To John Jay Chapman

CAMBRIDGE, May 18, 1906.

Dear Old Jack C.,—Having this minute come into the possession of a new type-writer, what can I do better than express my pride in the same by writing to you?

I spent last night at George Dorr's and he read me several letters from you, telling me also of your visit, and of how well you seemed. For years past I have been on the point of writing to you to assure [you] of my continued love and to express my commiseration for your poor wife, who has had so long to bear the brunt of your temper—you see I have been there already and I know how one's irritability is exasperated by conditions of nervous prostration—but now I can write and congratulate you on having recovered, temper and all. (As I write, it bethinks me that in a previous letter I have made identical jokes about your temper which, I fear, will give Mrs. Chapman a very low opinion of my humoristic resources, and in sooth they are small; but we are as God makes us and must not try to be anything else, so pray condone the silliness and let it pass.) The main thing is that you seem practically to have recovered, in spite of everything; and I am heartily glad.

I too am well enough for all practical purposes, but I have to go slow and not try to do too many things in a day. Simplification of life and consciousness I find to be the great thing, but a hard thing to compass when one lives in city conditions. How our dear Sarah Whitman lived in the sort of railroad station she made of her life—I confess it's a mystery to me. If I lived at a place called Barrytown, it would probably go better—don't you ever go back to New York to live!

Alice and I had a jovial time at sweet little Stanford University. It was the simple life in the best sense of the term. I am glad for once to have been part of the working machine of California, and a pretty deep part too, as it afterwards turned out. The earthquake also was a memorable bit of experience, and altogether we have found it mind-enlarging and are very glad we ben there. But the whole intermediate West is awful—a sort of penal doom to have to live there; and in general the result with me of having lived 65 years in America is to make me feel as if I had at least bought the right to a certain capriciousness, and were free now to live for the remainder of my days wherever I prefer and can make my wife and children consent—it is more likely to be in rural than in urban surroundings, and in the maturer than in the rawrer parts of the world. But the first thing is to get out of the treadmill of teaching, which I hate and shall resign from next year. After that, I can use my small available store of energy in writing, which is not only a much more economical way of working it, but more satisfactory in point of quality, and more lucrative as well.

Now, J. C., when are you going to get at writing again? The world is hungry for your wares. No one touches certain deep notes of moral truth as you do, and your humor is köstlich and impayable. You ought to join the band of "pragmatistic" or "humanistic" philosophers. I almost fear that Barrytown may not yet have begun to be disturbed by the rumor of their achievements, the which are of the greatest, and seriously I du think that the world of thought is on the eve of a renovation no less important than that contributed by Locke. The leaders of the new movement are Dewey, Schiller of Oxford, in a sense Bergson of Paris, a young Florentine named Papini, and last and least worthy, W. J. H. G. Wells ought to be counted in, and if I mistake not G. K. Chesterton as well. I hope you know and love the last-named writer, who seems to me a great teller of the truth. His systematic preference for contradictions and paradoxical forms of statement seems to me a mannerism somewhat to be regretted in so wealthy a mind; but that is a blemish from which some of our very greatest intellects are not altogether free—the philosopher of Barrytown himself being not wholly exempt. Join us, O Jack, and in the historic and perspective sense your fame will be secure. All future Histories of Philosophy will print your name.

But although my love for you is not exhausted, my type-writing energy is. It communicates stiffness and cramps, both to the body and the mind. Nevertheless I think I have been doing pretty well for a first attempt, don't you? If you return me a good long letter telling me more particularly about the process of your recovery, I will write again, even if I have to take a pen to do it, and in any case I will do it much better than this time.

Believe me, dear old J. C., with hearty affection and delight at your recovery—all these months I have been on the brink of writing to find out how you were—and with very best regards to your wife, whom some day I wish we may be permitted to know better. Yours very truly,

WM. JAMES.

Everyone dead! Hodgson, Shaler, James Peirce this winter—to go no further afield! Resserrons les rangs!