← The Letters of William James, Vol. 2
Chapter 196
To Benjamin Paul Blood
Constance, June 25, 1910.
My dear Blood,—About the time you will receive this, you will also be surprised by receiving the "Hibbert Journal" for July, with an article signed by me, but written mainly by yourself. Tired of waiting for your final synthetic pronunciamento, and fearing I might be cut off ere it came, I took time by the forelock, and at the risk of making ducks and drakes of your thoughts, I resolved to save at any rate some of your rhetoric, and the result is what you see. Forgive! forgive! forgive! It will at any rate have made you famous, for the circulation of the H. J. is choice, as well as large (12,000 or more, I'm told), and the print and paper the best ever yet, I seem to have lost the editor's letter, or I would send it to you. He wrote, in accepting the article in May, "I have already 40 articles accepted, and some of the writers threaten lawsuits for non-publication, yet such was the exquisite refreshment Blood's writing gave me, under the cataract of sawdust in which editorially I live, that I have this day sent the article to the printer. Actions speak louder than words! Blood is simply great, and you are to be thanked for having dug him out. L. P. Jacks." Of course I've used you for my own purposes, and probably misused you; but I'm sure you will feel more pleasure than pain, and perhaps write again in the "Hibbert" to set yourself right. You're sure of being printed, whatever you may send. How I wish that I too could write poetry, for pluralism is in its Sturm und Drang period, and verse is the only way to express certain things, I've just been taking the "cure" at Nauheim for my unlucky heart—no results so far!
Sail for home again on August 12th. Address always Cambridge, Mass.; things are forwarded. Warm regards, fellow pluralist. Yours ever,
WM. JAMES.