Stanford University, Feb. 1, 1906.
Beloved H.,—Verily 'tis long since I have written to thee, but I have had many and mighty things to do, and lately many business letters to write, so I came not at it. Your last was your delightful reply to my remarks about your "third manner," wherein you said that you would consider your bald head dishonored if you ever came to pleasing me by what you wrote, so shocking was my taste.[63] Well! only write for me, and leave the question of pleasing open! I have to admit that in "The Golden Bowl" and "The Wings of the Dove," you have succeeded in getting there after a fashion, in spite of the perversity of the method and its longness, which I am not the only one to deplore.
But enough! let me tell you of my own fortunes!
I got here (after five pestilentially close-aired days in the train, and one entrancing one off at the Grand Canyon of the Colorado) on the 8th, and have now given nine lectures, to 300 enrolled students and about 150 visitors, partly colleagues. I take great pains, prepare a printed syllabus, very fully; and really feel for the first time in my life, as if I were lecturing well. High time, after 30 years of practice! It earns me $5000, if I can keep it up till May 27th; but apart from that, I think it is a bad way of expending energy. I ought to be writing my everlastingly postponed book, which this job again absolutely adjourns. I can't write a line of it while doing this other thing. (A propos to which, I got a telegram from Eliot this A.M., asking if I would be Harvard Professor for the first half of next year at the University of Berlin. I had no difficulty in declining that, but I probably shall not decline Paris, if they offer it to me year after next.) I am expecting Alice to arrive in a fortnight. I have got a very decent little second story, just enough for the two of us, or rather amply enough, sunny, good fire-place, bathroom, little kitchen, etc., on one of the three residential streets of the University land, and with a boarding-house for meals just opposite, we shall have a sort of honeymoon picnic time. And, sooth to say, Alice must need the simplification....
You've seen this wonderful spot, so I needn't describe it. It is really a miracle; and so simple the life and so benign the elements, that for a young ambitious professor who wishes to leave his mark on Pacific civilization while it is most plastic, or for any one who wants to teach and work under the most perfect conditions for eight or nine months, and who is able to get to the East, or Europe, for the remaining three, I can't imagine anything finer. It is Utopian. Perfection of weather. Cold nights, though above freezing. Fire pleasant until 10 o'clock A.M., then unpleasant. In short, the "simple life" with all the essential higher elements thrown in as communal possessions. The drawback is, of course, the great surrounding human vacuum—the historic silence fairly rings in your ears when you listen—and the social insipidity. I'm glad I came, and with God's blessing I may pull through. One calendar month is over, anyway. Do you know aught of G. K. Chesterton? I've just read his "Heretics." A tremendously strong writer and true thinker, despite his mannerism of paradox. Wells's "Kipps" is good. Good-bye. Of course you 're breathing the fog of London while I am bathed in warmest lucency. Keep well. Your loving,
W. J.
To Theodore Flournoy.
Stanford University, Feb. 9, 1906.
Dear Flournoy.—Your post-card of Jan. 22nd arrives and reminds me how little I have communicated with you during the past twelve months....
Let me begin by congratulating Mlle. Alice, but more particularly Mr. Werner, on the engagement which you announce. Surely she is a splendid prize for anyone to capture. I hope that it has been a romantic love-affair, and will remain so to the end. May her paternal and maternal example be the model which their married life will follow! They could find no better model. You do not tell the day of the wedding—probably it is not yet appointed.