International Experience
Actually, I am not quite done. I want to comment for a minute on all of you coming from different countries. My brother, Henry James, and I traveled with my father quite often to Europe. Henry wrote about the American and European cultures quite a bit. These are two quite different worlds. But I understand that many of you at this Gathering come from across the Pacific Ocean. These are even bigger cultural differences. This is remarkable. Very few Americans when I was alive had either the money or the time to travel across the Pacific Ocean to Asia. Those of us living in Eastern America even find it hard to travel to Western America. I wonder what it must be like for you to spend time with one another coming from such different worlds. Or have the differences collapsed over the past century?
Then, there is my sister, Alice. She traveled very little. She was staying mostly at home. She led a very difficult life. She discovered very few pathways. Choice was not to be found in her life. It was very hard to be an intelligent woman living in the late 19th and early 20th Century in America – and Alice was much brighter than either Henry or me. Here is a picture of Alice that I carry with me all the time. She looks very sad in this picture – and she was often quite sad. Alice didn’t live very long. She suffered from Hysteria and had breast cancer. As a way to deal with the pain, Alice took Opium and was eventually addicted to this horrible drug. I wonder if you are still having problems with opium?
Let me close this off by saying once again, how amazed I am that psychology has spread beyond the shores of North America. It is amazing that psychology traveled beyond even the confines of my Harvard Yard and my Cambridge Massachusetts community.
Thank you.
