To Charles Eliot Norton

Patterdale, England, July 6, 1908.

Dear Charles,—Going to Coniston Lake the other day and seeing the moving little Ruskin Museum at Coniston (admission a penny) made me think rather vividly of you, and make a resolution to write to you on the earliest opportunity. It was truly moving to see such a collection of R.'s busy handiwork, exquisite and loving, in the way of drawing, sketching, engraving and note-taking, and also such a varied lot of photographs of him, especially in his old age. Glorious old Don Quixote that he was! At Durham, where Alice and I spent three and a half delightful days at the house of F. B. Jevons, Principal of one of the two colleges of which the University is composed, I had a good deal of talk with the very remarkable octogenarian Dean of the Cathedral and Lord of the University, a thorough liberal, or rather radical, in his mind, with a voice like a bell, and an alertness to match, who had been a college friend of Ruskin's and known him intimately all his life, and loved him. He knew not of his correspondence with you, of which I have been happy to be able to order Kent of Harvard Square to send him a copy. His name is Kitchin.

The whole scene at Durham was tremendously impressive (though York Cathedral made the stronger impression on me). It was so unlike Oxford, so much more American in its personnel, in a way, yet nestling in the very bosom of those mediæval stage-properties and ecclesiastical-principality suggestions. Oxford is all spread out in length and breadth, Durham concentrated in depth and thickness. There is a great deal of flummery about Oxford, but I think if I were an Oxonian, in spite of my radicalism generally, I might vote against all change there. It is an absolutely unique fruit of human endeavor, and like the cathedrals, can never to the end of time be reproduced, when the conditions that once made it are changed. Let other places of learning go in for all the improvements! The world can afford to keep her one Oxford unreformed. I know that this is a superficial judgment in both ways, for Oxford does manage to keep pace with the utilitarian spirit, and at the same time preserve lots of her flummery unchanged. On the whole it is a thoroughly democratic place, so far as aristocracy in the strict sense goes. But I'm out of it, and doubt whether I want ever to put foot into it again....

England has changed in many respects. The West End of London, which used at this season to be so impressive from its splendor, is now a mixed and mongrel horde of straw hats and cads of every description. Motor-buses of the most brutal sort have replaced the old carriages, Bond and Regent Streets are cheap-jack shows, everything is tumultuous and confused and has run down in quality. I have been "motoring" a good deal through this "Lake District," owing to the kindness of some excellent people in the hotel, dissenters who rejoice in the name of Squance and inhabit the neighborhood of Durham. It is wondrous fine, but especially adapted to trampers, which I no longer am. Altogether England seems to have got itself into a magnificently fine state of civilization, especially in regard to the cheery and wholesome tone of manners of the people, improved as it is getting to be by the greater infusion of the democratic temper. Everything here seems about twice as good as the corresponding thing with us. But I suspect we have the bigger eventual destiny after all; and give us a thousand years and we may catch up in many details. I think of you as still at Cambridge, and I do hope that physical ills are bearing on more gently. Lily, too, I hope is her well self again. You mustn't think of answering this, which is only an ejaculation of friendship—I shall be home almost before you can get an answer over. Love to all your circle, including Theodora, whom I miss greatly. Affectionately yours,

WM. JAMES.