The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

William JamesAt the age of twelve, we read of this young man that “if by chancehis mother sent one of her maids of honor to him with a message,he never allowed her to come in, but listened to her through thebarely opened door, and dismissed her immediately. He did not liketo be alone with his own mother, whether at table or in conversation;and when the rest of the company withdrew, he sought also apretext for retiring… . Several great ladies, relatives of his, he avoidedlearning to know even by sight; and he made a sort of treaty withhis father, engaging promptly and readily to accede to all his wishes,if he might only be excused from all visits to ladies.” 212When he was seventeen years old Louis joined the Jesuit order,213against his father’s passionate entreaties, for he was heir of a princelyhouse; and when a year later the father died, he took the loss as a“particular attention” to himself on God’s part, and wrote letters ofstilted good advice, as from a spiritual superior, to his grieving mother.He soon became so good a monk that if any one asked him the numberof his brothers and sisters, he had to reflect and count them overbefore replying. A Father asked him one day if he were never troubledby the thought of his family, to which, “I never think of them exceptwhen praying for them,” was his only answer. Never was he seen tohold in his hand a flower or anything perfumed, that he might takepleasure in it. On the contrary, in the hospital, he used to seek forwhatever was most disgusting, and eagerly snatch the bandages ofulcers, etc., from the hands of his companions. He avoided worldlytalk, and immediately tried to turn every conversation on to pioussubjects, or else he remained silent. He systematically refused to noticehis surroundings. Being ordered one day to bring a book fromthe rector’s seat in the refectory, he had to ask where the rector sat, forin the three months he had eaten bread there, so carefully did heguard his eyes that he had not noticed the place. One day, duringrecess, having looked by chance on one of his companions, he re-212 Ibid., p. 71.213 In his boyish note-book he praises the monastic life for its freedomfrom sin, and for the imperishable treasures, which it enables us to storeup, “of merit in God’s eyes which makes of Him our debtor for all Eternity.”Loc. cit., p. 62.315