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
Cambridge, _Mar. 26, 1910_.
DEAR MILLER,--Your study of me arrives! and I have pantingly turned the
pages to find the eulogistic adjectives, and find them in such abundance
that my head swims. Glory to God that I have lived to see this day! to
have so much said about me, and to be embalmed in literature like the
great ones of the past! I didn't know I was so much, was all these
things, and yet, as I read, I see that I was (or am?), and shall boldly
assert myself when I go abroad.
To speak in all dull soberness, dear Miller, it touches me to the quick
that you should have hatched out this elaborate description of me with
such patient and loving incubation. I have only spent five minutes over
it so far, meaning to take it on the steamer, but I get the impression
that it is almost unexampled in our literature as a piece of profound
analysis of an individual mind. I'm sorry you stick so much to my
psychological phase, which I care little for, now, and never cared much.
This epistemological and metaphysical phase seems to me more original
and important, and I haven't lost hopes of converting you entirely yet.
Meanwhile, thanks! thanks! [Émile] Boutroux, who is a regular angel, has
just left our house. I've written an account of his lectures which the
"Nation" will print on the 31st. I should like you to look it over,
hasty as it is.
...I hope that all these lectures on contemporaries (What a live place
Columbia is!) will appear together in a volume. I can't easily believe
that any will compare with yours as a thorough piece of interpretative
work.
We sail on Tuesday next. My thorax has been going the wrong way badly
this winter, and I hope that Nauheim may patch it up.
Strength to your elbow! Affectionately and gratefully yours,
Wm. James.
XVII
1910
_Final Months--The End_
SEVERAL reasons combined to take James to Europe in the early spring of
1910. His heart had been giving him more discomfort. He wished to
consult a specialist in Paris from whom an acquaintance of his,
similarly afflicted, had received great benefit. He believed that
another course of Nauheim baths would be helpful. Last, and not least,
he wished to be within reach of his brother Henry, who was ill and
concerning whose condition he was much distressed. In reality it was he,
not his brother, who already stood in the shadow of Death's door.
Accordingly he sailed for England with Mrs. James, and went first to
Lamb House. Thence he crossed alone to Paris, and thence went on to
Nauheim, leaving Mrs. James to bring his brother to Nauheim to join him.
The Parisian specialist could do nothing but confirm previous diagnoses.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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