I’m reading Robert D. Richardson’s biography of William James, which, like his biography of Emerson, is wonderful. I did not know that the James brothers’ father was such a nut, but here he is, writing one of his many self-published, completely ignored books:
“He worked at his writing table at home in full view of the family, turning out one long book after another, each a theological tirade in a private, sealed language interspersed with brilliant flashes of insight and imagery. Harry later looked back on the dreadful-and moving-futility of his father’s intellectual labors, on ‘the pathetic tragic ineffectualness of poor father’s lifelong effort, and the silence and oblivion that seems to have swallowed it up.’ William’s comment at the time was to draw, one night, a frontispiece for his father’s book; it showed a man beating a dead horse.”
There are also long passages about the James’ arguing at dinner, and sometimes getting so excited that they’d get up from the table and stomp around while talking. It reminds me of the stuff I read about the Emanuel’s when Obama was putting his cabinet together. There’s a part where the brothers tell their father that they hope his mashed potatoes “shall always have lumps in them,” which is pretty funny. Also mean. Lumps in mashed potatoes are the worst!
