ABSTRACT
James reveals in his letter that he has been reading “two or three pages a day” from Marcus Aurelius’s stoic classic, Meditations. James uses the doctrines of stoicism to advise Ward that he think people ought to be independent of our moods, look on them as external for they come to people unbidden, and feel if possible neither elated or depressed, but keep our eyes upon our work, and if people have done the best people could in that given condition, be satisfied. James was entering his twenties in this time and found himself in the eye of this proverbial storm, searching for his vocational role in the academy. Throughout the 1860s, William James consistently worked in the area of scientific study, but would often step away for periods of deep reflection consisting of museum trips, reading literature, and delving deeper into philosophical and religious issues.
