The Letters of William James, Vol. 1

In explanation of the next letters, it should be said that in 1888 it seemed advisable to get the children into a warmer winter climate than that of Cambridge. Accordingly Mrs....

I am delighted to hear how well Wilky is, and to hear from him. I wish Bob would write me a line--and only one letter from Alice in all this time--shame! Oh, the lovely white ch...

His first reaction to a new scene or to fresh contact with a foreign people was apt to be one of admiration. "How jolly it looks!" he would exclaim, "and how superior in such an...

Lectures are temporarily stopped and examinations begun. I seized the opportunity to go to my Chocorua place and see just what was needed to make it habitable for the summer. It...

By 10 o'clock T. S. P. had gone to his German lesson, and it was about time for me to rig up to go to Grimm's to dine, having received a kind invitation the day before. As I pas...

The Professor has just been expatiating over the map of South America and making projects as if he had Sherman's army at his disposal instead of the ten novices he really has. H...

Gents!--entry-thieves--chevaliers d'industrie--well-dressed swindlers--confidence men--wolves in sheep's clothing--asses in lion's skin--gentlemanly pickpockets--beware! The han...

I have long been meaning to write of my intense enjoyment of Du Maurier's "Peter Ibbetson," which I verily believe will be one of the classics of the English tongue. The _beauty...

But enough of national gossip--let us return to that about individuals. Oh! that I could see thy prominent nose and thy sagacious eyes at this moment relieved against the back o...

Professor Howison, who was informed of the project, had uttered a protest against the irreverent irony with which James treated the Hegelian dialectics in the "Principles,"[96]...

I have read your article, which I got in Teplitz, several times carefully. I must confess that the darkness which to me has always hung over what you have written on these subje...

"William, instead of going to Switzerland, came suddenly back from Paris and went home, having, as usual, exhausted Europe in a few weeks, finding it stale, flat and unprofitabl...

The fact that James began by teaching anatomy and physiology, passed thence to psychology, and last to philosophy, has been wrongly cited as if his interest in each successive s...

We have been so long accustomed to the hypothesis of your being taken away from us, especially during the past ten months, that the thought that this may be your last illness co...

The latter explains your mysterious interest in my affairs. I feared as much! Go on, Shylock, go on! you have me in your power. The peculiar combination of ignorance and poverty...

It must be left to a later day and a less intimate and partial hand to do adequate justice to a marriage which was happy in the rarest and fullest sense, and which was soon to w...

MY DEAR STUMPF,--...Let me tell you of my own fate since I wrote you last. It has been an eventful and in some respects a sad year. We lost our youngest child in the summer--the...

Sunday before last Mrs. Bancroft told me that the most beautiful woman in Berlin had asked after me with affection and expressed a desire to see me. After making me guess in vai...

What I most urgently wanted to hear from you was some estimate of Münsterberg, and when you say, "he is an immense success," you may imagine how I am pleased. He has his foibles...

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 an...

DEAR SIR,--You were good enough, when I called on you at Mr. Appleton's request in New York, to say among other friendly things that you would send me your paper; and I have reg...

I have done hardly any reading since the beginning of March. My genius for being frustrated and interrupted, and our unsettled mode of life have played too well into each other'...

IN the spring of 1867 James interrupted his course at the Medical School again. He was impelled to do this, partly by the pressure of a conviction that his health required him t...

I got a note from Hillebrand saying Schiff would gladly let me work in his laboratory if I liked. I suppose I ought if I can, but I hanker after home even at the price of a Febr...

As for myself, I must frankly confess to you that I am more unsettled than I have been for years. I have read several times over your reply to Lotze, and your reply to my letter...

The last ancestor to arrive in America was William James's paternal grandfather. This grandfather, whose name was also William James, came from Bally-James-Duff, County Cavan, i...

WHETHER William James was compressing his correspondence into brief messages, or allowing it to expand into copious letters, he could not write a page that was not free, animate...

[67] "My tour in Germany was pleasant, and from the pedagogic point of view instructive; although its chief result was to make me more satisfied than ever with our Harvard Colle...