The Letters of William James, Vol. 1James, William
General
The Letters of William James, Vol. 1
James, William
Intellectuals -- United States; James, William, 1842-1910; Philosophers -- United States; Psychologists -- United States
Perry is also flourishing in health and spirits. Ed[ward]
Emerson I have not yet seen. I made the acquaintance the other day of
Miss Fanny Dixwell of Cambridge (the eldest), do you know her? She is
decidedly AI, and (so far) the best girl I have known. I should like if
possible to confine my whole life to her, Ellen Hooper, Sara
Sedgwick,[34] Holmes, Harry, and the Medical School, for an indefinite
period, letting no breath of extraneous air enter.
There, I hope that's a confession of faith. I wish you would write me a
similar or even more "developed" one, for I really want to know how the
building up into flesh and blood of the wide-sweeping plans that the
solitudes of Brazil gave birth to seems to alter them. Write soon, and
I'll answer soon; for I think, Chéri de Thomas, que ce doux commerce que
nous avons mené tant d'années ought not all of a sudden to die out. I'd
give a great deal to see you, but see no prospect of getting to New York
for a long time. Our family spends six months at Swampscott from the
first of May. I shall have a room in town. What chance is there of your
being able to pay us a visit at Swampscott in my vacation (from July 15
to Sept. 15)? Ever your friend
WM. JAMES.
_To Thomas W. Ward._
BOSTON, _June 8, 1866_.
CHÉRI DE THOMAS,--I cannot exactly say I _hasten_ to reply to your
letter. I have thought of you about every day since I received it, and
given you a Brazilian hug therewith, and wanted to write to you; but
having been in a pretty unsettled theoretical condition myself, from
which I hoped some positive conclusions might emerge worthy to be
presented to you as the last word on the Kosmos and the human soul, I
deferred writing from day to day, thinking that better than to offer you
the crude and premature spawning of my intelligence. In vain! the
conclusions never have emerged, and I see that, if I am _ever_ to write
you, I must do it on the spur of the moment, with all my dullness thick
upon me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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