Marriage and Family
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Henry James. Letter to WJ. Rye; 17 October 1907. Henry James papers, b MS Am 1094 (2203) “Why the devil I didn’t write to you after reading your Pragmatism –how I kept from it—I can’t now explain save by the very fact of the spell itself (of interest & enthrallment) that the book cast upon me: I simply sank down, under it, into such depths of submission & assimilation that any reaction, very nearly, even that of acknowledgement, would have had almost the taint of dissent or escape. Then I was lost in the wonder of the extent to which all my life I have. . . unconsciously pragmatised. You are immensely & universally right. . . .I feel the reading of the book. . .to have been really the event of my summer.” |