New-York tribune., 1920-11-28
AMost Entertaining Correspondence
Proof That Even Great Philosopher Likes His
Little Joke

Never q confident supporter Of spir
itualistic doctrine, he did not deny it
absolutely. He served on several COM
mittees that branded numerous fraud
ulent mediums. In connection with
this the following account Of his ex-
perience with a mind cure doctress is
quoted from letter to Alice James:
Il have been paying ten or eleven
visits to mind-cure doctress, a ster-
ling creature resembling the Venus
of ine,' Mrs. Lydia E. Pinkham,
made solid and veracious looking. I
sit down beside her and presently drop
asleep, whilst she disentangles the
snarls out of my mind. She says she
never saw mind with so many, SO
agitated, so restless, etc. She said my
eyes, mentally speaking, kept revolv-
ing like wheels in front of each other
and in front of my face, and it was
four or five sittincs eve she could
get them fixed l am now, uncon-
sciously to myself, much better than
when | first went. | thought it might
please you to hear an opinion Of my
mind so similar to your own. Mean
while, what boots it to be made un-
consciously better, yet all the while
consciously to lie awake O. night, as l
still do?"
Through all of his correspondence
there runs vein. of humor that will
not be denied. In his youth his hu-
NOR is frequently boisterous. One
letter, apparently about some lost
goloshes, is addressed to 0. W
Holmes jr., and John Gray jr. 1t
runs:
"Gents!-entry thieves - chevaliers
ustrie-well dressed swindlers-
confidence men-wolves in Sleeps
clothing-asses in lions skn-gentle-
manly pickpockets-beware! All the
resources Of the immensely powerful
Corporation Of Harvard University
have been set in motion, and conceal
ment of your miserable selves or of the
almost equally miserable (though not
as such miserab!e) goloshes which you
stole from our entry on Sunday night
is as impossible as would be the con-
cealment of the State House. So
let me as q friend advise you to send
the swag back. No questions will be
asked-mum's the word"
A Letter to His Son
The human side Of his humor is re-
vealed in a letter to his eight-year-
old son:
Beloved Heinrich" it begins.
Your long letter came yesterday p. m.
Much the best you have ever writ, and
the address on the envelope so we'll
written that wondered whose hand it
was, and never thought it might be
yours. Your tooth also was a precious
memorial-I hope you'll get better
one in it's place. Send me the other
as soon as it is tookin out. They
ought to 60 into the Peabody Museum
If any Of George Washngton's baby
teeth had been kept till now they
would be put somewhere in a public
museum for the world to look at. I
will keep this tooth, so that, if you
grow up to BE George Washington
may sell it to a museum. When
Washington was only eight years old
his mother didn't know he was going
to be Washington. But he did be it,
when the time came"
Although a frequent visitor to Eu-
rope, it never became the passion for
him that it did for Henry James, who
settled down in England and eventu-
ally became a British subject. Will
lam James took his vacations in Eu-
rope, but when it came to work he
preferred to get back TO America. His
.ast illness in the summer of 1917
nearly overlook him on foreign soil.
he reached his summer home at Cho-
corua, N. H., Just a week before he
died, August 26, 1910.
His own letters form as great u
tribute to his life and work as any
hing which might be written. AS
companion volumes to the letters of
Henry James, they make an impor-
sant and interesting addition to Amer
lean letters.