The Letters of William James, Vol. 2. William James

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СКАЧАТЬ to get seats, who transport themselves from one lecture-room to another en masse. One was on bread-making, with practical demonstrations. One was on walking, by a graceful young Delsartian, who showed us a lot. One was on telling stories to children, the psychology and pedagogy of it. The audiences interrupt and ask questions occasionally in spite of their size. There is hardly a pretty woman's face in the lot, and they seem to have little or no humor in their composition. No epicureanism of any sort!

      Yesterday was a beautiful day, and I sailed an hour and a half down the Lake again to "Celoron," "America's greatest pleasure resort,"—in other words popcorn and peep-show place. A sort of Midway-Pleasance in the wilderness—supported Heaven knows how, so far from any human habitation except the odd little Jamestown from which a tramway leads to it. Good monkeys, bears, foxes, etc. Endless peanuts, popcorn, bananas, and soft drinks; crowds of people, a ferris wheel, a balloon ascension, with a man dropping by a parachute, a theatre, a vast concert hall, and all sorts of peep-shows. I feel as if I were in a foreign land; even as far east as this the accent of everyone is terrific. The "Nation" is no more known than the London "Times." I see no need of going to Europe when such wonders are close by. I breakfasted with a Methodist parson with 32 false teeth, at the X's table, and discoursed of demoniacal possession. The wife said she had my portrait in her bedroom with the words written under it, "I want to bring a balm to human lives"!!!!! Supposed to be a quotation from me!!! After breakfast an extremely interesting lady who has suffered from half-possessional insanity gave me a long account of her case. Life is heroic indeed, as Harry wrote. I shall stay through tomorrow, and get to Syracuse on Tuesday....

July 27.

      It rained hard last night, and today a part of the time. I took a lesson in roasting, in Delsarte, and I made with my own fair hands a beautiful loaf of graham bread with some rolls, long, flute-like, and delicious. I should have sent them to you by express, only it seemed unnecessary, since I can keep the family in bread easily after my return home. Please tell this, with amplifications, to Peggy and Tweedy....

Buffalo, N.Y., July 29.

      The Chautauqua week, or rather six and a half days, has been a real success. I have learned a lot, but I'm glad to get into something less blameless but more admiration-worthy. The flash of a pistol, a dagger, or a devilish eye, anything to break the unlovely level of 10,000 good people—a crime, murder, rape, elopement, anything would do. I don't see how the younger Vincents stand it, because they are people of such spirit....

Syracuse, N.Y., July 31.

      Now for Utica and Lake Placid by rail, with East Hill in prospect for tomorrow. You bet I rejoice at the outlook—I long to escape from tepidity. Even an Armenian massacre, whether to be killer or killed, would seem an agreeable change from the blamelessness of Chautauqua as she lies soaking year after year in her lakeside sun and showers. Man wants to be stretched to his utmost, if not in one way then in another!…

      To Miss Rosina H. Emmet

Burlington, Vt., Aug. 2, 1896.

      I have seen more women and less beauty, heard more voices and less sweetness, perceived more earnestness and less triumph than I ever supposed possible. Most of the American nation (and probably all nations) is white-trash,—but Tolstoy has borne me up—and I say unto you: "Smooth out your voices if you want to be saved"!!…

      To Charles Renouvier

Burlington, Vt., Aug. 4, 1896.

      Dear Mr. Renouvier,—My wife announces to me from Cambridge the reception of two immense volumes from you on the Philosophy of History. I thank you most heartily for the gift, and am more and more amazed at your intellectual and moral power—physical power, too, for the nervous energy required for your work has to be extremely great.

      My own nervous energy is a small teacup-full, and is more than consumed by my duties of teaching, so that almost none is left over for writing. I sent you a "New World" the other day, however, with an article in it called "The Will to Believe," in which (if you took the trouble to glance at it) you probably recognized how completely I am still your disciple. In this point perhaps more fully than in any other; and this point is central!

      I have to lecture on general "psychology" and "morbid psychology," "the philosophy of nature" and the "philosophy of Kant," thirteen lectures a week for half the year and eight for the rest. Our University moreover inflicts a monstrous amount of routine business on one, faculty meetings and committees of every sort,10 so that during term-time one can do no continuous reading at all—reading of books, I mean. When vacation comes, my brain is so tired that I can read nothing serious for a month. During the past month I have only read Tolstoy's two great novels, which, strange to say, I had never attacked before. I don't like his fatalism and semi-pessimism, but for infallible veracity concerning human nature, and absolute simplicity of method, he makes all the other writers of novels and plays seem like children.

      All this proves that I shall be slow in attaining to the reading of your book. I have not yet read Pillon's last Année except some of the book notices and Danriac's article. How admirably clear P. is in style, and what a power of reading he possesses.

      I hope, dear Mr. Renouvier, that the years are not weighing heavily upon you, and that this letter will find you well in body and in mind. Yours gratefully and faithfully,

WM. JAMES.

      To Theodore Flournoy

Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Aug. 30, 1896.

      My Dear Flournoy,—You see the electric current of sympathy that binds the world together—I turn towards you, and the place I write from repeats the name of your Lake Leman. I was informed yesterday, however, that the lake here was named after Lake Geneva in the State of New York! and that Lake only has Leman for its Godmother. Still you see how dependent, whether immediately or remotely, America is on Europe. I was at Niagara some three weeks ago, and bought a photograph as souvenir and addressed it to you after getting back to Cambridge. Possibly Madame Flournoy will deign to accept it. I have thought of you a great deal without writing, for truly, my dear Flournoy, there is hardly a human being with whom I feel as much sympathy of aims and character, or feel as much "at home," as I do with you. It is as if we were of the same stock, and I often mentally turn and make a remark to you, which the pressure of life's occupations prevents from ever finding its way to paper.

      I am hoping that you may have figured, or at any rate been, at the Munich "Congress"—that apparently stupendous affair. If they keep growing at this rate, the next Paris one will be altogether too heavy. I have heard no details of the meeting as yet. But whether you have been at Munich or not, I trust that you have been having a salubrious and happy vacation so far, and that Mrs. Flournoy and the young people are all well. I will venture to suppose that your illness of last year has left no bad effects whatever behind. I myself have had a rather busy and instructive, though possibly not very hygienic summer, making money (in moderate amounts) by lecturing on psychology to teachers at different "summer schools" in this land. There is a great fermentation in "pædagogy" at present in the U.S., and my wares come in for their share of patronage. But although I learn a good deal and become a better American for having all the travel and social experience, it has ended by being too tiresome; and when I give the lectures at Chicago, which I begin tomorrow, I shall have them stenographed and very likely published in a very small volume, and so remove from myself the temptation ever to give them again.

      Last year was a year of hard work, and before the end of the term came, I was in a state of bad neurasthenic fatigue, but I got through outwardly all right. I have definitely given up the laboratory, for which I am more and more unfit, and shall probably devote what little ability I may hereafter have to purely "speculative" work. My inability to read troubles me a good deal: I am in arrears of several years with psychological literature, which, to tell the truth, СКАЧАТЬ