To E. L. Godkin
Lamb House, Aug. 29, 1901.
My dear Godkin,—Just a line to bid you both farewell! We leave for London tomorrow morning and at four on Saturday we shall be ploughing the deep. All goes well, save that the wife has sprained her ankle, and with the "firmness" that characterizes her lovely sex insists on hobbling about and doing all the packing. I shan't be aisy till I see her in her berth.
After all, in spite of you and Henry, and all Americo-phobes, I'm glad I'm going back to my own country again. Notwithstanding its "humble"ness, its fatigues, and its complications, there's no place like home—though I think the New Forest might come near it as a substitute. England in general is too padded and cushioned for my rustic taste.
The most elevating moral thing I've seen during these two years abroad, after Myers's heroic exit from this world at Rome last winter, has been the gentleness and cheerful spirit with which you are still able to remain in it after such a blow as you have received. Who could suppose so much public ferocity to cover so much private sweetness? Seriously speaking, it is more edifying to us others, dear Godkin, than you yourself can understand it to be, and I for one have learned by the example. I pray that your winter problems may gradually solve themselves without perplexity, and that next spring may find you relieved of all this helplessness. It is a very slow progress, with many steps backwards, but if the length of the forward steps preponderates, one may be well content. Good-bye and bless you both. Affectionately yours,
WM. JAMES.
James returned to America in early September, in advance of the beginning of the College term. But from this time on he limited his teaching to one half-course during the year. His intention was to husband his strength for writing. The course which he offered during the first half of the College year was accordingly announced as a course on "The Psychological Elements of Religious Life." By the end of the winter, the second series of Gifford lectures, constituting the last half of the "Varieties," had been written out.
To Miss Pauline Goldmark
Silver Lake, N. H., Sept. 14, 1901.
Dear Pauline,—Your kind letter (excuse pencil—pen won't write) appears to have reached London after our departure and has just followed us hither. I had hoped for a word from you, first at Nauheim, then on the steamer, then at Cambridge; but this makes everything right. How good to think of you as the same old loveress of woods and skies and waters, and of your Bryn-Mawr friends. May none of the lot of you ever grow insufficient or forsake each other! The sight of you sporting in Nature's bosom once lifted me into a sympathetic region, and made a better boy of me in ways which it would probably amuse and surprise you to learn of, so strangely are characters useful to each other, and so subtly are destinies intermixed. But with you on the mountain-tops of existence still, and me apparently destined to remain grubbing in the cellar, we seem far enough apart at present and may have to remain so. Alas! how brief is life's glory, at the best. I can't get to Keene Valley this year, and [may] possibly never get there. Give a kindly thought, my friend, to the spectre who once for a few times trudged by your side, and who would do so again if he could. I'm a "motor," and morally ill-adapted to the game of patience. I have reached home in pretty poor case, but I think it's mainly "nerves" at present, and therefore remediable; so I live on the future, but keep my expectations modest. Two years away has been too long, and the "strangeness" which I dreaded (from past experience of it) covers all things American as with a veil. Pathetic and poverty-stricken is all I see! This will pass away, but I don't want good things to pass away also, so I beseech you, Pauline, to sit down and write me a good intimate letter telling me what your life and interest were in New York last winter.
I am very sorry to hear of your sister Susan's illness, and pray that the summer will set her right. Did you see much of Miller this summer? I hate to think of his having grown so delicate! Did you see Perry again? He was at the Putnam Camp? How is Adler after his Cur?—or is he not yet back? What have you read? What have you cared for? Be indulgent to me, and write to me here—I stay for 10 days longer—the family—all well—remain in Cambridge. I find letters a great thing to keep one from slipping out of life.
Love to you all! Your
W. J.
The next letter was written across the back of a circular invitation to join the American Philosophical Association, then being formed, of which Professor Gardiner was Secretary.
To H. N. Gardiner
CAMBRIDGE, Nov. 14, 1901.
Dear Gardiner,—I am still pretty poorly and can't "jine" anything—but, apart from that, I don't foresee much good from a Philosophical Society. Philosophical discussion proper only succeeds between intimates who have learned how to converse by months of weary trials and failure. The philosopher is a lone beast dwelling in his individual burrow.—Count me out!—I hope all goes well with you. I expect to get well, but it needs patience.
WM. JAMES.
On April 1, 1902, James sailed for England, to deliver the second "course" of his series of Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh.
To F. C. S. Schiller
Hatley St. George,Torquay, Apr. 20, 1902.
My dear Schiller,—I could shed tears that you should have been so near me and yet been missed. I got your big envelope on Thursday at the hotel, and your two other missives here this morning. Of the Axioms paper I have only read a sheet and a half at the beginning and the superb conclusion which has just arrived. I shall fairly gloat upon the whole of it, and will write you my impressions and criticisms, if criticisms there be. It is an uplifting thought that truth is to be told at last in a radical and attention-compelling manner. I think I know, though, how the attention of many will find a way not to be compelled—their will is so set on having a technically and artificially and professionally expressed system, that all talk carried on as yours is on principles of common-sense activity is as remote and little worthy of being listened to as the slanging each other of boys in the street as we pass. Men disdain to notice that. It is only after our (i.e. your and my) general way of thinking gets organized enough to become a regular part of the bureaucracy of philosophy that we shall get a serious hearing. Then, I feel inwardly convinced, our day will have come. But then, you may well say, the brains will be out and the man will be dead. Anyhow, vive the Anglo-Saxon amateur, disciple of Locke and Hume, and pereat the German professional!
We are here for a week with the Godkins—poor old G., once such a power, and now an utter wreck after a stroke of paralysis three years ago. Beautiful place, southeast gale, volleying rain and streaming panes and volumes of soft sea-laden wind.
I hope you are not serious about an Oxford degree for your humble servant. If you are, pray drop the thought! I am out of the race for all such vanities. Write me a degree on parchment and send it yourself—in any case it would be but your award!—and it will be cheaper and more veracious. I had to take the Edinburgh one, and accepted the Durham one to please my wife. Thank you, no coronation either! I am a poor New Hampshire rustic, in bad health, and long to get back, after four summers' absence, to my own cottage and children, and never come away again for lectures or degrees or anything else. It all depends on a man's age; and after sixty, if ever, one feels as if one ought to come to some sort of equilibrium with one's native environment, and by means of a regular life get one's small message to mankind on paper. That nowadays is my only aspiration. The Gifford lectures are all facts and no philosophy—I trust that you may receive the volume by the middle of June.
When, oh, when is your volume to appear? The sheet you send me leaves off just at the point where Boyle-Gibson begins to me to be most interesting! Ever fondly yours,
WM. JAMES.
Your ancient President, Schurman, was also at Edinburgh getting LL.D'd. He is conducting a campaign in favor of Philippino independence with masterly tactics, which reconcile me completely to him, laying his finger on just the right and telling points.
To Charles Eliot Norton
Lamb House, Rye, May 4, 1902.
Dear Norton,—I hear with grief and concern that you have had a bad fall. In a letter received this morning you are described as better, so I hope it will have had no untoward consequences beyond the immediate shock. We need you long to abide with us in undiminished vigor and health. Our voyage was smooth, though cloudy, and we found Miss Ward a very honest and lovable girl. Henry D. Lloyd, whose name you know as that of a state-socialist writer, sat opposite to us, and proved one of the most "winning" men it was ever my fortune to know.
We went to Stratford for the first time. The absolute extermination and obliteration of every record of Shakespeare save a few sordid material details, and the general suggestion of narrowness and niggardliness which ancient Stratford makes, taken in comparison with the way in which the spiritual quantity "Shakespeare" has mingled into the soul of the world, was most uncanny, and I feel ready to believe in almost any mythical story of the authorship. In fact a visit to Stratford now seems to me the strongest appeal a Baconian can make. The country round about was exquisite. Still more so the country round about Torquay, where we stayed with the Godkins for eight days—he holding his own, as it seemed to me, but hardly improving, she earning palms of glory by her strength and virtue. A regular little trump! They have taken for the next two months the most beautiful country place I ever saw, occupying an elbow of the Dart, and commanding a view up and down. We are here for but a week, my lectures beginning on the 13th. H. J. seems tranquil and happy in his work, though he has been much pestered of late by gout.
I suppose you are rejoicing as much as I in the public interest finally aroused in the Philippine conquest. A personal scandal, it seems, is really the only thing that will wake the ordinary man's attention up. It should be the first aim of every good leader of opinion to rake up one on the opposite side. It should be introduced among our Faculty methods!
Don't think, dear Norton, that you must answer this letter, which only your accident has made me write. We shall be home so soon that I shall see you face to face. The wife sends love, as I do, to you all. No warm weather whatever as yet—I am having chilblains!! Ever affectionately yours,
WM. JAMES.
To Mrs. Henry Whitman
R.M.S. Ivernia, June 18, 1902.
Dear Mrs. Whitman,—We ought to be off Boston tonight. After a cold and wet voyage, including two days of head-gale and heavy sea, and one of unbroken fog with lugubriously moo-ing fog-horn, the sun has risen upon American weather, a strong west wind like champagne, blowing out of a saturated blue sky right in our teeth, the sea all effervescing and sparkling with white caps and lace, the strong sun lording it in the sky, and hope presiding in the heart. What more natural than to report all this happy turn of affairs to you, buried as you probably still are in the blankets of the London atmosphere, beautiful opalescent blankets though they be, and (when one's vitals once are acclimated) yielding more wonderful artistic effects than anything to be seen in America. "C'est le pays de la couleur," as my brother is fond of saying in the words of Alphonse Daudet! But no matter for international comparisons, which are the least profitable of human employments. Christ died for us all, so let us all be as we are, save where we want to reform ourselves. (The only unpardonable crime is that of wanting to reform one another, after the fashion of the U. S. in the Philippines.) … Your sweet letter of several dates reached us just before we left Edinburgh—excuse the insipid adjective "sweet," which after all does express something which less simple vocables may easily miss—and gave an impression of harmony and inner health which it warms the heart to become sensible of. I understand your temptation to stay over, but I also understand your temptation to get back; and I imagine that more and more you will solve the problem by a good deal of alternation in future years. It is curious how utterly distinct the three countries of England, Ireland and Scotland are, which we so summarily lump together—Scotland so democratic and so much like New England in many respects. But it would be a waste of time for you to go there. Keep to the South and spend one winter in Rome, before you die, and a spring in the smaller Italian cities!
I hope that Henry will have managed to get you and Miss Tuckerman to Rye for a day—it is so curiously quaint and characteristic. I had a bad conscience about leaving him, for I think he feels lonely as he grows old, and friends pass over to the majority. He and I are so utterly different in all our observances and springs of action, that we can't rightly judge each other. I even feel great shrinking from urging him to pay us a visit, fearing it might yield him little besides painful shocks—and, after all, what besides pain and shock is the right reaction for anyone to make upon our vocalization and pronunciation? The careful consonants and musical cadences of the Scotchwomen were such a balm to the ear! I wish that you and poor Henry could become really intimate. He is at bottom a very tender-hearted and generous being! No more paper! so I cross! I wish when we once get settled again at Chocorua that we might enclose you under our roof, even if only for one night, on your way to or from the Merrimans. I should like to show you true simplicity.
[No signature.]
The Gifford Lectures were published as "The Varieties of Religious Experience, a Study in Human Nature," in June, 1902. The immediate "popularity" of this psychological survey of man's religious propensities was great; and the continued sales of the book contributed not a little to relieve James of financial anxiety during the last years of his life.
The cordiality with which theological journals and private correspondents of many creeds greeted the "Varieties," as containing a fair treatment of facts which other writers had approached with a sectarian or anti-theological bias, was striking. James was amused at being told that the book had "supplied the protestant pulpits with sermons for a twelve-month." Regarding himself as "a most protestant protestant," as he once said, he was especially pleased by the manner in which it was received by Roman Catholic reviewers.
Certain philosophical conclusions were indicated broadly in the "Varieties" without being elaborated. The book was a survey, an examination, of the facts. James had originally conceived of the Gifford appointment as giving him "an opportunity for a certain amount of psychology and a certain amount of metaphysics," and so had thought of making the first series of lectures descriptive of man's religious propensities and the second series a metaphysical study of their satisfaction through philosophy. The psychological material had grown to unforeseen dimensions, and it ended by filling the book. The metaphysical study remained to be elaborated; and to such work James now turned.
XIV
1902-1905
The Last Period (I)—Philosophical Writing—Statements of Religious Relief
James now limited his teaching in Harvard University, as has been said, to half a course a year and tried to devote his working energies to formulating a statement of his philosophical conceptions. For two years he published almost nothing; then the essays which were subsequently collected in the volumes called "Pragmatism," "The Pluralistic Universe," "The Meaning of Truth," and "Essays in Radical Empiricism," began to appear in the philosophic journals, or were delivered as special lectures. Whenever he accepted invitations to lecture outside the College, as he still did occasionally, it was with the purpose of getting these conceptions expressed and of throwing them into the arena of discussion. But demands which correspondents and callers from all parts of the globe now made on his time and sympathy were formidable, for he could not rid himself of the habit of treating the most trivial of these with consideration, or acquire the habit of using a secretary. In this way there continued to be a constant drain on his strength. "It is probably difficult [thus he wrote wearily to Mr. Lutoslawski, who had begged him to collaborate with him on a book in 1904] for a man whose cerebral machine works with such facility as yours does to imagine the kind of consciousness of men like Flournoy and myself. The background of my consciousness, so far as my own achievements go, is composed of a sense of impossibility—a sense well warranted by the facts. For instance, two years ago, the 'Varieties' being published, I decided that everything was cleared and that my duty was immediately to begin writing my metaphysical system. Up to last October, when the academic year began, I had written some 200 pages of notes, i.e. disconnected brouillons. I hoped this year to write 400 or 500 pages of straight composition, and could have done so without the interruptions. As a matter of fact, with the best will in the world, I have written exactly 32 pages! For an academic year's work, that is not brilliant! You see that, when I refuse your request, it is, after a fashion, in order to save my own life. My working day is anyhow, at best, only three hours long—by working I mean writing and reading philosophy." This estimate of his "notes" was, as always, self-deprecatory; but there was no denying a great measure of truth to the statement. Frequently his health made it necessary for him to escape from Cambridge and his desk. These incidents will be noted separately wherever the context requires.
Yet in spite of these difficulties and notwithstanding his complaints of constant frustration, the spirit with which James still did his work emerges from the essays of this time as well as from his letters. It was as if the years that had preceded had been years of preparation for just what he was now doing. At the age of sixty-three he turned to the formulation of his empirical philosophy with the eagerness of a schoolboy let out to play. Misunderstanding disturbed him only momentarily, opposition stimulated him, he rejoiced openly in the controversies which he provoked, and engaged in polemics with the good humor and vigor that were the essence of his genius. His "truth" must prevail! the Absolute should suffer its death-blow! Flournoy, Bergson, Schiller, Papini, and others too were "on his side." He made merry at the expense of his critics, or bewailed the perversity of their opposition; but he always encouraged them to "lay on." The imagery of contest and battle appeared in the letters which he threw off, and he expressed himself as freely as only a man can who has outgrown the reserves of his youth.
To Henry L. Higginson
CHOCORUA, July 3, 1902.
Dear Henry,—Thanks for your letter of the other day, etc. Alice tells me of a queer conversation you and she had upon the cars. I am not anxious about money, beyond wishing not to live on capital.... As I have frequently said, I mean to support you in your old age. In fact the hope of that is about all that I now live for, being surfeited with the glory of academic degrees just escaped, like this last one which, in the friendliness of its heart, your [Harvard] Corporation designed sponging upon me at Commencement.42 Boil it and solder it up from the microbes, and it may do for another year, if I am not in prison! The friendliness of such recognition is a delightful thing to a man about to graduate from the season of his usefulness. "La renommé vient," as I have heard John La Farge quote, "à ceux qui ont la patience d'attendre, et s'accroit à raison de leur imbecillité." Best wishes to you all. Yours ever,
WM. JAMES.