Toward a Vocation

As a young man, James struggled for direction about his future. Unlike others his age, he was not allowed to attend college because his father, metaphysician, essayist, and theologian Henry James, Sr. believed colleges were hotbeds of sin.

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- His first desire was to be an artist (2). But he was confronted with a dilemma, to which he alluded in his sketch of a meeting with Ralph Waldo Emerson: could he support himself? Would he be successful? Most important, would he please his father, who objected to art as a career? In 1860, he begged Henry, Sr. for some clarification of his views.
  
  Henry, Sr. approved of a career in science; preferably, as a natural philosopher, in the manner of Emerson or Henry David Thoreau. James studied science in Geneva and in 1861, enrolled at the Lawrence Scientific School. With his family ensconced in Newport, James set forth on the first step toward a vocation.
  
  In Cambridge, James came under the influence of anatomist Jeffries Wyman, for whom he developed a “filial” devotion; and the flamboyant naturalist and anti-Darwinist Louis Agassiz. Attracted equally to anatomy and natural history, in 1864 James made a choice and enrolled at the Harvard Medical School; but he began with little enthusiasm. The next year, when Agassiz invited him to join an expedition to Brazil, he saw the arduous voyage as both a test of his commitment to science and a rare opportunity for self-knowledge.
  
  Financed by Nathaniel Thayer, the expedition took James far from home and gave him responsibilities to a community outside of his family. Beset with fleas, mosquitoes, and ringworm; suffering from diarrhea and an attack of varioloid, a mild variant of smallpox, James was at times thoroughly miserable. But, as his sketches suggest, he was excited, too, by the exotic environment. Still, of the four alternatives that he saw as possible careers—Natural History, Medicine, Printing, Beggary—he returned home striking Natural History off the list.

In this section

	Henry James Sr. Balch, photographer. Carte-de-visite; Boston, undated.	Mary Robertson Walsh James. Photograph, undated.

	Self portrait. Pencil on paper, [1866].	“Here I and Sorrow Sit.” Red crayon on paper, ca. 1860-1869.

	WJ. The Foreboding Meeting or The Artist’s Fate. Autograph manuscript, undated.	Letter to his parents. Bonn; [24] August [ca. 1860 ].

	[Notebook 1] Autograph manuscript, signed; Geneva, 16 November 1859. Includes reading lists, notes on science, and sketches.	WJ. Chemical note book Lawrence Sc. School 1st term 1861-1862. Autograph manuscript, 1861-1862. MS Am 2570 Gift of Grace Thayer Richards Conant (Mrs. James Bryant Conant), 1958.

	Lawrence Scientific School. Photograph, undated.	Catalogue of the officers and students, 1861-62. Cambridge, Mass.: Sever and Francis, 1861.

	Jeffries Wyman. Photograph, undated. From WJ’s “Anthropological Collection.”	WJ. Brazil diary, showing portrait of Louis Agassiz. Pencil on paper, [1865].

	WJ. Letter to his family. Cambridge; [10 November 1861].	Members of the Thayer Expedition. Photograph, [1865].

	William James. Photograph, 1865. Taken in Brazil, following the attack of smallpox.	WJ. A selection of sketches made in Brazil. Pencil on paper, 1865-1866.