I do have some sympathy with James’s hatred of ‘thought’ – by which he meant expansive theorising and philosophy – as I know from experience that speculative reasoning can sometimes be the enemy of determined attention to detail in antiquarian pursuits.
A very good review by Dr Francis Young of the new M.R. James biography.
But M. R. James was first and foremost an antiquarian; the last of the great antiquarians. The eclecticism was the point, and the ghost stories were part of that eclecticism.