in a sense of the afterglow, reduced and
circumscribed, it is true, but by no means wholly inanimate, of his
shining solidity.

The sweet taste of Albany probably lurked most in its being our admired
antithesis to New York; it was holiday, whereas New York was home; at
least that presently came to be the relation, for to my very very first
fleeting vision, I apprehend, Albany itself must have been the scene
exhibited. Our parents had gone there for a year or two to be near our
grandmother on their return from their first (that is our mother's
first) visit to Europe, which had quite immediately followed my birth,
which appears to have lasted some year and a half, and of which I shall
have another word to say. The Albany experiment would have been then
their first founded housekeeping, since I make them out to have betaken
themselves for the winter following their marriage to the ancient Astor
House--not indeed at that time ancient, but the great and appointed
modern hotel of New York, the only one of such pretensions, and which
somehow continued to project its massive image, that of a great square
block of granite with vast dark warm interiors, across some of the later
and more sensitive stages of my infancy. Clearly--or I should perhaps
rather say dimly--recourse to that hospitality was again occasionally
had by our parents; who had originally had it to such a happy end that
on January 9th, 1842, my elder brother had come into the world there. It
remained a tradition with him that our father's friend from an early
time, R. W. Emerson, then happening to be in New York and under that
convenient roof, was proudly and pressingly "taken upstairs" to admire
and give his blessing to the lately-born babe who was to become the
second American William James. The blessing was to be renewed, I may
mention, in the sense that among the impressions of the next early years
I easily distinguish that of the great and urbane Emerson's occasional
presence in Fourteenth Street, a centre of many images, where the
parental tent was before long to pitch itself and rest awhile. I am
interested for the moment, however, in identifying the scene of our very
first perceptions--of my very own at least, which I can here best speak
for.

One of these, and probably the promptest in order, was that of my
brother's occupying a place in the world to which I couldn't at all
aspire--to any approach to which in truth I seem to myself ever
conscious of havi