The Letters of William James Volume Ii Part 34

_Qui vivra verra!_

I am very glad indeed to go on board s.h.i.+p. For two months I have been more than ready to get back to my own habits, my own library and writing-table and bed.... I wish you, and all of you, a prosperous and healthy and resultful winter, and am, with old-time affection, your ever faithful friend,

Wm. James.

If the duty of writing weighs so heavily on you, why obey it? Why, for example, write any more reviews? I absolutely refuse to, and find that one great alleviation.

_To Henri Bergson._

LONDON, _Oct. 4, 1908_.

DEAR BERGSON,--My brother was sorry that you couldn't come. He wishes me to say that he is returning to Rye the day after tomorrow and is so engaged tomorrow that he will postpone the pleasure of meeting you to some future opportunity.

I need hardly repeat how much I enjoyed our talk today. You must take care of yourself and economize all your energies for your own creative work. I want very much to see what you will have to say on the _Substanzbegriff_! Why should life be so short? I wish that you and I and Strong and Flournoy and McDougall and Ward could live on some mountain-top for a month, together, and whenever we got tired of philosophizing, calm our minds by taking refuge in the scenery.

Always truly yours,

Wm. James.

_To H. G. Wells._

Cambridge, _Nov. 28, 1908_.

DEAR WELLS,--"First and Last Things" is a great achievement. The first two "books" should be ent.i.tled "philosophy without humbug" and used as a textbook in all the colleges of the world. You have put your finger accurately on the true emphases, and--in the main--on what seem to me the true solutions (you are more monistic in your faith than I should be, but as long as you only call it "faith," that's your right and privilege), and the simplicity of your statements ought to make us "professionals" blush. I have been 35 years on the way to similar conclusions--simply because I started as a professional and had to _debrouiller_ them from all the traditional school rubbish.

The other two books exhibit you in the character of the Tolstoy of the English world. A sunny and healthy-minded Tolstoy, as he is a pessimistic and morbid-minded Wells. Where the "higher synthesis" will be born, who shall combine the pair of you, Heaven only knows. But you are carrying on the same function, not only in that neither of your minds is boxed and boarded up like the mind of an ordinary human being, but all the contents down to the very bottom come out freely and unreservedly and simply, but in that you both have the power of contagious speech, and set the similar mood vibrating in the reader. Be happy in that such power has been put into your hands! This book is worth any 100 volumes on Metaphysics and any 200 of Ethics, of the ordinary sort.

Yours, with friendliest regards to Mrs. Wells, most sincerely,

Wm. James.

_To Henry James._

Cambridge, _Dec. 19, 1908_.

DEAREST H.,-- ...I write this at 6.30 [A.M.], in the library, which the blessed hard-coal fire has kept warm all night. The night has been still, thermometer 20, and the dawn is breaking in a pure red line behind Grace Norton's house, into a sky empty save for a big morning star and the crescent of the waning moon. Not a cloud--a true American winter effect. But somehow "le grand puits de l'aurore" doesn't appeal to my sense of life, or challenge my spirits as formerly. It suggests no more enterprises to the decrepitude of age, which vegetates along, drawing interest merely on the investment of its earlier enterprises.

The accursed "thoracic symptom" is a killer of enterprise with me, and I dare say that it is little better with you. But the less said of it the better--it doesn't diminis.h.!.+

My time has been consumed by interruptions almost totally, until a week ago, when I finally got down seriously to work upon my Hodgson report.

It means much more labor than one would suppose, and very little result.

I wish that I had never undertaken it. I am sending off a preliminary installment of it to be read at the S. P. R. meeting in January. That done, the rest will run off easily, and in a month I expect to actually begin the "Introduction to Philosophy," which has been postponed so long, and which I hope will add to income for a number of years to come.

Your Volumes XIII and XIV arrived the other day--many thanks. We're subscribing to two copies of the work, sending them as wedding presents.

I hope it will sell. Very enticing-looking, but I can't settle down to the prefaces as yet, the only thing I have been able to read lately being Lowes d.i.c.kinson's last book, "Justice and Liberty," which seems to me a decidedly big achievement from every point of view, and probably destined to have a considerable influence in moulding the opinion of the educated. Stroke upon stroke, from pens of genius, the compet.i.tive regime, so idolized 75 years ago, seems to be getting wounded to death.

What will follow will be something better, but I never saw so clearly the slow effect of [the] acc.u.mulation of the influence of successive individuals in changing prevalent ideals. Wells and d.i.c.kinson will undoubtedly make the biggest steps of change....

Well dear brother! a merry Christmas to you--to you both, I trust, for I fancy Aleck will be with you when this arrives--and a happy New Year at its tail! Your loving

W. J.

_To T. S. Perry._

Cambridge, _Jan. 29, 1909_.

BELOVED THOMAS, cher maitre et confrere,--Your delightful letter about my Fechner article and about your having become a professional philosopher yourself came to hand duly, four days ago, and filled the heart of self and wife with joy. I always knew you was one, for to be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to _hate_ some one else's type of thinking, and if that some one else be a representative of the "cla.s.sic" type of thought, then one is a pragmatist and owns the fulness of the truth. Fechner is indeed a dear, and I am glad to have introduced, so to speak, his speculations to the English world, although the Revd. Elwood Worcester has done so in a somewhat more limited manner in a recent book of his called "The Living Word"-(Worcester of Emmanuel Church, I mean, whom everyone has now begun to fall foul of for trying to reanimate the Church's healing virtue). Another case of newspaper crime! The reporters all got hold of it with their megaphones, and made the nation sick of the sound of its name. Whereas in former ages men strove hard for fame, obscurity is now the one thing to be _striven_ for. For _fame_, all one need do is to exist; and the reporter will do the rest--especially if you give them the address of your fotographer. I hope you're a spelling reformer--I send you the last publication from that quarter. I'm sure that simple spelling will make a page look better, just as a crowd looks better if everyone's clothes fit.

Apropos of pragmatism, a learned Theban named---- has written a circus-performance of which he is the clown, called "Anti-pragmatisme."

It has so much verve and good spirit that I feel like patting him on the back, and "sicking him on," but Lord! what a fool! I think I shall leave it unnoticed. I'm tired of reexplaining what is already explained to satiety. Let _them_ say, now, for it is their turn, what the relation called truth consists in, what it is known as!

I have had you on my mind ever since Jan. 1st, when we had our Friday evening Club-dinner, and I was deputed to cable you a happy New Year.

The next day I couldn't get to the telegraph office; the day after I said to myself, "I'll save the money, and save him the money, for if he gets a cable, he'll be sure to cable back; so I'll write"; the following day, I forgot to; the next day I postponed the act; so from postponement to postponement, here I am. Forgive, forgive! Most affectionate remarks were made about you at the dinner, which generally doesn't err by wasting words on absentees, even on those gone to eternity....

I have just got off my report on the Hodgson control, which has stuck to my fingers all this time. It is a hedging sort of an affair, and I don't know what the Perry family will think of it. The truth is that the "case" is a particularly poor one for testing Mrs. Piper's claim to bring back spirits. It is _leakier_ than any other case, and intrinsically, I think, no stronger than many of her other good cases, certainly weaker than the G. P. case. I am also now engaged in writing a popular article, "the avowals of a psychical researcher," for the "American Magazine," in which I simply state without argument my own convictions, and put myself on record. I think that public opinion is just now taking a step forward in these matters--_vide_ the Eusapian boom! and possibly both these _Schriften_ of mine will add their influence. Thank you for the Charmes reception and for the earthquake correspondence! I envy you in clean and intelligent Paris, though our winter is treating us very mildly. A lovely sunny day today! Love to all of you! Yours fondly,

W. J.

The "Charmes reception" was a report of the speeches at the French Academy's reception of Francis Charmes. The "Eusapian boom" will have been understood to refer to current discussions of the medium Eusapia Paladino.

The next letter refers to a paper in which both James and Munsterberg had been "attacked" in such a manner that Munsterberg proposed to send a protest to the American Psychological a.s.sociation.

_To Hugo Munsterberg._

Cambridge, _Mar. 16, 1909_.

DEAR MuNSTERBERG,--Witmer has sent me the _corpus delicti_, and I find myself curiously unmoved. In fact he takes so much trouble over me, and goes at the job with such zest that I feel like "sicking him on," as they say to dogs. Perhaps the honor of so many pages devoted to one makes up for the dishonor of their content. It is really a great compliment to have anyone take so much trouble about one. Think of copying all Wundt's notes!

But, dear Munsterberg, I hope you'll withdraw a second time your protest. I think it undignified to take such an attack seriously. Its excessive dimensions (in my case at any rate), and the smallness and remoteness of the provocation, stamp it as simply eccentric, and to show sensitiveness only gives it importance in the eyes of readers who otherwise would only smile at its extravagance. Besides, since these temperamental antipathies exist--why isn't it healthy that they should express themselves? For my part, I feel rather glad than otherwise that psychology is so live a subject that psychologists should "go for" each other in this way, and I think it all ought to happen _inside_ of our a.s.sociation. We ought to cultivate tough hides there, so I hope that you will withdraw the protest. I have mentioned it only to Royce, and will mention it to no one else. I don't like the notion of Harvard people seeming "touchy"! Your fellow victim,