How delightful about the Radcliffe building!
Well, once more, dear Mrs. Agassiz, we both thank you for this beautiful and truly affectionate letter. Your affectionate,
WM. JAMES.
E. L. Godkin had recently died, and at the date of the next letter a movement was on foot to raise money for a memorial in commemoration of his public services. The money was soon subscribed and the Memorial took shape in the endowment of the Godkin Lectureship at Harvard. James had started discussion of the project at a meeting of the dinner Club and Henry L. Higginson had continued it in a letter to which the following replied.
To Henry L. Higginson.
CAMBRIDGE, Feb. 8, 1903.
Dear Henry,—I am sorry to have given a wrong impression, and made you take the trouble of writing—nutritious though your letters be to receive. My motive in mentioning the Godkin testimonial was pure curiosity, and not desire to promote it. We were ten "liberals" together, and I wanted to learn how many of us had been alienated from Godkin by his temper in spite of having been influenced by his writing. I found that it was just about half and half. I never said—Heaven bear me witness—that I had learned more from G. than from anyone. I said I had got more political education from him. You see the "Nation" took me at the age of 22—you were already older and wickeder. If you follow my advice now, you don't subscribe a cent to this memorial. I shall subscribe $100, for mixed reasons. Godkin's "home life" was very different from his life against the world. When a man differed in type from him, and consequently reacted differently on public matters; he thought him a preposterous monster, pure and simple, and so treated him. He couldn't imagine a different kind of creature from himself in politics. But in private relations he was simplicity and sociability and affectionateness incarnate, and playful as a young opossum. I never knew his first wife well, but I admire the pluck and fidelity of the second, and I note your chivalrous remarks about the sex, including Mrs. W. J., to whom report has been made of them, making her blush with pleasure.
Don't subscribe, dear Henry. I am not trying to raise subscriptions. You left too early Friday eve. Ever affectionately yours,
W. J.