Letters of Josiah Royce to Daniel Gregory Mason, Mary Lord Mason, and Edward Palmer Mason, 1900-1904

John Clendenning & Frank M. Oppenheim, S. J., Editors Letters of Josiah Royce to Daniel Gregory Mason, Mary Lord Mason, and Edward Palmer Mason, 1900-1904 1. To Daniel Gregory Mason. November 30,1900.1 103 Irving St. Cambridge. Nov. 30,1900. My Dear Mr. Mason: — I have received your note. Let me repeat that I shall always try to be at the service of either of you, if there is any chance that a word or act of mine could prove of service. I don't think highly of my powers as a helper in this or in any other case. But if sympathy, and a willingness to do what friendly aid could accomplish, should prove further useful to either of you, I should be very glad, and should consider it a privilege to try to serve. Let me know at any time, soon or later, if I can do anything, and how. I could easily arrange time for further conference if notice is given. Yours Very Truly Josiah Royce. 2. To Mary Lord Mason. January 16, 1901. Cambridge. 103 Irving St. Jan. 16,1901 My Dear Mrs. Mason:— I have seen Mrs. Shaler.2 She is very willing to be of any assistance possible. She will probably write to you to that effect at once. If anything should delay her actual writing, I feel sure in any case that she is ready and glad to hear from you, or to see Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society Winter, 2005, Vol. XLI, No. 1 14 John Clendenning & Frank M. Oppenheim, S. J., Editors you, at any time. I should have perfect trust in her judgment and in her appreciation. Her address is 25 Quincy St., Cambridge (next house north of the President's house). So far as I know, you have cause to feel encouraged in every way as to the tendency of things towards a clear and wholesome way of dealing with the problems of all concerned, and of being both just and conservative. You already see the way clearer, and I doubt not that it will come to be more so. — Yrs. Truly Josiah Royce. 3. To Mary Lord Mason, February 5,1901. 103 Irving St. Cambridge, Mass. Feb. 5,1901 Dear Mrs. Mason:— I found Mr. Mason's3 letter a moment after you left. If I were sure that he still intends sending it, I should of course forward it at once. From what you said, I suppose that he may still be in doubt whether to send it or not. Hence I return it to him through you.4 I am sorry that, having laid it to one side while we were talking, I forgot to hand it to you before you left. I can have no very decided opinion as to whether Mr. Mason will gain much towards your common end by sending the letter. I have however some doubts. It is well for one in his place to relieve one's mind on occasion, if only the occasion is the right one, and the tone of the letter is certainly both natural and very wisely restrained. But I am nevertheless not sure that, on this occasion, it would tend to lighten anybody's present burden. What best helps you all is now rather the absence of effort to explain things further to one another. You need, as against one another, silence about the main issues, and ignoring of all that is painful, rather than anything that tends to make you more conscious. On the day after too long and hard exercise, we feel simply stiff and sore, and, for awhile, the lazier we are the better. It is so about your common situation as to just the sense of emotional weariness that this situation has involved. Explanations, I think, you must by this time have had to the full, so far as they can tend to clearness as between yourselves. But of course there is, for all of you, an infinity that simply cannot be explained. Why try? Your brother5 would of course answer this letter. His answer would require an answer. And the limit is hard to foresee. — Still, I cannot pretend to judge...