The Portrait of a Lady William James

William James was Henry James' elder brother and was an American philosopher and psychologist. He is known as one of the founding figures of American pragmatism. He supported some of Henry's earlier works, but he grew tired of Henry's verbose style in his later works. "The method seems perverse," he wrote to Henry, "'Say it out, for God's sake,' they cry, 'and have done with it. And so I say now, give us one thing in your older directer manner... For gleams and innuendos and felicitous verbal insinuations you are unapproachable, but the core of literature is solid." (The Letters of William James, p. 278)