Publisher's Synopsis
"WHETHER William James was compressing his correspondence into brief messages, or allow-ing it to expand into copious letters, he could not write a page that was not free, animated, and characteristic. Many of his correspondents pre-served his letters, and examination of them soon showed that it would be possible to make a selec-tion which should not only contain certain letters that clearly deserved to be published because of their readable quality alone, but should also in-clude letters that were biographical in the best sense. For in the case of a man like James the bio-graphical question to be answered is not, as with a man of affairs: How can his actions be ex-plained? but rather: What manner of being was he? What were his background and education? and, above all, What were his temperament and the bias of his mind? What native instincts, pref-erences, and limitations of view did he bring with him to his business of reading the riddle of the Universe? His own informal utterances throw the strongest light on such questions."
