With regard to my monologue ‘The Judge’: I was reminded this morning of William James as we sat over breakfast listening to ‘In Our Time’ on the BBC.  William, the subject of the programme, was brother of the redoubtable novelist, Henry, and their gifted, depressive, diarist sister, Alice.  William was born in the same year as Daniel Paul Schreber, the judge. 

During the time I was a Fellow Commoner at Churchill College, Cambridge, I had the run of the University Library.  It was like being a small boy being given the keys to a sweet shop – and it was while I was browsing the shelves that I hit on the works of William James. 

I had enjoyed his brother’s novels, but felt always, that I needed to be in training and have my mental sleeves rolled up to the task. I felt exactly the same last month, April, 2010, when, for the first time I worked my way through Henry’s ‘The Golden Bowl’.  May I suggest that anyone tackling this or any of his novels to buy a book mark that grips the page exactly where one left off.  I have one from a National Trust shop, that uses two tiny magnets to do the job.

William, philosopher, psychologist, wrote equally wonderful prose, but there is no rolling up of sleeves, or running a mile before I open one of his books.  In the case of Henry, often as not, it helps me to get a grip by reading it out loud to myself – I suppose this an actor’s response to prose that leaves interpretation open to judgement.  I do this with the works of Ford Madox Ford (my desert island book author) – oh, yes, an all poetry.

But as to William, I find  that  a restful stare out of the window, a sip of tea  is all that is required to absorb, if not fully understand, his friendly prose. 

I was reminded that the family had its roots in Ireland – who is left, I wondered, to carry the torch for English literature – Chaucer, Shakespeare?  Come to think of it, I am not so sure that they were not Irish, their command of the written word being so formidable.