Volume 1

The letters of William James / edited by his son, Henry James.

  • William James
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The letters of William James / edited by his son, Henry James. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    townsman Rindge in his monumental inscription, “every man” (and “every” boy!) “should have an honest occu¬ pation.” 1 What they need is comrades of their own age, and competitive play and work, rather than monuments of antiquity or landscape beauty. Animal, not vegetable or mineral life is their element. The school is English, they 'll get no more French or German there than at Browne and Nichols's [school at home] and they ’ll have to begin Ital¬ ian, I’m afraid, which will be pure interruption and leave not a rack behind after they’ve been home a year. Still one must n’t always grumble about one’s children, and they are getting an amount of perception over here, and a free¬ dom from prejudices about American things and ways, which will certainly be of general service to their intelli¬ gence, and be worth more to them hereafter than their year would have been if spent in drill for the Harvard exams — even if what they lose do amount to a whole year, which I much doubt. But I think it may be called certain that they shan’t be kept abroad a second year! For ourselves, Florence is delicious. I have a sort of organic protestation against certain things here, the tone¬ less air in the streets, which feels like used-up indoor air, the “general debility” which pervades all ways and institutions, the worn-out faces, etc., etc. But the charming sunny manners, the old-world picturesqueness wherever you cast y your eye, and above all, the magnificent remains of art, redeem it all, and insidiously spin a charm round one which might well end by turning one into one of these mere north¬ ern loungers here for the rest of one’s days, recreant to all one’s native instincts. The stagnancy of the thermometer is the great thing. Day after day a changeless air, some¬ times sun and sometimes shower, but no other difference 1 See vol. 11, p. 39 infra.
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