to patronize Mrs H. . . I very much prefer to be with Auntie, as it is much more homelike and I feel more free to do as I please. If I don’t happen to feel like talking, nobody comments upon it. But at Mrs H’s., if I don’t immediately upon coming to table commence to smile and laugh and make foolish remarks why they think that I am sick or have lost all my friends. Neither of which is the case, but I am merely weary of the froth and bubbles of table talk, notwithstanding that I make three fourths of it generally myself. It does seem a pity that you should travel so in your old age. But I suppose it can’t be helped. However I shall regard it as a sign that you are better than you were when I last saw you. As to my working next summer, I shall be glad to. I had thought of it before a word was written from home about it.
Your affectionate Son,
HENRY.
OBERLIN, Thursday, Feb. 3, ’81.
DEAR SISTER HELEN,
As usual, it is almost time to send letters home again, and I have only written about a sheet. I cannot, like you, make up for all deficiencies in a day, nor have I Reky’s facile pen, which eclipses even the longest efforts of brother Will. So I shall send very little home this time. I was going to write such a lot, too. Such is the fate of good resolutions, mine especially. We are having fearfully cold weather just now, the thermometer goes down to ten degrees below zero mornings, and freezes the very blood in a man’s bones. There isn’t any blood in a man’s bones, is there? Well, anyway, it chills one to the bone, and freezes, or curdles, as you please, the blood in his veins, and instead of putting snap into a fellow it takes it all out. It uses me up to walk down town on a cold morning. Bronson Alcott gave a lecture here last term on the Concord celebrities. He spoke of Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller and his own daughter Louise. It was very interesting. He introduced us to the private life of all of them; especially Emerson was interesting. He told just how he wrote, kept a journal and whenever he had a good thought put it down. And his essays are the result, being merely a piecing together of the fragments of his journal. I never knew before how shy Hawthorne was. He had a kind of turret hitched onto his house, where he could retire when he was disturbed. All he said about Thoreau was also very interesting. I have bought Macaulay’s essays, and have taken a good dose of them. I admire him more and more every day. His style is certainly unrivalled. Some passages are magnificent. I do not think much of him, though, in other respects. Since I bought these volumes I have read “Criticisms on the Principal Italian Writers,” “The Athenian Orators,” Mitford’s “History of Greece,” and “Milton.” I am inspired with a desire to read Dante now. Shelley is one or my standard poets. I have a cheap edition of him, and have just read “Prometheus Unbound,” which is much praised. Some parts or it I like very much, but most of it I could not appreciate at the first reading. His short poems are the most exquisite ever written. Keats too I have been reading some, but I have not tackled the “Endymion” yet. I am reading though, (would you believe it) “In Memoriam.” Some of it I like. I feel my ignorance more and more every day. There are two things which I am ashamed to acknowledge; one is that I am 18, and the other is that I have been to Europe. I don’t like to confess that I have gazed upon the most glorious masterpeices of painting and sculpture with as little appreciation as the Vandals.
With much love,
HENRY.
OBERLIN, February 26, ’81.
MY DEAREST MOTHER,
Your short letter to me, enclosing one to Bowen, I received yesterday. I was glad to get it, but sorry for the conditions on which it came. That is, you said that it was feared that the other steamer would not stop at all, when it was learned that the small pox had got around to Honolulu. O dear, I am afraid Reky and I will both die if we don’t get letters from home next Tuesday. How horrible that the small pox has come. I am commencing to share all the most vindictive sentiments against the Chinamen. I am rather ashamed of it, but then I can’t help it. And I am rather afraid that the lofty disinterested philanthropy of most Eastern people would vanish as my benevolent feelings did on nearer approach to the wretches. I wish they could all be put into a big bag and taken out to sea, and shoved overboard, or that the whole race had only one neck, as some king or other said of some people or other, that it might be chopped off at one fell swoop. Do not be frightened Mother. All this bloodthirsty talk is merely a bit of diplomacy to draw a long letter from you reproving me for my depravity. I’ve let the cat out of the bag, haven’t I? Never mind, send the long letter just the same, please, dear Mother. Don’t think, Mother, that I froze last winter. I didn’t at all. The grey suit did very well. And I knew that if I got a new suit last winter, it would be wasting a good lot of money, for I thought I would outgrow the other before I could wear it again. I was warm enough. But I shouldn’t object to having you fly right over here and dress me up warm. There would be some prospect of it, for you would probably bring some money with you. The cold that you speak of I recovered from long ago, of course. Don’t suppose from anything that I have said that I am dissatisfied about money or regard myself as stinted. I don’t. I am perfectly satisfied. $ 300.00 a year ought to be enough. But the simple fact is that on that sum I am not a millionaire. And when you write about dressing warmly and well, etc, why I don’t carry money enough around in my pocket to buy a suit of clothes. I must save carefully for four or five months before I can get a new suit. You see expenses pile up and I have to figure a long way ahead. The winter is breaking up. The snow is about all gone. It is quite warm, but a disagreeable day. With lots of love,
I am your loving Son,
HENRY.
OBERLIN, Sunday, February 26 ’81.
DEAR SISTER HATTIE,
Carrie has come and gone. It was just like an angel from heaven sent down to illuminate our barren Oberlin existence. The time when she was here just flew like the wind. And now she is gone. Reky and I both felt bad enough to cry when we walked back alone from the Depot. We didn’t know till then what a happy time it had been while she was here. It is just like beginning all over again now. And my courage is all gone. You see the whole thing was so sudden. We didn’t know she was coming home till summer, until she wrote a postal telling us that she was going home in March. And then I was so busy I didn’t realize that she was coming. How could I? And then she came. All of a sudden too, and only to stay a few days. And then I was happy without knowing it almost. I went at my books with a zest. I went to class with a zest. But I was busy and Carrie was busy. She had shopping to do and friends to see. And I had hard lessons to get. And so Friday came and she was to go that night. We took tea at the Brand’s. After supper we walked home, and were jolly, laughing and joking. And then when we got down to the Depot we waited a while, for the train was late. And when it came, it came so suddenly, we weren’t watching for it. And we hurried aboard, and the train started before Carrie had even got a seat. And we had to jump off, and she was gone. And then, for the first time, I took in the whole business. And it seemed as if I hadn’t had a chance to speak to her: hadn’t had a word with her. That’s the way it is in this world. Man’s eyes are blinded. He trifles with his opportunity. And when it is gone he awakes. Life is all one great opportunity. And we don’t know it. And the time flies by, the days and months and years, and when the best of it is past our eyes are opened, and we see all that we have lost, and know that it is gone — passed for ever. (Hang it!) Well such is life. (Only don’t think I am sentimental and silly.) I shouldn’t have written such stuff as I have in this letter. It sounds rather blue. And I ought to be happy most of the time. I shall soon settle down into the old ruts again and be as “happy as a big sunflower, that nods and bends in the breezes”.
Your loving Brother,
HENRY.
OBERLIN, Friday, March 4, ’81.
DEAR ANYBODY AND EVERYBODY,
The mail from home was welcome as usual and not late. From Mother’s letter to me we were afraid that no mail would come, and so when the letters actually came, Reky and I were overwhelmed with joy. Helen’s letter and Father’s long one, with a short note from Mother was my mail. You can imagine how astonished I was to hear of the plan to come here, and overjoyed too, of course. Only I curbed my exultation, so as not to be too much disappointed if you don’t any