The Letters of William James, Vol. 2James, William
Philosophy
The Letters of William James, Vol. 2
James, William
Intellectuals -- United States; James, William, 1842-1910; Philosophers -- United States; Psychologists -- United States
DEAR PROFESSOR JERUSALEM,--Your letter of the 1st of September,
forwarded from Cambridge, reaches me here in the Adirondack Mountains
today. I am glad the publisher is found, and that you are enjoying the
drudgery of translating ["Pragmatism"]. Also that you find the book more
and more in agreement with your own philosophy. I fear that its
untechnicality of style--or rather its deliberate
_anti_-technicality--will make the German _Gelehrtes Publikum_,[82] as
well as the professors, consider it _oberflächliches Zeug_[83]--which
it assuredly is not, although, being only a sketch, it ought to be
followed by something _tighter_ and abounding in discriminations.
Pragmatism is an unlucky word in some respects, and the two meanings I
give for it are somewhat heterogeneous. But it was already in vogue in
France and Italy as well as in England and America, and it was
_tactically_ advantageous to use it....
_To Henry James._
STONEHURST, INTERVALE, N.H., _Oct._ 6, 1907.
DEAREST BROTHER,--I write this at the [James] Bryces', who have taken
the Merrimans' house for the summer, and whither I came the day before
yesterday, after closing our Chocorua house, and seeing Alice leave for
home. We had been there a fortnight, trying to get some work done, and
having to do most of it with our own hands, or rather with Alice's
heroic hands, for mine are worth almost nothing in these degenerate
days. It is enough to make your heart break to see the scarcity of
"labor," and the whole country tells the same story. Our future at
Chocorua is a somewhat problematic one, though I think we shall manage
to pass next summer there and get it into better shape for good renting,
thereafter, at any cost (not the renting but the shaping). After that
what _I_ want is a free foot, and the children are now not dependent on
a family summer any longer....
I spent the first three weeks of September--warm ones--in my beloved and
exquisite Keene Valley, where I was able to do a good deal of uphill
walking, with good rather than bad effects, much to my joy. Yesterday I
took a three hours walk here, three quarters of an hour of it uphill. I
have to go alone, and slowly; but it's none the worse for that and makes
one feel like old times. I leave this P.M. for two more days at
Chocorua--at the hotel. The fall is late, but the woods are beginning
to redden beautifully. With the sun behind them, some maples look like
stained-glass windows. But the penury of the human part of this region
is depressing, and I begin to have an appetite for Europe again. Alice
too! To be at Cambridge with no lecturing and no students to nurse along
with their thesis-work is an almost incredibly delightful prospect. I am
going to settle down to the composition of another small book, more
original and ground-breaking than anything I have yet put forth(!),
which I expect to print by the spring; after which I can lie back and
write at leisure more routine things for the rest of my days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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