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13. The Lull before the Storm
- University of Nebraska Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
((' ') The Lull before the Storm \ehcedj^i^[dho^WZbeXX_[Z for Alice to take a vacation, so he wholeheartedly approved of her decision to go to Stanford, praising sunny, flowery California. “It will be so much money in my pocket, or balm to my heart, to know that the leaden load of Quincy St. is for a time lifted off you.”1 Alice and William considered bringing Peggy, though William had reservations. If she came, he suggested that Alice come first, Peggy following later with her cousin Mary Webb after Peggy’s coming out was officially concluded so that he and Alice could be alone.2 His physical need for her was as strong as ever. He hoped for another “honeymoon picnic time.”3 William went first. On New Year’s Day, '/&,, he left for his lucrative semester-long residency. As usual, leaving Alice made him feel closer to her. From the Grand Canyon’s South Rim, where he visited a Hopi lodge, he reflected on their marriage. “Never have you seemed as near and dear to me as in the past six months,” he told his wife. “It is a good thing, little as you think of ‘friendship’, to have friendship grow deeper and deeper—after (- years of matrimony! Isn’t it?”4 The previous summer he had written in his diary when she joined him briefly at Glenmore, Thomas Davidson’s summer institute, “Alice ultra sweet,” perhaps a comment on their physical relationship.5 The marriage was more than either imagined it could be when they first met: it was a genuine love story. ((( j^[bkbbX[\eh[j^[ijehc After he left, Peggy’s activities again escalated. Henry sympathized with her mother from a safe distance. “[Peggy’s] imperfect joy in ‘going out’ . . . [is] confirmatory of everything one has felt about her essential inner ‘superiority.’ None of the little blatant usual, merely gregarious things will ever suffice her—& she won’t be really interested but in the really interesting.”6 Alice’s worries about Bob continued. He was in Concord that winter, writing to her on stationery that included an elaborate letterhead: “LEAGUE OF THE . . . SCHOOL REPUBLIC / je[nj[dZ_dijhkYj_ed_d cehWbWdZY_l_YjhW_d_d]_dj^[iY^eebi$%heX[hjied`Wc[i" fh[i_Z[dj%YedYehZ"cWii$” The self-proclaimed head of the League of the School Republic shared his recent psychic experiences with his sisterin -law. He had received a phone call from a spirit called Mud who left a one-inch circular piece of canvas sewn with silky hair like his dog’s next to Bob’s chair, an object mysteriously stolen from his pocket two days later. When he went to a medium, Frank Foss, for a sitting, an old man named Joe with his musical band appeared and put his arm around Bob’s neck. Finally, Foss materialized a new spirit, an Indian doctor who whispered in Bob’s ear, kissed his cheek, and made him strip from the waist up in order to give him an upper-body massage. He looked forward to getting a rare coin from these three spirits on his next visit to Foss. While Bob objected to Mr. Mud’s lack of refinement, he was happy with his visitors. He assured Alice, “For ) months past I’ve been a totally different being mentally from what I have ever been. Full of health, cheer, joy with an ever broadening conviction or rather assurance that everything good on Earth is coming to me.”7 Bob was convinced of Foss’s veracity, though William suspected fraud. Fortunately, the next winter Bob improved , turning from the séances to follow the Christian Science religion. He fasted often and took no breakfast most days.8 His improvement meant one less worry for the Jameses. Alice fell ill in January, ill enough that she could not write to William frequently, but she did not take morphine this time, perhaps because of the side effects.9 She longed for her husband, but he said he felt “so impotent or idiotic” when she had her attacks that he did not regret being gone. Bereft of Alice’s presence and her encouraging letters, William suffered, sleeping poorly during his first weeks away. His heart disease was well [54.226.222.183] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 05:27 GMT) j^[bkbbX[\eh[j^[ijehc (() advanced by now. He was trying every possible remedy to alleviate its symptoms (more lymph injections, mind-cures, electrical treatments...