The Letters of William James Volume I Part 32

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 pa.s.s through Paris again.

W. J.

_To Shadworth H. Hodgson._

LONDON, _June 23, 1893_.

MY DEAR HODGSON,--I am more different kinds of an a.s.s, 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 rea.s.suring reply, so I felt quite safe and devoted myself to showing my wife the sights, and enjoying her naf 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 Yorks.h.i.+re, 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 n.o.ble old philosopher and dear young man, to yours always,

WM. JAMES.

_To d.i.c.kinson 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 a.s.similated 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 Yorks.h.i.+re 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 inst.i.tutions, 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 _Gemuth_! 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 _etape_, 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. Ceresole, 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 n.o.ble hill with such an outlook! and a very decent little house and barn. But oh! the difference from Switzerland, the thin gra.s.s 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 menage; 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 fas.h.i.+onable 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'ou

Des que ma sante=>Des que ma sante

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 Shaw.a.n.gunk 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.