The Letters of William James, Vol. 1 · William James
WM. JAMES.
Love too, to the Nortons, old and young, and to the Childs. _To Josiah Royce._ FLORENCE, _Dec. 18, 1892_. BELOVED JOSIAH,--Your letter of Oct. 12, with "missent Indian mail" stamped upon its envelope in big letters, was handed in only ten days ago, after I had long said in my heart that you were no true friend to leave me thus languishing so long in ignorance of all that was befalling in Irving St. and the country round about. Its poetical hyperboles about the way I was missed made amends for everything, so I am not now writing to ask you for my diamonds back, or to return my ringlet of your hair. It was a beautiful and bully letter and filled the hearts of both of us with exceeding joy. I have heard since then from the Gibbenses that you are made Professor--I fear at not more than $3000. But still it is a step ahead and I congratulate you most heartily thereupon. What I most urgently wanted to hear from you was some estimate of Münsterberg, and when you say, "he is an immense success," you may imagine how I am pleased. He has his foibles, as who has not; but I have a strong impression that that youth will be a great man. Moreover, his naïveté and openness of nature make him very lovable. I do hope that [his] English will go--of course there can be no question of the students liking him, when once he gets his communications open. He has written me exhaustive letters, and seems to be outdoing even you in the amount of energizing which he puts forth. May God have him in his holy keeping!
From the midst of my laziness here the news I get from Cambridge makes it seem like a little seething Florence of the XVth Century. Having all the time there is, to myself, I of course find I have no time for doing any particular duties, and the consequence is that the days go by without anything very serious accomplished. But we live well and are comfortable by means of sheet-iron stoves which the clammy quality of the cold rather than its intensity seems to necessitate, and Italianism is "striking in" to all of us to various degrees of depth, shallowest of all I fear in Peg and the baby. When _Gemüthlichkeit_ is banished from the world, it will still survive in this dear and shabby old country; though I suppose the same sort of thing is really to be found in the East even more than in Italy, and that we shall seek it there when Italy has got as tram-roaded and modernized all over as Berlin. It is a curious smell of the past, that lingers over everything, speech and manners as well as stone and stuffs! I went to Padua last week to a Galileo anniversary. It was splendidly carried out, and great fun; and they gave all of us foreigners honorary degrees. I rather like being a doctor of the University of Padua, and shall feel more at home than hitherto in the "Merchant of Venice." I have written a letter to the "Nation" about it, which I commend to the attention of your gentle partner.[102] ...
Mark Twain is here for the winter in a villa outside the town, hard at work writing something or other. I have seen him a couple of times--a fine, soft-fibred little fellow with the perversest twang and drawl, but very human and good. I should think that one might grow very fond of him, and wish he'd come and live in Cambridge. I am just beginning to wake up from the sort of mental palsy that has been over me for the past year, and to take a little "notice" in matters philosophical. I am now reading Wundt's curiously long-winded "System," which, in spite of his intolerable sleekness and way of _soaping_ everything on to you by plausible transitions so as to make it run continuous, has every now and then a compendiously stated truth, or _aperçu_, which is nourishing and instructive. Come March, I will send you proposals for my work next year, to the "Cosmology" part of which I am just beginning to wake up. [A. W.] Benn, of the history of Greek Philosophy, is here, a shy Irishman (I should judge) with a queer manner, whom I have only seen a couple of times, but with whom I shall probably later take some walks. He seems a good and well-informed fellow, much devoted to astronomy, and I have urged your works on his attention. He lent me the "New World" with your article in it, which I read with admiration. Would that belief would ensue! Perhaps I shall get straight.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.