{"id":81800,"date":"2015-01-19T16:07:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-19T21:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=81800"},"modified":"2015-01-19T16:34:33","modified_gmt":"2015-01-19T21:34:33","slug":"damn-the-absolute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/19\/damn-the-absolute\/","title":{"rendered":"Damn the Absolute"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_81803\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/williamjames_josiahroyce_ca1910_harvard.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-81803\" class=\"wp-image-81803\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/williamjames_josiahroyce_ca1910_harvard.png\" alt=\"WilliamJames_JosiahRoyce_ca1910_Harvard\" width=\"600\" height=\"441\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/williamjames_josiahroyce_ca1910_harvard.png 578w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/williamjames_josiahroyce_ca1910_harvard-300x220.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-81803\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">William James, left, and Josiah Royce in New Hampshire, September 1903. When James heard the click of the shutter, he shouted, \u201cRoyce, you&#8217;re being photographed! Look out! I say, Damn the Absolute!\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>A letter from William James to his publisher Henry Holt, sent from Cambridge,\u00a0Massachusetts,\u00a0on January 19, 1896.<br \/><\/em><\/p>\n<p><small>MY DEAR HOLT<\/small>,\u2014At the risk of displeasing you, I think I won\u2019t have my photograph taken, even at no cost to myself. I abhor this hawking about of everybody\u2019s phiz which is growing on every hand, and don\u2019t see why having written a book should expose one to it. I am sorry that you should have succumbed to the supposed trade necessity. In any case, I will stand on my rights as a free man. You may kill me, but you shan\u2019t publish my photograph. Put a blank \u201cthumbnail\u201d in its place. Very very sorry to displease a man whom I love so much. Always lovingly yours,<\/p>\n<p class=\"r\"><small>WM. JAMES<\/small>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A letter from William James to his publisher Henry Holt, sent from Cambridge,\u00a0Massachusetts,\u00a0on January 19, 1896. MY DEAR HOLT,\u2014At the risk of displeasing you, I think I won\u2019t have my photograph taken, even at no cost to myself. I abhor this hawking about of everybody\u2019s phiz which is growing on every hand, and don\u2019t see [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[16663,16661,16664,5733,16662,182,100,272,374],"class_list":["post-81800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-absolutism","tag-author-photos","tag-certitude","tag-correspondence-2","tag-henry-holt","tag-letters","tag-photography","tag-publishing","tag-william-james"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>William James Hated to Be Photographed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cI abhor this hawking about of everybody\u2019s phiz,\u201d he wrote to his publisher about author photos, which were then a novelty.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/19\/damn-the-absolute\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Damn the Absolute by Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 19, 2015 \u2013 A letter from William James to his publisher Henry Holt, sent from Cambridge,\u00a0Massachusetts,\u00a0on January 19, 1896. 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