The Letters of William James, Vol. 1

Studies

etts General Hospital for a summer's service as undergraduate interne. In the au

ny years thereafter-among them William G. Farlow, subsequently Professor of Cryptogamic Botany and a Cambridge neighbor for forty years, and Charles P. Putnam and James J. Putnam-two brothers in whose company he was later to spend many Adirondack vacations and to whom he became warmly attached. He

hasis was still on lectures, demonstrations and reading, and the pupil's r?le was an almost completely passive one. James, according to the testimony of one of his classmates, made a solitary exception to the practice of the class by attempting to keep a graphic record of

in the amphitheatre of the Massachusetts General Hospital could still take pride in appearing in blood-soiled gowns, much as a fisherman scorns a brand-new outfit and sports his wea

possible next step in James's evolution. He had already been unusually well grounded in comparative anatomy by Agassiz and Jeffries Wyman. He was gravitating surely, even if he did not yet realize it clearly, toward philosophy. Whenever he more or less consciously projected himself forward, it must have seemed to him that the examination of process

idge, in which they had settled themselves, and worked regularly at the Medical School. He had

etting back to New York, had entered the great Baring banking house of which his father, Samuel Ward, was the American partner. O. W. Holmes, Jr., will be rec

mas W.

Mar. 2

afraid they do a little. We had given up Allen[33] as gone to the fishes; but the poor Devil arrived last week after a 98-days' passage!!! I never felt gladder for anything in my life. He had a horrible time at sea, being within 160 miles of New York and then blown back as far as St. Thomas. He says most of his collections arrived at Bahia spoiled by the sun. He was sixteen days crossing a limestone desert on which nothing grew but cacti; so there was no shade at noon, and the thermometer at 98°. His heal

n a steady track that I shall not have much temptation to slip off of, for a good many months at any rate. I am conscious of a desire I never had before so strongly or so permanently, of narrowing and deepening the channel of my intellectual activity, of economizing my feeble energies and consequently treating with more respect the few things I shall devote them to. This temper may be a transient one; mais pour peu qu'il dure un an ou deux, to fix the shorter term! I'm sure it will give a tone to my mind it lacked before. As for the disrespect with which you treat the worthy problems that you turn your back upon, I don't see now exactly how you get over that; but something tells me that, practically, my salvation depends for the present on following some such plan. And, I am sure that, in the majority of men at any rate, the process of growing into a calm mental state is not one of leveling, but of going around, difficulties. The problem they solve is not one of being, but of method. They reach a point from which the view within certain limits is harmonious, and they keep within those limits; they find as it were a centre

eems to alter them. Write soon, and I'll answer soon; for I think, Chéri de Thomas, que ce doux commerce que nous avons mené tant d'années ought not all of a sudden to die out. I'd give a great deal to see you, but see no prospect of getting to New

JA

mas W.

June 8

ttled theoretical condition myself, from which I hoped some positive conclusions might emerge worthy to be presented to you as the last word on the Kosmos and the human soul, I deferred writing from day to day, thinking that better

ou would fret. Yours the nobler, mine the happier part! I think, too, that much of your uneasiness comes from that to which you allude in your letter-your oscillatoriness, and your regarding each oscillation as something final as long as it lasts. There is nothing more certain than that every man's life (except perhaps Harry Quincy's) is a line that continuously oscillates on every side of its direction; and if you would be more confident that any state of tension you may at any time find yourself in will inevitably relieve itself, sooner or later, you would spare yourself much anxiety. I myself have felt in the last six months more and more certain that each man's constitution limits him to a certain amount of emotion and action, and that, if he insists on going under a higher pressure than normal for three months, for instance, he will pa

love of a "life according to nature," i.e., a life in which your individual will becomes so harmonized to nature's will as cheerfully to acquiesce in whatever she assigns to you, knowing that you serve some purpose in her vast machinery which will never be revealed to you-any man who can do this will, I say, be a pleasing spectacle, no matter what his lot in life. I think old Mark's perpetual yearnings for patience and equanimity and kindli

cannot help feeling as if I were insulting Heaven by offering them about as if they had an absolute worth. Still, as I am willing to take

ampscott.... I am anxiously waiting your arrival on Class Day. I expect you to spend all your time with me either here or in S

is S

E, Nov.

moonlight, which by the above qualities makes me think of thee, to whom, nor to

ould not understand a word of, but rather enjoyed the sensation of listening to fo

t of the car, there being just room for them on the step. Aunt Kate may, and probably will, have shoot through her prolific mind the supposish: "How wrong in him to do sich! for if, while in that posish, he should have a sudden stroke of paralysis

ays past and cracks jokes with Harry, etc. Mother is recovering from one of her indispositions, which she bears like an a

ons (6) in 3 or 4 days. One, a painted one, from "Mrs. L--," whoever she may be. I replied that domestic affliction prevented me from going, but I would take a pecuniary equiva

hock at

sherry a

ilt on f

do., bro

& Miss L--'s dr

es brok

ire to in dres

frm. fire i

e frm. water p

ne come to put

laneou

00

-- L-- came out here and dined with us yesterday of her own accord. I no longer doubt what I always suspected, her penchant for me, and I don't blame her for it. Elly Temple staid here two d

t Kate and yourself b

JA

W. Hol

orandum, Wint

st if I'm a

sits an X for his

this vacuous X, I should not

elt result, and it availeth little to naturalize the sensible impression of this that he should at the end put in his little caveat that, after all, the low denomination is as unreal as the unreduced higher ones were. In the confession of ignorance is nothing which the mi

is it to me now to be told that a billion years hence greenbacks and gold will have the same value? especially when that is explained to be zero? How anyone c

and in this sense maintained that a materialist should not be an optimist, using the latter word to signify on

hen I think it would take me ten or twelve years of hard study to form any opinion as to the truth of your second premise.-I send the above rema

optimistor

h from a Poc