[4] If the reader were familiar, as he cannot be presumed to have been, with the elder Henry James or his writings, he would be in no danger of finding anything cold or qualifying in these words, but would discern a true adoration expressing itself in a way that was peculiarly characteristic of their writer. For Henry James, Senior, a spiritual democracy deeper than that of our political jargon was not a mere conception: it was an unquestioned reality. The outer wrappings in which people swathed their souls excited him to anger and ridicule more often than praise; but when men or women seemed to him beautiful or adorable he thought it was because they betrayed more naturally than others the inward possession of that humble "social" spirit which he wanted to think of as truly a common possession--God's equal gift to each and all. To say of his mother that _that_ could be felt in her, that she was _merely_ that, was his purest praise. The reader may find this habit of his thought expressing itself anew in William James by turning to a letter on page 210 below. That letter might have been written by Henry James, Senior. [5] The places of two of the eleven who died early were taken by their orphaned children. [6] According to the Rev. Hugh Walsh of Newburgh, who has worked out the Walsh genealogy. _A Small Boy and Others_ (page 6) says "Killyleagh." [7] _A Small Boy and Others_, p. 8. [8] _Literary Remains of Henry James_, Introduction, p. 9. [9] See, further, _Notes of a Son and Brother_, pp. 181 _et seq._ [10] _Society of the Redeemed Form of Man_, quoted in the Introduction to _Literary Remains_, p. 57, _et seq._ [11] Letter to Shadworth H. Hodgson, p. 241 _infra_. [12] _A Small Boy and Others_, p. 216. [13] _Vide_ also a passage in the _Literary Remains_, at p. 104. [14] _Life of E. L. Godkin_, vol. II, p. 218. New York, 1907. [15] _Early Years of the Saturday Club_; E. W. Emerson's chapter on Henry James, Senior, p. 328. There follows a delightful account of a "Conversation" at R. W. Emerson's house in Concord, at which Henry James, Senior, upset a prepared discourse of Alcott's and launched himself into an attack on "Morality." Whereupon Miss Mary Moody Emerson, "eighty-four years old and dressed underneath without doubt, in her shroud," seized him by the shoulders and shook him and rebuked him. "Mr. James beamed with delight and spoke with most chivalrous courtesy to this Deborah bending over him." [16] Some passages in William James's early letters to his family might seem labored. They should be read with this in mind. An especially high-sounding phrase or a flight into a grand style was understood as a signal meaning "fun," and such passages are never to be taken as serious. [17] _A Small Boy and Others_, p. 207.