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305:. All of the panels exhibit Alice drawn older than she was at the creation of these sketches as she was 11 at the time. She is sitting in a chair on a top floor while William is in a room below her. William is seen hunched over an instrument as he is serenading his sister in the first panel. He stands more erect in the next two panels. William is wearing a large head feather in each of the panels which progressively gets closer to the ceiling until it is pushing against it in the final panel. Growing from the outside of the building is a full bush in the first panel. The bush in the second panel is almost completely devoid of leaves and in the third panel, it is no longer there. The walls of the building shrink throughout the panels until they are almost nonexistent in the final panel. It has been argued that this triptych is a visual representation of a
269:
Henry said, displayed for him Alice's great "energy and personality of intellectual and moral being," but also, "puts before me what I was tremendously conscious of in her lifetimeāthat the extraordinary intensity of her will and personality really would have made the equal, the reciprocal life of a 'well' personāin the usual worldāalmost impossible to herāso that her disastrous, her tragic health was in a manner the only solution for her of the practical problems of lifeāas it suppressed the element of equality, reciprocity, etc."
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began in my childhood, altho' I was not conscious of the necessity until '67 or '68 when I broke down first, acutely, and had violent turns of hysteria. As I lay prostrate after the storm with my mind luminous and active and susceptible of the clearest, strongest impressions, I saw so distinctly that it was a fight simply between my body and my will, a battle in which the former was to be triumphant to the end ..."
178:. The three years she taught were "among the most illness-free she had." James never married, seeking affection from her brothers and female friends instead. After her father's death in late 1882, she inherited a share in the income from the family properties in Albany, and her brother Henry made over his own share to her. This allowed her to live independently.
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She eventually found, she continued, that she had to let loose of her body, giving up "muscular sanity" in order to preserve her mind: "So, with the rest, you abandon the pit of your stomach, the palms of your hands, the soles of your feet, and refuse to keep them sane when you find in turn one moral
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fantasy. The fourth sketch created by
William of his sister contains a drawing of her head when she was a young teen. Aliceās eyes are cast downward and underneath her head, William wrote the caption āThe loveress of W.J.ā The fifth sketch William drew of Alice when she was in her late teens. She is
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Henry, one of Alice's brothers, read this work with deep alarm (because of its candid indiscretions about family and friends) but also with enormous admiration. He wrote in a letter to another of the James brothers, William, that he now understood what had caused their sister's debility. The diary,
297:
has
William declaring his desire to marry Alice, "I swore to ask thy hand, my love." The sonnet goes on to describe Alice rejecting him, "So very proud, but yet so fair/The look you on me threw/You told me I must never dare/To hope for love from you." William concludes the sonnet by saying that he
272:
Alice, however, did not see her illness as a product of conflict between her character and her "usual world" surroundings. To her it was instead the outcome of a struggle between her "will" or "moral power" and her "body". "In looking back now," she wrote toward the end of her life, "I see how it
163:, and Mary Robertson Walsh. James soon developed the psychological and physical problems that would plague her until the end of her life at age 43. The youngest of five children, she lived with her parents until their deaths in 1882. She went to a Boston school called Miss Clappās, where she met
314:
and a feather hat. Across from her eye is a heart with an arrow through it, suggesting that she is in love. Williamās initials are drawn on the sleeve covering Aliceās arm. This has been suggested to mean that
William has branded his sister as his, and she was content with this as she wore her
256:
James began to keep a diary in 1889. Full of witty, acerbic, insightful comments on
English life and manners, it included excerpts from various publications to support her opinions. The diary was not published for many years after her death due to sharp comments on various persons whom she had
38:
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was an extremely common diagnosis for women. Almost any disease a woman had could fit the symptoms of hysteria because there was no set list of symptoms. In 1888, twenty years after James was "overwhelmed by violent turns of hysteria", she wrote in her diary that she was both
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wrote her a letter explaining how much he pitied her. He advised her to "look for the little good in each day as if life were to last a hundred years." He wanted her to save herself from suffering the torment of physical pain. "Take all the
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will commit suicide because Alice will not marry him. There were also times where his letters to her were candidly eroticāhe would describe her physical and personality characteristics and state how ādesirableā and ālovableā they made her.
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impression after another producing despair in the one, terror in the others, anxiety in the third and so on until life becomes one long flight from remote suggestion and complicated eluding of the multifold traps set for your undoing."
219:. In 1866, James traveled to New York to receive "therapeutic exercise", and in 1884, she received electrical "massage". Hoping that a change of scenery would improve her health, she traveled to England with her companion
143:. Her relationship with William was unusually close, and she seems to have been badly affected by his marriage. James suffered lifelong health problems that were generally dismissed as
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Feinstein recounts that
William used his artistic skill to draw five sketches of Alice. These pictures also demonstrate erotic overtones. Three of the sketches form a
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if that disagrees) you want, and don't be afraid of becoming an opium-drunkard. What was opium created for except for such times as this?"
372:(1993), which seems to waver between sympathy and impatience with its subject. Lynne Alexander wrote a sympathetic novel about Alice James,
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Bergmann, Harriet F. (2001). ""The Silent
University": The Society to Encourage Studies at Home, 1873-1897".
289:(1984), wrote that Alice and her brother William had a close relationship that has been argued to consist of
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293:. William would write āmock sonnetsā to Alice and read them to her in front of their family. One such
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icon. She was seen as struggling through her illnesses to find her own voice.
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edited a fuller edition in 1964. The diary has made James something of a
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in the style of the day. She is best known for her published diaries.
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Born into a wealthy and intellectually active family, daughter of
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The Death and
Letters of Alice James: Selected Correspondence
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James, Alice; introduction by Burr, Anna
Robeson Brown,
131:(August 7, 1848 – March 6, 1892) was an American
194:, taken at the Royal Leamington Spa (England), c. 1890
518:. Belknap Press of Harvard University. p. 400.
665:Genius in the Family: Cameo Biography by Abby Wolf
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503:. Belknap Press of Harvard University. p. 4.
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170:James taught history from 1873 to 1876 for the
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352:published what has become the standard life (
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553:. New York City, NY: Scribner. p. 215.
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534:James, Alice (1964). Edel, Leon (ed.).
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516:Henry James Letters Vol. 2: 1875-1883
501:Henry James Letters Vol. 3: 1883-1895
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478:. London: Cornell University Press.
362:The Death and Letters of Alice James
360:published James's correspondence in
344:edited and wrote an introduction to
172:Society to Encourage Studies at Home
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639:Yeazell, Ruth Bernard, ed. (1997).
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538:. New York City, NY: Dodd, Mead.
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567:. New York Review of Books.
408:. New York Review of Books.
395:. Accessed January 27, 2024.
231:As Alice was suffering from
190:Alice James (reclining) and
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1120:Notes of a Son and Brother
1024:French Poets and Novelists
997:Theatricals: Second Series
643:. Boston: Exact Exchange.
551:The Letters of Henry James
470:Feinstein, Howard (1984).
368:wrote a play about James,
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281:Relationship with William
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1153:Henry James Sr. (father)
815:The Princess Casamassima
565:Alice James: A Biography
536:The Diary of Alice James
406:Alice James: A Biography
354:Alice James: A Biography
325:Katharine Peabody Loring
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84:Cambridge, Massachusetts
1236:American women diarists
1158:William James (brother)
1040:A Little Tour in France
970:The Beast in the Jungle
606:. Dingwall: Sandstone.
342:Anna Robeson Brown Burr
315:āheartā on her sleeve.
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19:For the publisher, see
1104:A Small Boy and Others
799:The Portrait of a Lady
590:(Longwood Press 1934).
563:Strouse, Jean (2011).
474:Becoming William James
404:Strouse, Jean (2011).
287:Becoming William James
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962:The Turn of the Screw
919:The Sense of the Past
879:The Wings of the Dove
847:The Spoils of Poynton
549:Henry, James (1920).
310:seen wearing a tight
285:Howard Feinstein, in
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165:Frances Rollins Morse
135:, sister of novelist
1163:Alice James (sister)
106:Mary Robertson Walsh
82:Cambridge Cemetery,
683:Illness as Metaphor
244:(or other forms of
54:New York City, U.S.
1112:Notes on Novelists
1088:The American Scene
670:2016-10-29 at the
514:Leon Edel (1975).
499:Leon Edel (1980).
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176:Anna Eliot Ticknor
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1048:Partial Portraits
954:The Aspern Papers
791:Washington Square
650:978-1-878972-20-0
613:978-1-905207-80-0
573:978-1-59017-472-2
485:978-0-8014-1617-0
414:978-1-59017-472-2
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938:Madame de Mauves
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989:Theatricals
727:Henry James
307:defloration
137:Henry James
129:Alice James
120:Henry James
30:Alice James
1190:Categories
1168:Lamb House
903:The Outcry
783:Confidence
603:The Sister
380:References
374:The Sister
217:patricidal
1128:Notebooks
1032:Hawthorne
622:758984559
291:eroticism
259:Leon Edel
213:homicidal
122:(brother)
117:(brother)
111:Relatives
99:Parent(s)
930:Novellas
668:Archived
376:(2012).
364:(1981).
348:(1934).
303:triptych
263:feminist
209:suicidal
204:hysteria
145:hysteria
1146:Related
448:3185427
393:Profile
337:Sources
242:morphia
198:In the
133:diarist
1138:(1917)
1123:(1914)
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246:opium
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