; for with as much college work as I have this year, I can't expect to write a line of it....

_To Henry James._

_Oct. 14, 1888._

...The Cambridge year begins with much vehemence--I with a big cla.s.s in ethics, and seven graduates from other colleges in advanced psychology, giving me a good deal of work. But I feel uncommonly hearty, and shall no doubt come out of it all in good shape.... I am to have lots of reading and no writing to speak of this year and expect to enjoy it hugely. It does one good to read cla.s.sic books. For a month past I've done nothing else, in behalf of my ethics cla.s.s--Plato, Aristotle, Adam Smith, Butler, Paley, Spinoza, etc., etc. No book is celebrated without deserving it for some quality, and recenter books, certain never to be celebrated, have an awfully squashy texture....

_To E. L. G.o.dkin._

CAMBRIDGE, _Apr. 15, 1889_.

MY DEAR G.o.dKIN,--Harry's address is 34 De Vere Gardens, W. I imagine that he will be there till midsummer.

I hope 'tis yourself that's going! You must need it awfully. I fully meant to call on you when I was in N. Y. a fortnight ago. But I was so dead tired that I slept on my hotel bed all the only afternoon I had, went to Daly's theatre in the evening and then had to come away. You are the n.o.blest Roman of them all; and what a man shall do for a newspaper with sanity, intellect and backbone in it, when your editorial pen has ceased to trickle, I don't know. There must be plenty of morals in the world, plenty of brains, plenty of education, plenty of literary skill, but was there ever a time or country when they seemed less to coalesce, in the field of journalism? In the earlier years I may say that my whole political education was due to the "Nation"; later came a time when I thought you looked on the doings of Terence Powderly and Co. too much from without and too little from within; now I turn to you again as my only solace in a world where nothing stands straight. You have the most curious way of always being _right_, so I never dare to trust myself now when you're agin me. I read my "Nation" rather quicker than I used, but I depend on it perhaps more than ever, and cannot forbear seizing this pa.s.sing occasion to tell you so.

I hope, once more, that you're going abroad yourself. It will do you no end of good to _take in_ after your daily giving out for so long. Harry will be delighted to see you. Poor Alice is stranded at Leamington, unable to use her legs or brain to any account, but never complaining, and living apparently on the Irish question, being a violent Parnellite.

I settle the affairs of the Universe in my College courses, and have got so far ahead as to be building a big new house on that part of it known as the Norton estate.[92] A new street pa.s.ses before your old house, now Grace Norton's. I am a little north of it, facing it, and squatting right across the old Norton Avenue. Four other houses are going up there immediately, two of 'em actually under way. No answer to this is expected, from a man as busy as you. Please give my best respects to Mrs. G.o.dkin, and believe me ever affectionately yours,

WM. JAMES.

_To Henry James._

CAMBRIDGE, _May 12, 1889_.

MY DEAR HARRY,--I have been feeling so dead-tired all this spring that I believe a long break from my usual scenes is necessary. It is like the f.a.gged state that drove me abroad the last two times. I have been pretty steadily busy for six years and the result isn't wonderful, considering what a miserable nervous system I have anyhow. The upshot of it is that I have pretty much made up my mind to invest $1000 (if necessary) of Aunt Kate's legacy in my const.i.tution, and spend the summer abroad. This will give me the long-wished opportunity of seeing you and Alice, and enable me to go to an international congress of "physiological psychologists" which I have had the honor of an invitation to attend in the capacity of "honorary committee"-man for the U. S. It will be instructive and inspiring, no doubt, and won't last long, and [will]

give me an opportunity to meet a number of eminent men. But for these three reasons, I think I should start for the Pacific coast as being more novel. I confess I find myself caring more for landscapes than for men--strange to say, and doubtless shameful; so my stay in London will probably be short.

I learn from G.o.dkin that he is to be with you about the same time that I shall be in London. I don't suppose you have room for both of us, but pray don't let that trouble you. I can easily find a lodging somewhere for a few days, which are all that I shall stay. I am heartily glad G.o.dkin is about to go abroad; I know of no one who so richly deserves a vacation. My heart is warming up again to the "Nation," as it hasn't for many years.

I long to have a good long talk with you about yourself, Alice, and 10,000 old things. Alice used to be so perturbed at _expecting_ things that in my ignorance of her present condition I don't venture to announce to her my arrival. But do you use your discretion as to where and how she shall be informed. Send her this, if it is the best way.

It's a bad summer for me to be gone, with the house-building here, the Chocorua place unfinished, and the crowds set in motion by the Paris exhibition; and _perhaps_, if I find myself unexpectedly hearty when lectures end two weeks hence, I may not go after all. But I can't help feeling in my bones that I _ought_ to go, so I probably shall. It will then be the Cephalonia, sailing June 22, and I shall get off at Queenstown, as I am on the whole more curious to see the Emerald Isle than any other part of Europe, except Scotland, which I probably shan't see at all. The "Congress" in Paris begins Aug. 5.

How good it will be to see poor Alice again, and to hear you discourse!

Ever affectly, yours,

W.J.

In late June James did, in fact, sail on the Cephalonia and disembark at Queenstown. Thence he proceeded _via_ Cork to Killarney and on to Dublin, where he spent a day at Trinity College before going to Glasgow and Oban. Having, in the briefest time and at first sight, fallen "dead in love wi' Scotland both land and people" he traveled on _via_ Edinburgh, and reached London by the 17th of July. There he stayed with Henry James for ten days and saw his sister. A letter from London to Mrs. James may be included in part.

_To Mrs. James._

34 DE VERE GARDENS, LONDON, _July 29, 1889_.

... [After seeing Mrs. Gurney I went] to Brighton, where I spent a night at Myers's lodgings, and the evening with him and the Sidgwicks trying thought-transference experiments which, however, on that occasion did not succeed.... The best thing by far which I saw in Brighton, and a thing the impression of which will perhaps outlast everything else on this trip, was four cuttle-fish (octopus) in the Aquarium. I wish we had one of them for a child--such flexible intensity of life in a form so inaccessible to our sympathy. Next day to Haslemere to the Pearsall Smiths, where I spent a really _gemuthlich_ evening and morning.

Pearsall himself as engaging as of yore. The place and country wonderfully rich and beautiful. Returning yesterday, went with H. to National Gallery in the afternoon, and read Brownell on France in the P.M. Yesterday, Sunday, Harry went to the country after breakfast, whilst I wrote a lot of notes and read Zola's "Germinal," a story of mines and miners, and a truly magnificent work, if successfully to reproduce the horror and pity of certain human facts and make you see them as if real can make a book magnificent.

Towards four o'clock (the weather fine) I mounted the top of a bus and went (with thousands of others similarly enthroned) to Hampton Court, through Kew, Richmond, Bushey Park, etc.; about 30 miles there and back, all for 4_s._ 6_d._ I strolled for an hour or more in the Hampton Court Gardens, and overlooked the Thames all _bizarree_ with row-boats and male and female rowers, and got back, _perdu dans la foule_, at 10 P.M.--a most delightful and interesting six hours, with but the usual drawback, that _you_ were not along. How you would have enjoyed every bit of it, especially the glimpses, between Richmond and Hampton, over the high brick walls and between the bars of the iron gates, of these extraordinary English gardens and larger grounds, all black with their tufted vegetation. More different things can grow in a square foot here, if they're taken care of, than I've ever seen elsewhere, and one of these high ivy-walled gardens is something the _like_ of which is altogether unknown to us. Like all human things (except wives) they grow ba.n.a.l enough, if one stays long in their company, but the first acquaintance between Alice Gibbens and them is something which I would fain see. The crowd was immense and the picturesqueness of everything quite medieval, as were also the good manners and the tendency to a certain hearty sociability, shown in the chaffing from vehicle to vehicle along the road. I'm glad I had this sight of the greatness of the English people, and glad I had no social duties to perform....

Harry is as nice and simple and amiable as he can be. He has covered himself, like some marine crustacean, with all sorts of material growths, rich sea-weeds and rigid barnacles and things, and lives hidden in the midst of his strange heavy alien manners and customs; but these are all but "protective resemblances," under which the same dear old, good, innocent and at bottom very powerless-feeling Harry remains, caring for little but his writing, and full of dutifulness and affection for all gentle things....

From London James crossed to Paris, to attend the International Congress of Physiological Psychology which had been arranged to coincide with the International Exposition of that year. He found between 60 and 120 colleagues, most of them European, of course, in attendance at its sessions. This incident in his life may be summarized in a few sentences from his own report of the Congress, in "Mind": "The most striking feature of the discussions was, perhaps, their tendency to slope off to some one or other of those shady horizons with which the name of "psychic-research" is now a.s.sociated.... The open results were, however (as always happens at such gatherings), secondary in real importance to the latent ones--the friendships made, the intimacies deepened, and the encouragement and inspiration which came to everyone from seeing before them in flesh and blood so large a portion of that little army of fellow students from whom and for whom all contemporary psychology exists. The individual worker feels much less isolated in the world after such an experience." To Stumpf he wrote similarly (Aug. 15): "The sight of 120 men all actively interested in psychology has made me feel much less lonely in the world, and ready to finish my book this year with a great deal more _entrain_. A book hanging so long on one's hands at last gets outgrown, and even disgusting to one."

On his way home James went again to see his sister, and her account of him is not to be omitted.

"William, instead of going to Switzerland, came suddenly back from Paris and went home, having, as usual, exhausted Europe in a few weeks, finding it stale, flat and unprofitable. The only necessity being to get home, the first letter after his arrival, was, of course, full of plans for his return _plus_ wife and infants; he is just like a blob of mercury--you can't put a mental finger upon him. H. and I were laughing over him, and recalling Father, and William's resemblance (in his ways) to him. Tho' the results are the same, they seem to come from such a different nature in the two; in W., an entire inability or indifference to 'stick to a thing for the sake of sticking,' as some one said of him once; whilst Father, the delicious infant! couldn't submit even to the thralldom of his own whim; and then the dear being was such a prey to the demon homesickness.... But to return to our mutton, William: he came with H. on August 14 on his way to Liverpool. He told all about his Paris experience, where he was a delegate to the Psychological Congress, which was a most brilliant success. The French most polite and hospitable. They invited W. to open the Congress, and they always had a foreigner in the Chair at the different meetings. I extracted with great difficulty from him that 'Monsieur w.i.l.l.yam James' was frequently referred to by the speakers. He liked the Henry Sidgwicks and Fred.

Myers. Mrs. Myers paid him the following enigmatic compliment: 'We are so glad that you are _as_ you are.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Francis James Child.

Caricature from a Pocket Note-Book.]

On getting back to Cambridge in the autumn, James moved his family into a house which he had just built in Irving Street--a street which had been newly opened through what used to be called Norton's Woods. He had planned this house with such eager interest in all its details that he had even designed doors and windows and had practically been his own architect with respect to everything except structural specifications.

The result was a detached wooden house of pleasantly square outer appearance, covered with shingles which soon weathered brown, and having dark green tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs. Inside there was one room which deserves particular mention. James loved to have "s.p.a.ce" about him[93] and he planned a library that was the largest and sunniest room the house could provide. It was about 22-1/2 feet wide and 27 feet long. The walls were lined with book-shelves from floor to ceiling, except where James hung a portrait of his father over the open fireplace. On the southern side there was a triple window whose total width was nearly half the length of the room, and which let in a flood of sunlight. Through it one looked out upon a small lawn overhung by a large elm, and upon more gra.s.s and trees beyond. This was his study and living-room for the rest of his life. Here most of the Cambridge letters that follow may be a.s.sumed to have been written.

After James moved to 95 Irving Street, several people referred to in the letters became his very near neighbors. Josiah Royce, Francis J. Child, C. E. Norton, Miss Theodora Sedgwick were all within three minutes walk of his door. Miss Grace Norton lived across the way.