Henry James published many of the few still existing letters which William wrote during this time in his "Notes of a Son and Brother." Three of them are among the first six selected for inclusion here. The fun and extravagance of these early letters is so full of an intimate raillery that they should be read in their context in that book, where the whole family has been made to live again. The first of the letters that follow was written a few weeks after the opening of the autumn term in which James began his course in chemistry. The son of Professor Benjamin Peirce (the mathematician) of whom it makes mention was the brilliant but erratic Charles S. Peirce, to whom other references appear in later letters, and whose name James subsequently associated with his pragmatism. "Harry," "Wilky" and "Bobby" will be recognized as William's younger brothers. Wilky was at the Sanborn School in Concord, thirteen miles away. Bobby was in Newport, under the parental roof at 13 Kay Street. The Emerson referred to was R. W. Emerson's son, Edward W. Emerson, and "Tom" Ward, the Thomas W. Ward of a lifelong friendship and of several later letters and allusions. _To his Family._ CAMBRIDGE, _Sunday Afternoon, Sept. 16, 1861_. DEAREST FAMILY,--This morning, as I was busy over the tenth page of a letter to Wilky, in he popped and made my labor of no account. I had intended to go and see him yesterday, but concluded to delay as I had plenty of work to do and did not wish to take the relish off the visits by making them frequent when I was not home-sick. Moreover, Emerson and Tom Ward were going on, and I thought he would have too much of a good thing. But he walked over this morning with, or rather without them, for he went astray and arrived very hot and dusty. I gave him a bath and took him to dinner and he is now gone to see [Andrew?] Robeson and Emerson. His plump corpusculus looks as always. He says it is pretty lonely at Concord and he misses Bob's lively and sportive wiles very much in the long and lone and dreary evenings, tho' he consoles himself by thinking he will have a great time at study. I have at last got to feel quite settled and homelike. I write in my new parlor whither I moved yesterday. You have no idea what an improvement it is on the old affair, worth double the price, and the little bedroom under the roof is perfectly delicious, with a charming outlook upon little backyards with trees and pretty old brick walls. The sun is upon _this_ room from earliest dawn till late in the afternoon--a capital thing in winter.