The Letters of William James, Vol. 1. William James
to the practice of the class by attempting to keep a graphic record of his microscopic studies in histology and pathology. When questioned about this long after, he admitted that he believed himself to have been the only student of his time in the Medical School who took the trouble to make drawings from the microscopic field with regularity.
The teaching of Pasteur and Lister had not then revolutionized medicine. Modern bacteriology and the possibilities of aseptic surgery were yet to be understood. Surgeons who operated in the amphitheatre of the Massachusetts General Hospital could still take pride in appearing in blood-soiled gowns, much as a fisherman scorns a brand-new outfit and sports his weather-rusted old clothes. The demonstrations of even Dr. Henry J. Bigelow, a skillful operator who was then a leader in his profession, filled James with a horror which he never forgot.
On the other hand, the discovery of anesthesia, which made possible an enlarged and humane use of animals for experimental inquiry, and such illuminating reports and investigations as those of Claude Bernard, Helmholtz, Virchow and Ludwig were giving a great impetus to the investigation of bodily processes and functions, and a study of these was a possible next step in James's evolution. He had already been unusually well grounded in comparative anatomy by Agassiz and Jeffries Wyman. He was gravitating surely, even if he did not yet realize it clearly, toward philosophy. Whenever he more or less consciously projected himself forward, it must have seemed to him that the examination of processes in the living body, for which he was already prepared, might be related, in an enlightening way, to the philosophic pursuits that were beginning to invite him. Physiology therefore commanded both his respect and his curiosity, and he turned in that direction rather than toward what he then saw surgery and the practice of internal medicine to be.
During the winter of 1866-67 he lived with his parents in the house30 in Quincy Street, Cambridge, in which they had settled themselves, and worked regularly at the Medical School. He had come back from the year of mere animal existence on the Amazon in excellent physical condition.
Of the four letters which follow, two were written to Thomas W. Ward, who, it will be remembered, had been a member of the Amazon Expedition, and who, after getting back to New York, had entered the great Baring banking house of which his father, Samuel Ward, was the American partner. O. W. Holmes, Jr., will be recognized as the present Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. In no one did James find more sympathetic philosophic companionship at this period.
To Thomas W. Ward
Meo caro Compadre,—I have been intending to write you every night for the last month, but the strange epistolary inertia which always weighs down upon me has kept me from it until now. I have had news of you two or three times from my father having met yours, and from Dexter, who said he had met you in New York. I am very curious to know how you find your occupation to suit you, and if you find the dust of daily drudgery to obscure at all the visions of your far-off-future power. From what Dexter said I am afraid they do a little. We had given up Allen31 as gone to the fishes; but the poor Devil arrived last week after a 98-days' passage!!! I never felt gladder for anything in my life. He had a horrible time at sea, being within 160 miles of New York and then blown back as far as St. Thomas. He says most of his collections arrived at Bahia spoiled by the sun. He was sixteen days crossing a limestone desert on which nothing grew but cacti; so there was no shade at noon, and the thermometer at 98°. His health has been improved by the voyage, however, and he thinks it is better now than when he left for Brazil. Nevertheless he is going to give up natural history for the present and adopt some out-of-door life till he gets decidedly better, which he says he has been slowly but steadily doing for some years past. Poor Allen! None of us have been sold as badly as he. If I had not been to Brazil, I would go again to do what I have done, knowing beforehand what it would be. Allen says he would not, on any account.
I have been studying now for about two weeks, and think I shall be much more interested in it than before. It was some time before I could get settled down to reading. But now I do it quite naturally, and even thinking is beginning not to feel like a wholly abnormal process; all which, as you may imagine, is very agreeable—altho' I confess that as yet the philosophical rouages of my mind have not attained even to the degree of lubrication they had before I left. I shan't apologize for the egotistical pronoun, for I suppose, my dear old Thomas, that you will be interested to compare my experience since my return with yours, and learn something from it if possible—even as I would with yours. I spent the first month of my return in nothing but "social intercourse," having the two Temple girls and Elly Van Buren in the house for a fortnight, and being obliged to escort them about to parties, etc., nearly every night. The consequences were a falling in love with every girl I met—succeeded now by a reaction which makes me, and will make me for a long time, decline every invitation. I feel now somehow as if I had settled down upon a steady track that I shall not have much temptation to slip off of, for a good many months at any rate. I am conscious of a desire I never had before so strongly or so permanently, of narrowing and deepening the channel of my intellectual activity, of economizing my feeble energies and consequently treating with more respect the few things I shall devote them to. This temper may be a transient one; mais pour peu qu'il dure un an ou deux, to fix the shorter term! I'm sure it will give a tone to my mind it lacked before. As for the disrespect with which you treat the worthy problems that you turn your back upon, I don't see now exactly how you get over that; but something tells me that, practically, my salvation depends for the present on following some such plan. And, I am sure that, in the majority of men at any rate, the process of growing into a calm mental state is not one of leveling, but of going around, difficulties. The problem they solve is not one of being, but of method. They reach a point from which the view within certain limits is harmonious, and they keep within those limits; they find as it were a centre of oscillation in which they may be at rest. Now whether any other kind of solution is possible, I don't know. Many men will say not; but I feel somehow, now, as if I had no right to an opinion on any subject, no right to open my mouth before others until I know some one thing as thoroughly as it can be known, no matter how insignificant it may be. After that I shall perhaps be able to think on general subjects.—The only fellow here I care anything about is Holmes, who is on the whole a first-rate article, and one which improves by wear. He is perhaps too exclusively intellectual, but sees things so easily and clearly and talks so admirably that it's a treat to be with him. T. S. Perry is also flourishing in health and spirits. Ed[ward] Emerson I have not yet seen. I made the acquaintance the other day of Miss Fanny Dixwell of Cambridge (the eldest), do you know her? She is decidedly AI, and (so far) the best girl I have known. I should like if possible to confine my whole life to her, Ellen Hooper, Sara Sedgwick,32 Holmes, Harry, and the Medical School, for an indefinite period, letting no breath of extraneous air enter.
There, I hope that's a confession of faith. I wish you would write me a similar or even more "developed" one, for I really want to know how the building up into flesh and blood of the wide-sweeping plans that the solitudes of Brazil gave birth to seems to alter them. Write soon, and I'll answer soon; for I think, Chéri de Thomas, que ce doux commerce que nous avons mené tant d'années ought not all of a sudden to die out. I'd give a great deal to see you, but see no prospect of getting to New York for a long time. Our family spends six months at Swampscott from the first of May. I shall have a room in town. What chance is there of your being able to pay us a visit at Swampscott in my vacation (from July 15 to Sept. 15)? Ever your friend
To Thomas W. Ward
Chéri de Thomas,—I cannot exactly say I hasten to reply to your letter. I have thought of you about every day since I received it, and given you a Brazilian hug therewith, and wanted to write to you; but having been in a pretty unsettled theoretical condition myself, from which I hoped some positive conclusions might emerge worthy to be presented to you as the last word on the Kosmos and the human soul, I deferred writing from day to day, thinking that better than to offer you the crude and premature spawning of my intelligence. In vain! the conclusions never have emerged, and I see that, if I am ever to write
This house has since been enlarged and converted into the Colonial Club.
John A. Allen, another of the Brazilian party.
Miss Dixwell became Mrs. O. W. Holmes; the other two, Mrs. E. W. Gurney and Mrs. William E. Darwin respectively.