The Letters of William James Volume Ii Part 36

W. J.

_To Shadworth H. Hodgson._

Cambridge, _Jan._ 1, 1910.

A happy New Year to you, dear Hodgson, and may it bring a state of mind more recognizant of truth when you see it! Your jocose salutation of my account of truth is an epigrammatic commentary on the cross-purposes of philosophers, considering that on the very day (yesterday) of its reaching me, I had replied to a Belgian student writing a thesis on pragmatism, who had asked me to name my sources of inspiration, that I could only recognize two, Peirce, as quoted, and "S. H. H." with his method of attacking problems, by asking what their terms are "Known-as."

Unhappy world, where grandfathers can't recognize their own grandchildren! Let us love each other all the same, dear Hodgson, though the grandchild be in your eyes a "prodigal." Affectionately yours,

WM. JAMES.

The news of James's election as _a.s.socie etranger_ of the Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, which had appeared in the Boston "Journal" a day or two before the next letter, had, of course, reached the American newspapers directly from Paris. The unread book by Bergson of which Mr. Chapman was to forward his ma.n.u.script-review was obviously "Le Rire," and Mr. Chapman's review may be found, not where the next letter but one might lead one to seek it, but in the files of the "Hibbert Journal."

_To John Jay Chapman._

Cambridge, _Jan._ 30, 1910.

DEAR JACK,--Invincible epistolary laziness and a conscience humbled to the dust have conspired to r.e.t.a.r.d this letter. G.o.d sent me straight to you with my story about Bergson's cablegram--the only other person to whom I have told it was Henry Higginson. _One_ of you must have put it into the Boston "Journal" of the next day,--_you_ of course, to humiliate me still the more,--so now I lie in the dust, spurning all the decorations and honors under which the powers and princ.i.p.alities are trying to bury me, and seeking to manifest the naked truth in my uncomely form. Never again, never again! Naked came I into life, and this world's vanities are not for me! You, dear Jack, are the only reincarnation of Isaiah and Job, and I praise G.o.d that he has let me live in your day. _Real_ values are known only to _you_!

As for Bergson, I think your change of the word "comic" into the word "tragic" throughout his book is _impayable_, and I have no doubt it is true. I have only read half of him, so don't know how he is coming out.

Meanwhile send me your own foolishness on the same subject, commend me to your liege lady, and believe me, shamefully yours,

W. J.

_To John Jay Chapman._

Cambridge, _Feb._ 8, 1910.

DEAR JACK,--Wonderful! wonderful! Shallow, incoherent, obnoxious to its own criticism of Chesterton and Shaw, off its balance, accidental, whimsical, false; but with central fires of truth "blazing fuliginous mid murkiest confusion," telling the reader nothing of the Comic except that it's smaller than the Tragic, but _readable_ and splendid, showing that the _man who wrote it_ is more than anything he can write!

Pray patch some kind of a finale to it and send it to the "Atlantic"!

Yours ever fondly,

W. J.

(Membre de I'Inst.i.tut!)

The "specimen" which was enclosed with the following note has been lost.

It was perhaps a bit of adulatory verse. What is said about "Harris and Shakespeare," as also in a later letter to Mr. T. S. Perry on the same subject, was written apropos of a book ent.i.tled "The Man Shakespeare, His Tragic Life-Story."[87]

_To John Jay Chapman._

Cambridge, _Feb._ 15, 1910.

DEAR JACK,--Just a word to say that it pleases me to hear you write this about Harris and Shakespeare. H. is surely false in much that he claims; yet 'tis the only way in which Shakespeare ought to be handled, so his _is_ the best book. The trouble with S. was his intolerable fluency. He improvised so easily that it kept down his level. It is hard to see how the man that wrote his best things could possibly have let himself do ranting bombast and complication on such a large scale elsewhere. 'T is mighty fun to read him through in order.

I send you a specimen of the kind of thing that tends to hang upon me as the ivy on the oak. When will the day come? Never till, like me, you give yourself out as a poetry-hater. Thine ever,

[Ill.u.s.tration: signature

my new signature]

_To d.i.c.kinson S. Miller._

Cambridge, _Mar. 26, 1910_.

DEAR MILLER,--Your study of me arrives! and I have pantingly turned the pages to find the eulogistic adjectives, and find them in such abundance that my head swims. Glory to G.o.d that I have lived to see this day! to have so much said about me, and to be embalmed in literature like the great ones of the past! I didn't know I was so much, was all these things, and yet, as I read, I see that I was (or am?), and shall boldly a.s.sert myself when I go abroad.

To speak in all dull soberness, dear Miller, it touches me to the quick that you should have hatched out this elaborate description of me with such patient and loving incubation. I have only spent five minutes over it so far, meaning to take it on the steamer, but I get the impression that it is almost unexampled in our literature as a piece of profound a.n.a.lysis of an individual mind. I'm sorry you stick so much to my psychological phase, which I care little for, now, and never cared much.

This epistemological and metaphysical phase seems to me more original and important, and I haven't lost hopes of converting you entirely yet.

Meanwhile, thanks! thanks! [emile] Boutroux, who is a regular angel, has just left our house. I've written an account of his lectures which the "Nation" will print on the 31st. I should like you to look it over, hasty as it is.

...I hope that all these lectures on contemporaries (What a live place Columbia is!) will appear together in a volume. I can't easily believe that any will compare with yours as a thorough piece of interpretative work.

We sail on Tuesday next. My thorax has been going the wrong way badly this winter, and I hope that Nauheim may patch it up.

Strength to your elbow! Affectionately and gratefully yours,

Wm. James.

XVII

1910