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5. The Grief Child
- University of Nebraska Press
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-/ + The Grief Child j^[[dZe\'..)iWm j^[ death of yet another James: Garth Wilkinson James died in Milwaukee on '+ November at the age of thirty-eight of Bright’s disease (a chronic kidney disease). Henry visited him in February of that year, and William visited him in October.1 Alice had met Wilkie only briefly, but his death was one more in a series of losses for the James family. On )' January '..*, just ten months after William’s return from Europe, Alice gave birth to her third son. William and Alice had had the “private interview” at Eliza’s house (or somewhere else) William had longed for. Despite their decision to have only two children, she had responded to her husband’s passionate need. She came through the delivery well, but her recovery was slower this time. William thought the baby was “Jewishlooking .”2 He asked Henry to help find an English nurse, and he promised to try, though he feared that a real upper-servant Englishwoman would prove to be a Tartar and expect a nursery maid under her.3 Months passed before William and Alice named their son. At first he had considered Tweedy, after his Newport relations, but he decided against it.4 Lover of words that he was, Henry had pronounced opinions on the naming of Alice and William’s children. He hoped that the child .& j^[]h_[\Y^_bZ would have only one name, with no middle name squeezed in, and that it would be the child’s own name, not a name that already belonged to someone else.5 The baby became Hermann Hagen James, after the German entomologist Hermann August Hagen, a professor at the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard.6 As William admired the scholar but had no relationship with him, Henry could not understand this choice. He approved of Hermann, which he found pretty, but he protested that the middle name, Hagen, spoiled the first name.7 He preferred a Shakespearean moniker—Sebastian, Valentine, or Benedict—and would have named his own child Roland James.8 Alice was not happy with Hermann Hagen: “‘That name is like a hair shirt. Let’s take it off the poor child and give him one that suits him.’”9 The two older boys decided to call their new brother Hummy. The baby was oblivious to these rhetorical debates, however. With devoted parents, siblings, and loving Gibbens women surrounding him, Hermann was a happy, thriving baby.10 At ten months he crawled like a turtle.11 Sister Alice wrote to Alice on her delivery of a third male. “I am sorry that he has chosen the inferior sex, though I suppose it is less on one’s conscience to have brought forth an oppressor rather than one of the oppressed , and you won’t have to look forward to evenings spent in Lyceum Hall trembling lest he should not be engaged for the German [a dance] or left dangling at supper time.”12 She did not hesitate to share her feminist sympathies with her sister-in-law. William accomplished little that winter between a new baby and a demanding teaching load. His eyes still bothered him, but once again Alice could not read to him. Eliza Gibbens did her best to accommodate his needs at the Garden Street house, carving out space for a study for her adored son-in-law. It contained a small alcove adorned with a photograph of a bust of Plato and a corner behind his desk in which stood a cast of Michelangelo’s J^[:o_d]IbWl[. With Eliza, Mary, and Margaret Gibbens plus one or two extra Webb relatives, a young Irish maid named Lizzie, and a pug, Jap, in residence in addition to his own group, William needed a quiet corner.13 As spring began he told Thomas Davidson that he had completed almost nothing other than writing a new lecture on freedom of the will.14 Despite their responsibilities to their family and to his work, Alice and [23.20.220.59] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 08:27 GMT) j^[]h_[\Y^_bZ .' William still had a profound love affair. What Alice gained when she gave in to William James was the chance to be loved as few women have been loved. His searing feelings came from the depths of his soul. He called her “bride-guide,” “dearest bride,” and “Beloved heart.” He thought they must adjust to one another; the burden was not hers alone...