The Letters of William James, Vol. 1. William James

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ your letter grew upon me, and then I felt, my sober senses returning, that I ought not to be so elate. For you certainly bring me bad news enough. Elly's arm broken and Minny gone mad should make me rather drop a tear than laugh.

      But leaving poor Elly's case for the present, let's speak of Minny and her fearful catastrophe. Do you know, Kitty,—now that it 's all over, I don't see why I should not tell you,—I have often had flashes of horrid doubts about that girl. Occasionally I have caught a glance from her furtive eye, a glance so wild, so weird, so strange, that it has frozen the innermost marrow in my bones; and again the most sickening feeling has come over me as I have noticed fleeting shades of expression on her face, so short, but ah! so piercingly pregnant of the mysteries of mania—unhuman, ghoul-like, fiendish-cunning! Ah me! ah me! Now that my worst suspicions have proved true, I feel sad indeed. The well-known, how-often fondly-contemplated features tell the whole story in the photograph taken, as you say, a few days before the crisis. Madness is plainly lurking in that lurid eye, stamps indelibly the arch of the nostril and the curve of the lip, and in ambush along the soft curve of the cheek it lies ready to burst forth in consuming fire. But oh! still is it not pity to think that that fair frame, whilom the chosen fane of intellect and heart, clear and white as noonday's beams, should now be a vast desert through whose lurid and murky glooms glare but the fitful forked lightnings of fuliginous insanity!—Well, Kitty, after all, it is but an organic lesion of the gray cortical substance which forms the pia mater of the brain, which is very consoling to us all. Was she all alone when she did it? Could no one wrest the shears from her vandal hand? I declare I fear to return home,—but of course Dr. Prince has her by this time. I shall weep as soon as I have finished this letter.

      But now, to speak seriously, I am really shocked and grieved at hearing of poor little Elly's accident and of her suffering. I suppose she bears it though like one of the Amazons of old. I suppose the proper thing for me to do would be to tell her how naughty and careless she was to go and risk her bones in that unprincipled way, and how it will be a good lesson to her for the future about climbing into swings, etc., etc., ad libitum; but I will leave that to you, as her elder sister (I have no doubt you've dosed her already), and convey to her only the expression of my warmest condolence and sympathy. I hope to see her getting on finely when I come home, which will be shortly. After all it will soon be over, and then her arm will be better than ever, twice as strong, and who of us are exempt from pain? Take me, for example: you might weep tears of blood to see me day after day forced to hold ignited crucibles in my naked hands till the eyes of my neighbors water and their throats choke with the dense fumes of the burning leather. Yet I ask for no commiseration. Nevertheless I bestow it upon poor Elly, to whom give my best love and say I look forward to seeing her soon.

      And Henrietta the ablebodied and strongminded—your report of her constancy touched me more than anything has for a long while. Tell her to stick it out for a few days longer and she will be richly rewarded by an apple and a chestnut from Massachusetts. As for yourself and sister in the affair of the wings, 'tis but what I expected,—I am too old now to expect much from human nature,—yet after such length of striving to please, so many months of incessant devotion, one must feel a slight twinge. If your sister can still understand, let her know that I thank her for her photograph. Too bad, too bad! With her long locks she would still be winning, outwardly, spite of the howling fiends within; but they gone, like Samson, she has nothing left.—But now, my dear Kitty, I must put an end to my scribbling. This writing in the middle of the week is an unheard-of license, for I must work, work, work. Relentless Chemistry claims its hapless victim. Excuse all faults of grammar, punctuation, spelling and sense on the score of telegraphic haste. Love to all and to yourself. Please "remember me" to your aunt Charlotte, and believe [me] yours affectionately,

W. J.

      To his Family

CAMBRIDGE,Sunday afternoon [Early Nov., 1861].

      Dearly beloved Family,—Wilky and I have just returned from dinner, and having completed a concert for the benefit of the inmates of Pasco Hall and the Hall next door, turn ourselves, I to writing a word home, he to digesting in a "lobbing" position on the sofa. Wilky wrote you a complete account of our transactions in Boston yesterday much better than I could have done. I suppose you will ratify our action as it seemed the only one possible to us. The radiance of Harry's visit21 has not faded yet, and I come upon gleams of it three or four times a day in my farings to and fro; but it has never a bit diminished the lustre of far-off shining Newport all silver and blue and this heavenly group below22 (all being more or less failures, especially the two outside ones),—the more so as the above-mentioned Harry could in no wise satisfy my cravings to know of the family and friends, as he did not seem to have been on speaking terms with any of them for some time past and could tell me nothing of what they did, said, or thought about any given subject. Never did I see a so much uninterested creature in the affairs of those about him. He is a good soul though in his way, too—much more so than the light fantastic Wilky, who has been doing nothing but disaster since he has been here, breaking down my good resolutions about eating, keeping me from any intellectual exercise, ruining my best hat wearing it while dressing, while in his night-gown, wishing to wash his face with it on, insisting on sleeping in my bed, inflicting on me thereby the pains of crucifixion, and hardly to be prevented from taking the said hat to bed with him. The odious creature occupied my comfortable armchair all the morning in the position represented in the fine plate which accompanies this letter. But one more night though and he shall be gone and no thorn shall be in the side of the serene and hallowed felicity of expectation in which I shall revel until the time comes for going home, home, home to the hearts of my infancy and budding youth.

      It is not homesickness I have, if by that term be meant a sickness of heart and loathing of my present surroundings, but a sentiment far transcending this, that makes my hair curl for joy whenever I think of home, by which home comes to me as hope, not as regret, and which puts roses long faded thence in my old mother's cheeks, mildness in my father's voice, flowing graces into my Aunt Kate's movements, babbling confidingness into Harry's talk, a straight parting into Robby's hair and a heavenly tone into the lovely babe's temper, the elastic graces of a kitten into Moses's23 rusty and rheumatic joints. Aha! Aha! The time will come—Thanksgiving in less than two weeks and then, oh, then!—probably a cold reception, half repellent, no fatted calf, no fresh-baked loaf of spicy bread,—but I dare not think of that side of the picture. I will ever hope and trust and my faith shall be justified.

      As Wilky has submitted to you a résumé of his future history for the next few years, so will I, hoping it will meet your approval. Thus: one year study chemistry, then spend one term at home, then one year with Wyman, then a medical education, then five or six years with Agassiz, then probably death, death, death with inflation and plethora of knowledge. This you had better seriously consider. This is a glorious day and I think I must close and take a walk. So farewell, farewell until a quarter to nine Sunday evening soon! Your bold, your beautiful,

Your Blossom!!

      Dedicated to Miss Kitty, oh! I beg pardon, to Miss Temple.

      The following curious facts were discovered by the Chemist James in some of his recent investigations:

      At Pensacola, Fla., there is a navy yard, and consequently many officers of the U.S.A.

      In Pensacola there is a larger proportional number of old maids than in any city of the Union.

      The ladies of Pensacola, instead of seeking an eligible partner in the middle ranks of society, spend their lives in a vain attempt to entrap the officers who flirt with them and then leave Pensacola. The moral lesson is evident.

      The "Kitty" to whom James addressed the next letter was another cousin, the daughter of one of his father's elder brothers. Her husband was the alienist to whom the reader will remember that the mad Minny was consigned in a previous СКАЧАТЬ