The Letters of William James Volume Ii Part 9

Wm. James.

_To Mrs. Henry Whitman._

CHOCORUA, _June 7, 1899_.

DEAR MRS. WHITMAN,--I got your penciled letter the day before leaving.

The R.R. train seems to be a great stimulus to the acts of the higher epistolary activity and correspondential amicality in you--a fact for which I have (occasional) reason to be duly grateful. So here, in the cool darkness of my road-side "sitting-room," with no pen in the house, with the soft tap of the carpenter's hammer and the pensive sc.r.a.pe of the distant wood-saw stealing through the open wire-netting door, along with the fragrant air of the morning woods, I get stimulus responsive, and send you penciled return. Yes, the daylight that now seems s.h.i.+ning through the Dreyfus case is glorious, and if the President only gets his back up a bit, and mows down the whole gang of Satan, or as much of it as can be touched, it will perhaps be a great day for the distracted France. I mean it may be one of those moral crises that become starting points and high-water marks and leave traditions and rallying cries and new forces behind them. One thing is certain, that no other alternative form of government possible to France in this century could have stood the strain as this democracy seems to be standing it.

Apropos of which, a word about Woodberry's book.[22] I didn't know him to be that kind of a creature at all. The essays are grave and n.o.ble in the extreme. I hail another American author. They can't be popular, and for cause. The respect of him for the Queen's English, the cla.s.sic leisureliness and explicitness, which give so rare a dignity to his style, also take from it that which our generation seems to need, the sudden word, the unmediated transition, the flash of perception that makes reasonings unnecessary. Poor Woodberry, so high, so true, so good, so original in his total make-up, and yet so unoriginal if you take him spot-wise--and therefore so ineffective. His paper on Democracy is very fine indeed, though somewhat too abstract. I haven't yet read the first and last essays in the book, which I shall buy and keep, and even send a word of gratulation to the author for it.

As for me, my bed is made: I am against bigness and greatness in all their forms, and with the invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, stealing in through the crannies of the world like so many soft rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, and yet rending the hardest monuments of man's pride, if you give them time. The bigger the unit you deal with, the hollower, the more brutal, the more mendacious is the life displayed. So I am against all big organizations as such, national ones first and foremost; against all big successes and big results; and in favor of the eternal forces of truth which always work in the individual and immediately unsuccessful way, under-dogs always, till history comes, after they are long dead, and puts them on the top.--You need take no notice of these ebullitions of spleen, which are probably quite unintelligible to anyone but myself.

Ever your

W. J.

When the College term ended in June, 1899, the sailing date of the European steamer on which James had taken pa.s.sage for his wife and daughter and himself was still three weeks away. He turned again to the Adirondack Lodge and there persuaded himself, to his intense satisfaction, that if he walked slowly and alone, so that there was no temptation to talk while walking, or to keep on when he felt like stopping, he could still spend several hours a day on the mountain sides without inconvenience to his heart. But one afternoon he took a wrong path and did not discover his mistake until he had gone so far that it seemed safer to go on than to turn back. So he kept on. But the "trail"

he was following was not the one he supposed it to be and led him farther and farther. He fainted twice; it grew dark; but having neither food, coat, nor matches, he stumbled along until at last he came out on the Keene Valley road and, at nearly eleven o'clock at night, reached a house where he could get food and a conveyance.

He ought to have avoided all exertion for weeks thereafter, but he tried again to make light of what had occurred, and, on getting back to Cambridge, spent a very active few days over final arrangements for his year of absence. When his boat had sailed and the stimulus which his last duties supplied had been withdrawn, he began to discover what condition he was in.

XIII

1899-1902

_Two years of Illness in Europe--Retirement from Active Duty at Harvard--The First and Second Series of the Gifford Lectures_

WHEN James sailed for Hamburg on July 15, he planned quite definitely to devote the summer to rest and the treatment of his heart, then to write out the Gifford Lectures during the winter, and to deliver them by the following spring; and, happily, could not foresee that he was to spend nearly two years in exile and idleness. For nearly six years he had driven himself beyond the true limits of his strength. Now it became evident that the strain of his second over-exertion in the Adirondacks had precipitated a complete collapse. He had been advised during the winter to go to Nauheim for a course of baths. But when he got there, the eminent specialists who examined his heart ignored his nervous prostration. He was doubtless a difficult patient to diagnose or prescribe for. Matters went from bad to worse; little by little all his plans had to be abandoned. A year went by, and a return to regular work in Cambridge was unthinkable. He was no better in the summer of 1900 than when he landed in Germany in July of 1899. His daughter had been sent to school in England. The three other children remained in America.

He and Mrs. James moved about between England, Nauheim, the south of France, Switzerland and Rome, consulting a specialist in one place or trying the baths or the climate in another--with how much homesickness, and with how much courage none the less, the letters will indicate.

His only systematic reading was a persistent, though frequently intermitted, exploration of religious biographies and the literature of religious conversion, in preparation for the Gifford Lectures. During the second year he managed to get one course of these lectures written out. Not until he had delivered them in Edinburgh, in May, 1901, did he know that he had turned the corner and feel as if he had begun to live again.

Every letter that came to him from his family and friends at home was comforting beyond measure, and he poured out a stream of acknowledgment in long replies, which he dictated to Mrs. James. His own writing was usually limited to jottings in a note-book and to post-cards. He always had a fountain-pen and a few post-cards in his pocket, and often, when sitting in a chair in the open air, or at a little table in one of the outdoor restaurants that abound in Nauheim and in southern Europe, he would compress more news and messages into one of these little missives than most men ever get into a letter. A few of his friends at home divined his situation, and were at pains to write him regularly and fully. Letters that follow show how grateful he was for such devotion.

In this state of enforced idleness he browsed through newspapers and journals more than he had before or than he ever did again, and so his letters contained more comments on daily events. It will be clear that what was happening did not always please him. He was an individualist and a liberal, both by temperament and by reason of having grown up with the generation which accepted the doctrines of the _laissez-faire_ school in a thoroughgoing way. The Philippine policy of the McKinley administration seemed to him a humiliating desertion of the principles that America had fought for in the Revolution and the War of Emanc.i.p.ation. The military occupation of the Philippines, described by the President as "benevolent a.s.similation," and what he once called the "cold pot-grease of McKinley's eloquence" filled him with loathing. He saw the Republican Party in the light in which Mr. Dooley portrayed it when he represented its leaders as praying "that Providence might remain under the benevolent influence of the present administration." When McKinley and Roosevelt were nominated by the Republicans in 1900, he called them "a combination of slime and grit, soap and sand, that ought to scour anything away, even the moral sense of the country." He was ready to vote for Bryan if there were no other way of turning out the administration responsible for the history of our first years in the Philippines, "although it would doubtless have been a premature victory of a very mongrel kind of reform." In the same way, the cant with which many of the supporters of England's program in South Africa extolled the Boer War in the British press provoked his irony. The uproar over the Dreyfus case was at its height. The "intellectuels," as they were called in France, the "Little Englanders" as they were nicknamed in England, and the Anti-Imperialists in his own country had his entire sympathy.

The state of mind of a member of the liberal minority, observing the phase of history that was disclosing itself at the end of the century, is admirably indicated in his correspondence.

Miss Pauline Goldmark, next addressed, and her family were in the habit of spending their summers in Keene Valley, where they had a cottage that was not far from the Putnam Shanty. James had often joined forces with them for a day's climb when he was staying at the Shanty. The reader will recall that it was their party that he had joined on Mt. Marcy the year before.

_To Miss Pauline Goldmark._

BAD-NAUHEIM, _Aug. 12, 1899_.

MY DEAR PAULINE,--I am afraid we are stuck here till the latter half of September. Once a donkey, always a donkey; at the Lodge in June, after some slow walks which seemed to do me no harm at all, I drifted one day up to the top of Marcy, and then (thanks to the Trail Improvement Society!) found myself in the Johns Brook Valley instead of on the Lodge trail back; and converted what would have been a three-hours' downward saunter into a seven-hours' scramble, emerging in Keene Valley at 10.15 P.M. This did me no good--quite the contrary; so I have come to Nauheim just in time. My carelessness was due to the belief that there was only one trail in the Lodge direction, so I didn't attend particularly, and when I found myself off the track (the trail soon stopped) I thought I was going to South Meadow, and didn't reascend. Anyhow I was an a.s.s, and you ought to have been along to steer me straight. I fear we shall ascend no more acclivities together. "Bent is the tree that should have grown full straight!" You have no idea of the moral repulsiveness of this _Curort_ life. Everybody fairly revelling in disease, and abandoning themselves to it with a sort of _gusto_. "Heart," "heart,"

"heart," the sole topic of attention and conversation. As a "phase,"

however, one ought to be able to live through it, and the extraordinary nerve-rest, crawling round as we do, is beneficial. Man is never satisfied! Perhaps I shall be when the baths, etc., have had their effect. We go then straight to England.--I do hope that you are all getting what you wish in Switzerland, and that for all of you the entire adventure is proving golden. Mrs. James sends her love, and I am, as always, yours most affectionately,

Wm. James.

_To Mrs. E. P. Gibbens._

VILLA LUISE, BAD-NAUHEIM, _Aug. 22, 1899_.

DARLING BELLE-MeRE,--The day seems to have come for another letter to you, though my fingers are so cold that I can hardly write. We have had a most conveniently dry season--convenient in that it doesn't coop us up in the house--but a deal of cloud and cold. Today is sunny but frigid--like late October. Altogether the difference of weather is very striking. European weather is stagnant and immovable. It is as if it got stuck, and needed a kick to start it; and although it is doubtless better for the nerves than ours, I find my soul thinking most kindly from this distance of our glorious quick pa.s.sionate American climate, with its transparency and its impulsive extremes. This weather is as if fed on solid pudding. We inhabit one richly and heavily furnished bedroom, 21 x 14, with good beds and a balcony, and are rapidly making up for all our estrangement, locally speaking, in the past. It is a great "nerve-rest," though the listlessness that goes with all nerve-rest makes itself felt. Alice seems very well.... The place has wonderful adaptation to its purposes in the possession of a vast park with n.o.ble trees and avenues and incessant benches for rest; restaurants with out-of-door tables everywhere in sight; music morning, afternoon and night; and charming points to go to out of town. Cab-fare is cheap.

But nothing else.... The Gifford lectures are in complete abeyance. I have word from Seth that under the circ.u.mstances the Academic Senate will be sure to grant me any delay or indulgence I may ask for; so this relieves tension. I can make nothing out yet about my heart.... So I _try_ to take long views and not fuss about temporary feelings, though I dare say I keep dear Alice worried enough by the fuss I imagine myself _not_ to make. It is a loathsome world, this medical world; and I confess that the thought of another six weeks here next year doesn't exhilarate me, in spite of the decency of all our physical conditions. I still remain faithful to Irving St. (95 and 107),[23] Chocorua, Silver Lake, and Keene Valley!

We get almost no syllable of American news, in spite of the fact that we take the London "Chronicle." Pray send the "Nation" and the "Literary Digest." _Don't_ send the "Sciences" as heretofore. Let them acc.u.mulate.

I think that after reception of this you had better address us care of H. J., Rye, Suss.e.x. We shall probably be off by the 10th or 12th of Sept. I hope that public opinion is gathering black against the Philippine policy--in spite of my absence! I hope that Salter will pitch in well in the fall. The still blacker nightmare of a Dreyfus case hangs over us; and there is little time in the day save for reading the "Figaro's" full reports of the trial. Like all French happenings, it is as if they were edited expressly for literary purpose. Every "witness"

so-called has a power of statement equal to that of a first-cla.s.s lawyer; and the various human types that succeed each other, exhibiting their several peculiarities in full blossom, make the thing like a novel. Esterhazy seems to me the _great_ hero. How Shakespeare would have enjoyed such a fantastic scoundrel,--knowing all the secrets, saying what he pleases, mystifying all Europe, leading the whole French army (except apparently Picquart) by the nose,--a regular Shakespearean type of villain, with an insane exuberance of rhetoric and fancy about his vanities and hatreds, that literature has never given yet. It would seem incredible that the Court-Martial should condemn. Henry was evidently the spy, employed by Esterhazy, and afterwards Du Paty helped their machinations, in order not to stultify his own record at the original trial--at least this seems the plausible theory. The older generals seem merely to have been pa.s.sive connivers, stupidly and obstinately holding to the original official mistake rather than surrender under fire. And such is the prestige of caste-opinion, such the solidity of the professional spirit, that, incredible as it may seem, it is still quite probable that the officers will obey the lead of their superiors, and condemn Dreyfus again. The President, Jouaust, who was supposed to be impartial, is showing an apparently bad animus against Picquart. P. is a real _hero_--a precious possession for any country. He ought to be made Minister of War; though that would doubtless produce a revolution. I suppose that Loubet will pardon Dreyfus immediately if he is recondemned. Then Dreyfus, and perhaps Loubet, will be a.s.sa.s.sinated by some Anti-Semite, and who knows what will follow? But before you get this, you will know far more about the trial than I can tell you.

We long for news from the boys--not a word from Billy since he left Tacoma. I am glad their season promises to be shorter! Enough is as good as a feast! What a scattered lot we are! I hope that Margaret will be happy in Montreal. As for you in your desolation, I could almost weep for you. My only advice is that you should cling to Aleck as to a life-preserver. I trust you got the $200 I told Higginson to send you. I am mortified beyond measure by that overdrawn bank account, and do not understand it at all.

Oceans of love from your affectionate son,

WILLIAM.

_To William M. Salter._

BAD-NAUHEIM, _Sept. 11, 1899_.

DEAR MACKINTIRE,--The incredible has happened, and Dreyfus, without one may say a single particle of _positive_ evidence that he was guilty, has been condemned again. The French Republic, which seemed about to turn the most dangerous corner in her career and enter on the line of political health, laying down the finest set of political precedents in her history to serve as standards for future imitation and habit, has slipped h.e.l.l-ward and all the forces of h.e.l.l in the country will proceed to fresh excesses of insolence. But I don't believe the game is lost.

"Les intellectuels," thanks to the Republic, are now aggressively militant as they never were before, and will grow stronger and stronger; so we may hope. I have sent you the "Figaro" daily; but of course the reports are too long for you to have read through. The most grotesque thing about the whole trial is the pretension of awful holiness, of semi-divinity in the diplomatic doc.u.ments and waste-paper-basket sc.r.a.ps from the emba.s.sies--a farce kept up to the very end--these same doc.u.ments being, so far as they were anything (and most of them were nothing), mere records of treason, lying, theft, bribery, corruption, and every crime on the part of the diplomatic agents. Either the German and Italian governments will now publish or not publish all the details of their transactions--give the exact doc.u.ments meant by the _bordereaux_ and the exact names of the French traitors. If they do not, there will be only two possible explanations: either Dreyfus's guilt, or the pride of their own sacrosanct etiquette. As it is scarcely conceivable that Dreyfus can have been guilty, their silences will be due to the latter cause. (Of course it can't be due to what they owe in honor to Esterhazy and whoever their other allies and servants may have been. E. is safe over the border, and a pension for his services will heal all his wounds. Any other person can quickly be put in similar conditions of happiness.) And they and Esterhazy will then be exactly on a par morally, actively conspiring to have an innocent man bear the burden of their own sins. By their carelessness with the doc.u.ments they got Dreyfus accused, and now they abandon him, for the sake of their own divine etiquette.

The breath of the nostrils of all these big inst.i.tutions is crime--that is the long and short of it. We must thank G.o.d for America; and hold fast to every advantage of our position. Talk about our corruption! It is a mere fly-speck of superficiality compared with the rooted and permanent forces of corruption that exist in the European states. The only serious permanent force of corruption in America is party spirit.

All the other forces are s.h.i.+fting like the clouds, and have no partners.h.i.+ps with any permanently organized ideal. Millionaires and syndicates have their immediate cash to pay, but they have no intrenched prestige to work with, like the church sentiment, the army sentiment, the aristocracy and royalty sentiment, which here can be brought to bear in favor of every kind of individual and collective crime--appealing not only to the immediate pocket of the persons to be corrupted, but to the ideals of their imagination as well.... My dear Mack, we "intellectuals"