also be explained that James's two youngest brothers had now entered the Union army, and that one of them, Wilky, adjutant of the first colored regiment, had been wounded in the charge on Fort Wagner in which Colonel Robert Gould Shaw was killed.
To Mrs. Katharine James (Mrs. William H.) Prince
My dear Cousin Kitty,—I was very agreeably surprised at getting your letter a few days after arriving here, and am heartily glad to find that you still remember me and think sometimes of the visit you paid us that happy summer. I often think of you, and at such times feel very much like renewing our delightful converse. Several times I have been on the uttermost brink of writing to you, but somehow or other I have always quailed at plunging over. Nature makes us so awkward. I again felt several times like going to pay you a short visit,—last winter and this spring, I remember,—but hesitated, never having been invited, and being entirely ignorant how you would receive me, whether you would chain me up in your asylum and scourge me, or what—tho' I believe those good old days are over.
When you were at our house, I recollect I was in the first flush of my chemical enthusiasm. A year and a half of hard work at it here has somewhat dulled my ardor; and after half a year's vegetation at home, I am back here again, studying this time Comparative Anatomy. I am obliged before the 15th of January to make finally and irrevocably "the choice of a profession." I suppose your sex, which has, or should have, its bread brought to it, instead of having to go in search of it, has no idea of the awful responsibility of such a choice. I have four alternatives: Natural History, Medicine, Printing, Beggary. Much may be said in favor of each. I have named them in the ascending order of their pecuniary invitingness. After all, the great problem of life seems to be how to keep body and soul together, and I have to consider lucre. To study natural science, I know I should like, but the prospect of supporting a family on $600 a year is not one of those rosy dreams of the future with which the young are said to be haunted. Medicine would pay, and I should still be dealing with subjects which interest me—but how much drudgery and of what an unpleasant kind is there! Of all departments of Medicine, that to which Dr. Prince devotes himself is, I should think, the most interesting. And I should like to see him and his patients at Northampton very much before coming to a decision.
The worst of this matter is that everyone must more or less act with insufficient knowledge—"go it blind," as they say. Few can afford the time to try what suits them. However, a few months will show. I shall be most happy some day to avail myself of your very cordial invitation. I have heard so much of the beauty of Northampton that I want very much to see the place too.
I heard from home day before yesterday that "Wilky was improving daily." I hope he is, poor fellow. His wound is a very large and bad one and he will be confined to his bed a long while. He bears it like a man. He is the best abolitionist you ever saw, and makes a common one, as we are, feel very small and shabby. Poor little Bob is before Charleston, too. We have not heard from him in a very long while. He made an excellent officer in camp here, every one said, and was promoted.
But I must stop. I hope, now that the ice is broken, you will soon feel like writing again. And, if you please, eschew all formality in addressing me by dropping the title of our relationship before my name. As for you, the case is different. My senior, a grave matron, quasi-mother of I know not how many scores, not of children, but of live lunatics, which is far more exceptional and awe-inspiring, I tremble to think I have shown too much levity and familiarity already. Are you very different from what you were two years ago? As no word has passed between us since then, I suppose I should have begun by congratulating you first on your engagement, which is I believe the fashionable thing, then on your marriage, tho' I don't rightly know whether that is fashionable or not. At any rate I now end. Yours most sincerely,
To his Mother
My dearest Mother,—…To answer the weighty questions which you propound: I am glad to leave Newport because I am tired of the place itself, and because of the reason which you have very well expressed in your letter, the necessity of the whole family being near the arena of the future activity of us young men. I recommend Cambridge on account of its own pleasantness (though I don't wish to be invidious towards Brookline, Longwood, and other places) and because of its economy if I or Harry continue to study here much longer....
I feel very much the importance of making soon a final choice of my business in life. I stand now at the place where the road forks. One branch leads to material comfort, the flesh-pots; but it seems a kind of selling of one's soul. The other to mental dignity and independence; combined, however, with physical penury. If I myself were the only one concerned I should not hesitate an instant in my choice. But it seems hard on Mrs. W. J., "that not impossible she," to ask her to share an empty purse and a cold hearth. On one side is science, upon the other business (the honorable, honored and productive business of printing seems most attractive), with medicine, which partakes of [the] advantages of both, between them, but which has drawbacks of its own. I confess I hesitate. I fancy there is a fond maternal cowardice which would make you and every other mother contemplate with complacency the worldly fatness of a son, even if obtained by some sacrifice of his "higher nature." But I fear there might be some anguish in looking back from the pinnacle of prosperity (necessarily reached, if not by eating dirt, at least by renouncing some divine ambrosia) over the life you might have led in the pure pursuit of truth. It seems as if one could not afford to give that up for any bribe, however great. Still, I am undecided. The medical term opens tomorrow and between this and the end of the term here, I shall have an opportunity of seeing a little into medical business. I shall confer with Wyman about the prospects of a naturalist and finally decide. I want you to become familiar with the notion that I may stick to science, however, and drain away at your property for a few years more. If I can get into Agassiz's museum I think it not improbable I may receive a salary of $400 to $500 in a couple of years. I know some stupider than I who have done so. You see in that case how desirable it would be to have a home in Cambridge. Anyhow, I am convinced that somewhere in this neighborhood is the place for us to rest. These matters have been a good deal on my mind lately, and I am very glad to get this chance of pouring them into yours. As for the other boys, I don't know. And that idle and useless young female, Alice, too, whom we shall have to feed and clothe!… Cambridge is all right for business in Boston. Living in Boston or Brookline, etc., would be as expensive as Newport if Harry or I stayed here, for we could not easily go home every day.
Give my warmest love to Aunt Kate, Father, who I hope will not tumble again, and all of them over the way. Recess in three weeks; till then, my dearest and best of old mothers, good-bye! Your loving son,
[P.S.] Give my best love to Kitty and give cette petite humbug of a Minny a hint about writing to me. I hope you liked your shawl.
The physical and nervous frailty, which President Eliot had noticed in James during the first winter at the Scientific School, and which later manifested itself so seriously as to interfere with his studies, kept him from enlisting in the Federal armies during the Civil War. The case was too clear to occasion discussion in his letters. He continued as a student at the School and, at about the time the foregoing letter was written, transferred himself from the Chemical Department to the Department of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, in which Professor Jeffries Wyman was teaching. It was in these two subjects that he himself was to begin teaching ten years later. The next year (1864-65), when he entered the Medical School, Professor Wyman was again his instructor.
Jeffries Wyman (1814-1874) was a less widely effective man than Agassiz, but his influence counted more in James's student years than did that of any other teacher. "All the young men who worked under him," says President Eliot, "took him as the type of scientific zeal, disinterestedness and candor." N. S. Shaler, an admirable judge of men, has recorded his opinion of Wyman in his autobiography, saying: "In some ways he was the most
