Oh Those Fabulous James Boys!

For those not write up to speed on who these two are, they lived at the turn of the last century. Henry, American expatriate in England, novelist, short story writer, playwright, interpreter of Western artistic and literary sensibilities, and by far the more well known of the two today, was an American progenitor of the modern psychological novel. William, physiological psychologist at Harvard, experimenter in the paranormal, psychologist of religion, pragmatist philosopher, and older brother of the two, in his own time became a major prophetic voice reflecting the mood of the modern era in which we now live.

Both rose to such international acclaim that they are often confused for each other. As one wag put it, Henry wrote novels like a psychologist while William wrote psychology texts like a novelist. Or in the words of another interpreter, the mix-up is to be expected, for they were to each other as orange juice is to vitamin C. (He neglected to say which brother was which.)

A look into their lives and accomplishments, as well as their eccentric upbringing, tells us at least five things about brothers in general, about famous siblings in particular, and about the vicissitudes of growing up in families with great talent.

1. Genes are important, but once you're here, family environment is everything.

The first thing that the James brothers have to tell us is that personality emerges out of the family constellation. Individual identity is forged not in isolation but in the context of relationships. The Freudians say that family relationships are the template for how you are going to act with everyone else later on. William and Henry James were no exception.

Their father, Henry James, Sr., was a bespectacled, talkative, and bald-headed philosopher of religion with a wooden leg and the beard of an Old Testament prophet. He is the one biographers always set up as the head of the house, the prime influence on the boys, and the true literary luminary of them all. The mother, Mary Robertson Walsh, was a stout, patient, and dependable woman from a well-to-do New York family who completely subsumed her considerable personality under that of her husband so as to become indistinguishable from him. It was she, however, who actually ran the family and kept things together.

Then there was William, the oldest of the James siblings, who was wiry and high-strung. Henry, who came next, was a quiet, gentle presence, more docile than William. Bob, the next in line, was athletic, masculine, and handsomely rugged, but prone to drinking and violent outbursts. Wilkie, the youngest boy, was good-natured, plump, and neither artistic nor intellectual. Finally there was little Alice, normally quiet and stoically withdrawn but wholly capable of her own opinions.

Henry, his mother's favorite, was always politely reserved with everyone. He bonded closely with William but eventually became most protective of sister Alice. With her friend Catherine Loring, he attended Alice on her deathbed as she succumbed to cancer at age 44 in London. William was always solicitous toward Wilkie and he helped Bob through his periodic bouts with alcoholism, having to hospitalize him on several occasions. With Alice, William had a curiously flirting, somewhat erotic, but brotherly attachment.

But one of the most outstanding features of the children's interactions with each other was the unorthodox way in which they were educated. They traveled extensively in Europe, toured the museums, sat with tutors, slogged through provincial schools their father thought would be best for them to try, and became multilingual at an early age.

Meanwhile the core of their learning took place at the family dinner table. Ralph Waldo Emerson's son, Edward, visited them one night and left the following account: "The adipose and affectionate Wilkie, as his father called him, would say something and be instantly corrected by the little cock-sparrow Bob, the youngest, but good-naturedly defend his statement, and then Henry (junior) would emerge from his silence in defense of Wilkie. Then Bob would be more impertinently insistent, and Mr. James would advance as Moderator, and William, the eldest, would join in. The voice of the Moderator presently would be drowned by the combatants and he soon came down vigorously into the arena, and when in the excited argument the dinner knives might not be absent from eagerly gesticulating hands, dear Mrs. James, more conventional, but bright as well as motherly, would look at me, laughingly reassuring, saying, 'Don't be disturbed, Edward; they won't stab each other. This is usual when the boys come home.' And the quiet little sister ate her dinner, smiling, close to the combatants."