CUSHING STROUT
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of the American people in the post-Civil War era in which amidst eco–
nomic growth, territorial expansion, and massive immigration America
was "attempting to find itself anew, to redefine its ideals, to retain its
moral integrity, and yet to become a world power."
He and his brother Henry, unlike his other two younger brothers, had
not served in the Civil War. Their father had restrained them from enlist–
ing, but in any case the older boys had been much more familiar with
tourism in Europe, where their father had sought an informal education
for them, than with the escalating political strife of America with which
the younger sons were much more involved. One of the younger sons,
Wilkinson, had been almost fatally wounded at the battle of Fort Wag–
ner in South Carolina, where he had served with Colonel Robert Gould
Shaw, head of a regiment of free black men, many of whom had died
with their young leader. In
1897
William james, already much better
known than his younger brothers, had been asked to speak to several
thousand people in Boston's Music Hall to celebrate the unveiling of the
famous monument by St. Gaudens to honor the white officer who had
led the doomed assault on Fort Wagner. Shaw's regiment had done more
than anyone else, nevertheless, to convince the public that Negro troops
could fight bravely and well, thus paving the way for their broader par–
ticipation in the war after Lincoln's Emancipation Ptoclamation. Rather
than giving the usual praise of military heroes for their military actions,
however, james instead saluted Shaw for his "civic courage" in taking the
command, because in this new venture "loneliness was certain, ridicule
inevitable, failure possible, and Shaw was only twenty-five.... "
In
his lectures at Edinburgh in
190J-2
on "The Varieties of Religious
Experience" james had about four hundred enthusiastic auditors, who
were drawn by his extraordinary fusion of psychological and religious
concerns, both of which were animated by his own personal experience
as a young man of radical doubt, depression, and conflicting ambitions.
james's father had blended a tough-minded Calvinism with a mystically
enthusiastic Swedenborgianism. His son was too much educated in
medicine, natural history, and evolutionary biology to follow his father's
eccentric footsteps in this way, even though both had experienced severe
crises about vocational choice. But he did follow his father's advice to
earn respect by having a scientific career, though his nervous troubles
became evident as soon as he set out on it. While hospitalized with var–
ioloid, a mild form of smallpox, when he was in Brazil as part of an
exploring and collecting expedition led by Louis Agassiz
in
1864,
james
had decided that he was "cut out for a speculative rather than an active
life" and having recovered the use of his eyes, made a new resolution:
