John Kaag: William James’s varieties of Irish experience

In 1789, a young man of 18 set off from his family’s five-acre farm in County Cavan, Ireland. His parents wanted him to go into the ministry, but to escape that fate he decided to go to America instead. He arrived in Albany, N.Y., penniless, as many immigrants to the United States still do, and took the first job available as a store clerk. Over the next 30 years, the Irishman bought his own store, purchased large sections of land in upstate New York, acquired the salt factories of Syracus