CAMBRIDGE, July 18 [1905].
Dear H.,—You asked me how rich I was getting by my own (as distinguished from your) exertions....
I find on reaching home today a letter from Longmans, Green & Co. with a check ... which I have mailed to your house in State Street....
This ought to please you slightly; but don't reply! Instead, think of the virtues of Roosevelt, either as permanent sovereign of this great country, or as President of Harvard University. I've been having a discussion with Fanny Morse about him, which has resulted in making me his faithful henchman for life, Fanny was so violent. Think of the mighty good-will of him, of his enjoyment of his post, of his power as a preacher, of the number of things to which he gives his attention, of the safety of his second thoughts, of the increased courage he is showing, and above all of the fact that he is an open, instead of an underground leader, whom the voters can control once in four years, when he runs away, whose heart is in the right place, who is an enemy of red tape and quibbling and everything that in general the word "politician" stands for. That significance of him in the popular mind is a great national asset, and it would be a shame to let it run to waste until it has done a lot more work for us. His ambitions are not selfish—he wants to do good only! Bless him—and damn all his detractors like you and F. M.![59]
Don't reply, but vote! Your affectionately
WM. JAMES.
To T. S. Perry.
CAMBRIDGE, Aug. 24, 1905.
Dear Thos!—You're a philosophe sans le savoir and, when you write your treatise against philosophy, you will be classed as the arch-metaphysician. Every philosopher (W. J., e.g.) pretends that all the others are metaphysicians against whom he is simply defending the rights of common sense. As for Nietzsche, the worst break of his I recall was in a posthumous article in one of the French reviews a few months back. In his high and mighty way he was laying down the law about all the European countries. Russia, he said, is "the only one that has any possible future—and that she owes to the strength of the principle of autocracy to which she alone remains faithful," Unfortunately one can't appeal to the principle of democracy to explain Japan's recent successes.
I am very glad you've done something about poor dear old John Fiske, and I should think that you would have no difficulty in swelling it up to the full "Beacon Biography" size. If you want an extra anecdote, you might tell how, when Chauncey Wright, Chas. Peirce, St. John Green, Warner and I appointed an evening to discuss the "Cosmic Philosophy," just out, J. F. went to sleep under our noses.