Picture a room in Cambridge on Oct. 28, 1893. The lamps are low. A young scholar named Montague Rhodes James reads two ghost stories to his friends by candlelight. Nobody in that room knew it yet. His day job would fade, and those stories would not.
James (1862-1936) was a medievalist. He spent his days cataloging old manuscripts and studying texts about the end of the world. Now and then he wrote about bachelor scholars who poke at the unknown and wake something up. In 'Casting the Runes' (1911), a man reaches under his pillow for a match and finds a mouth instead. His stories get their chill from small details, dry wit and what he leaves out.
His career was the opposite of a scare. He boarded at Eton from 1876 and called it a 'terrestrial Paradise.' He won a scholarship to King's College, Cambridge, in 1882 and came back as a fellow. His easy manner made him the administrator everyone could live with. He became provost of King's in 1905 and vice chancellor of Cambridge in 1913. In 1918 he went back to Eton as provost and stayed until he died.
The stories on the side
The candlelit readings became a Christmas habit. They filled four collections. He agreed to publish the first, 'Ghost Stories of an Antiquary' (1904), mainly to help its young illustrator, James McBryde. McBryde died that same year after surgery. James also wrote a children's fantasy, 'The Five Jars,' in 1922. Asked whether he believed in ghosts, he never gave a straight answer.
Darryl Jones, a professor at Trinity College Dublin, has written a new life of him, 'For the Dead Remember' (Oxford, 464 pages, $34.99). He argues that James hid a lot behind a calm surface. A friend once said James had 'the mind of a nice child,' and Jones agrees there was more underneath. Reviewer Michael Saler, a history professor at UC Davis, says the book sometimes drowns in detail but its odd characters and stories keep it alive. He also says it pushes some claims about James's private life further than the evidence goes. One running theme in the book is lighter. James complained about his teeth for decades.
Our read
This is a Career story. James was good at the job in front of him. He ran a Cambridge college and then Eton, and he kept the peace. But the thing he did for love, a few stories a year read to friends, is the thing the world kept. The job paid for the life. The side craft made the name. We see a version of this in planning all the time. People spend a whole career on the paycheck and never fund the thing they'd do for free.
So here's the check for this week. Open your retirement budget, the one that says what you'll spend each month once the paycheck stops. Find the line that pays for your own candlelight, the hobby, the craft, the teaching, the trip. If there's no line, you've planned the money and skipped the point. Put a monthly number on it now, while there's time to adjust how much you save or when you stop. Better to find the umbrella while the sky is still clear. A review is where we add that line together.