Читать книгу The Collected Letters of Henry Northrup Castle - Henry Northrup Castle - Страница 12
ОглавлениеHILO, June 25, ’76.
DEAR MOTHER,
I want to see you very much. I intend to enjoy myself up here, though I am afraid I am going to be homesick. I am afraid my knee is not getting any better. I think it is about the same as it was when I left Honolulu. Please send the clothes up as soon as possible, for I will need them, I think. I wish Father could have stayed up here and enjoyed himself. Did he have a comfortable passage down? I was real glad Father went up with me; he was a great comfort to me. How are all the folks at home? Give them all my love, including everybody in the three houses. Give Eloise and Ethelwyn each a kiss from me, and tell them I will write to them if I have time. Since we left Honolulu, I have lost one pound and Reky has lost four. Edward says we have run it off, and we have been doing something all the time. Yesterday we went to bathe in the Wailuku, and Edward went with us. That was in the afternoon. In the morning over to Cocoanut Island, on horseback. Nobody can take cocoanuts without Governor Kipi’s permission, so we asked him, and he said we might have as many as we pleased; but when we got there, the man would not believe Kipi said we might, and would not get us any, which was very provoking, indeed; so we came home.
In a little while it will be time to go to church, so I guess I will adjourn writing for the present, and brush my hair. I have got a piece of news that will rejoice Helen’s heart. It is that up here I brush my hair three times a day, and on Sunday I brush it four times. Now will not Helen rejoice? I go down to Mrs Sisson’s every day and practice. Tell Ellie that. I wish I had the Home Circle up here to practice in, besides my Richardson’s. The whole of Uncle Dave’s family are going away to-morrow, and we have their cows and peaches and everything else. Last night we went up to Uncle Dave’s to play, but Reky stuck a nail into his foot, and had to go home. We went over to Uncle Reky’s and played on the drums and other instruments, and had a jolly time playing band. After that Howard and I went to boxing, while the girls sat on the steps and watched us. I had a jolly time. When we got up to Uncle Dave’s we went with Howard down to Mr Reed’s, to shoot a cat, and it was there Reky stuck a nail in his foot. After Howard had shot the cat we went back to Uncle Dave’s, when Edward told Reky to go home and get a piece of pork on his foot. I wash my feet every night before I go to bed, and I eat a great deal. We are going to go up to Uncle Dave’s pasture and milk the cows every morning. I do not eat half as much bread-stuff up here as at Honolulu. I hardly ever eat bread except at lunch, and then I generally make half my lunch on rice. We are going to keep quiet this week.
From your Affectionate Son,
HENRY.
June 28, ’76.
DEAR HELEN,
I have barely time to answer yours. I am having a jolly time up here, despite the fact that I am absent from you. I eat lots up here. I am very sorry that I cannot be in Honolulu to see the fun. How I wish I could see the big sights that are going to be seen on the Fourth. I have been out to Papaikou once since I have been here. I expected to have had a miserable time going out and coming in, but instead of that I enjoyed the ride, both in and out. It looks a little familiar, but not much. We have had very little milk, and I have hardly tasted it since I have been up here, but David Hitchcock and all are going to Kona in the steamer this week, and so we will have their cows; so we will have plenty of milk. I have had four or five water-lemons since I have been up here. Ellie has been sick. She is not quite well yet.
Yours truly,
HENRY.
P’S.—Your school has a vacation now, has it not? Goodbye.
CLEVELAND, O., March 10, ’78.
DEAR FOLKS AT HOME,
We mail the letters to-morrow for Honolulu, and I must send a little, just to let you know that I am alive and kicking. Jamie decided to go up to Cleveland, and I thought I should like to go with him, so here I am at Henry’s. Will and I slept on the floor last night, and got along very well indeed. I study Grecian history next term, and am trying to make it up this vacation, as it will save me so much time next term. I think I shall succeed in doing so. The book has 240 pages. I have now read about 230. School begins next Tuesday at 12 o’clock, so I will have two more days to review in. Jamie and Cousin Henry have gone to church, like good boys, while Will and I stay at home; but Will and I are aiming at long life. They have a great deal of respect for Sunday here. Our ears are saluted by the sound of a little girl skipping rope in the hall, while we have but to turn toward the window to see a parcel of boys engaged in a game of base-ball. So you see these games are able to tempt folks to do evil, as well as some others which are looked upon as very wicked. So we see the wrongfulness of a game consists in the use made of it, not in the game itself. Therefore one game, however much it may be the custom to make a wrong use of it, is as lawful as another, provided the right use is made of it. Therefore cards is as lawful as base-ball. What nonsense I am writing! I expect you will learn a great deal and get a great many new ideas from this homily.
Will and I took a long walk this morning before breakfast. We went out to the park, and then went way down to the end of some long piers, at the ends of which were two lighthouses. Jamie and I got breakfast at a restaurant, but Will and the other Henry, my illustrious namesake, are boarding themselves.
I have had a very good time this vacation, and am sorry it is coming to an end. It hardly has time to get fairly commenced before it ends. But such is life: ‘Tis but a vapor that vanisheth away, etc. Jamie and Henry have come home. Those boys that were playing ball are now varying their amusement by pegging a top, and their loud voices come up here through my window, dispelling the Sabbath stillness, it ought to be, but there is not much stillness to dispel around here just now. The boys are eating oranges now, and I suppose I ought to help them. We get oranges very cheap at Oberlin now, at about thirty cents a dozen, and I think they are pretty good too. There are cocoanuts, too. around at the groceries, but I imagine they are some that Noah—he lived in a tropical climate, did he not?—had left over from his supply in the ark, and I am not anxious to try them. It is possible that I may be mistaken, however.
My sheet is coming to an end, and my ideas never had a beginning, so I will cease to bore you.
Affectionately yours,
HENRY.
OBERLIN, OHIO, May 6, ’78.
DEAR SISTER MARY,
I believe your birthday is approaching, and I am able to give you nothing better than to bore you with a letter—a pretty thin present, I think, especially from such a poor hand at letter-writing as I am; but I will do my best, and you can take this juvenile spurt at what it is worth. We had a lecture from a gentleman by the name of Mr Phillips a few weeks ago for Thursday lecture. We have had a good many missionary addresses lately, all interesting, this being no exception. He spoke upon the missionary field in India, and told us a good many interesting and funny stories, so that the lecture was very interesting and entertaining. One of these stories was about the degradation of women there. The children, that is, the girls, they never send to school, regarding them as entirely incapable of learning. They would about as soon think of sending a cow to school as a girl. Sensible! Don’t you think so? It is one of the most repulsive things to me, of anything in this world, to see every single day girls—yes, girls—beat the boys in Latin. It makes the hot blush of shame mantle high on my cheek, to see my sex so put to shame by paltry girls. I think girls should keep their proper place, I do! (Hem!) But to return to my story. Some missionary finally succeeded in persuading some parents to let their girls go to school for an experiment, and two girls went. Well, after a while, there was a general examination of all the schools, and four or five hundred boys were assembled, and those two girls. Well, those two girls spelt down the whole five hundred boys. One girl stood until there were about five boys left standing, and then went down. The other girl spelt them all down. Disgusting fact! A fact repulsive, exceedingly repulsive, to my feelings as an individual of the superior sex. Women, as I said before, should be kept down. They are an inferior class anyhow. Another story that he told us was as follows: Monkeys are among their gods. One time a whole troop of these came down into a village and commenced to eat up all the cucumbers and other vegetables in the gardens. The people dared not touch them themselves, but they entreated Mr Phillips and his father to drive them away. Whereupon Mr Phillips went out with his gun, and made great havoc among them. When he was through, a little boy came up to him and said that he had not killed them all, the patriarch of the whole tribe was left, and he must be sure and kill him for he bit the boys. He found him at the top of a large tree, and shot him dead. When he fell down, the boys were delighted, and fell to beating his body. Mr Phillips said it reminded him of the boys, who, having killed a dog that made away with sheep, pounded him with clubs. On being remonstrated with, and told that it was cruel to do so, and asked why they did it, they replied that they wanted him to know that there was punishment after death. This brought down the house.
Your Affectionate Brother,
HENRY.
NEW YORK CITY, Friday, June 27, ’79.
DEAR, DARLING, LONESOME, DESERTED MOTHER,
How are you, way off in that lonesome, out-of-the-way, poky place? Are you, though desolate, “yet all undaunted, in that desert land enchanted, in that home by horror haunted? Tell me, tell me, I implore. Is there, is there balm in Gilead? Tell me, truly, I implore, etc.” Or are you lonesome, and not at all “undaunted,” and have you found the “balm” reputed to be in Gilead a minus, or having the virtues of ordinary “patent medicine”? I sadly fear that the latter is the correct view of the case. Possibly you miss even such a little “dead-beat” (the old word again) as I am. If so, I suppose, on the principle that Byron illustrates in saying: “My very chains and I grew friends,” “I learned to love despair,” “Even I regained my freedom with a sigh,” etc.
However, I am not there to abuse you any longer, Mother. I probably will not be for some time to come. Our preparations are well nigh all made, for, as you know, we start to-morrow. I have my valise yet to pack, but everything is lying out on the bed, ready to be put in. I have bought all the things that I needed, I believe. I find my new slippers a great comfort. They are plain black ones, and cost 1 dollar and 25 cents. I got four new shirts of different patterned bosoms, costing 2 dollars apiece. They will be finished and sent up to-night. Jim’s ditto. He, as you know, got six, costing the same apiece as mine. I have also new undershirts, drawers, collars, cuffs, handkerchiefs, sleeve buttons, etc. I find that I can wear Jim’s hat, which is too small for him, by putting in some paper, and am so saved the necessity of getting a new one.
Jim and I went over to the city the other day, and saw Dr Coan and Miss Philips, and liked both very much. We also visited the new Catholic cathedral, which is still in process of construction. It is a magnificent affair, second only to European ditto, 330 feet high, and of about the same length, and built, as is usual, in the form of a cross. Standing in the central aisle, you look straight up 112 feet to the roof, supported by magnificent columns, adorned in the Corinthian style and forming Gothic arches at the top. There was an altar there, which is said to have cost 100,000 dollars, adorned with various statues and most magnificently carved. The glass of the windows was covered with brilliant paintings of no mean merit, I understand, though I am no judge, of course, on such matters. The “holy water” impressed me as decidedly dirty and somewhat stagnant, and I was puzzled to know wherein its holiness consisted. If it may be taken as an average specimen of its kind, why, something or anything deliver me from holy water! You certainly may get just such as that in any old pool. While we were in there, some workmen who, as they went forward, made some kind of rude courtesy to the altar, furnished quite a study. I wish that I might have dissected their mental states at the time, to see if there was any sort of worship in their hearts as they bent their knees, but “the fates of men and of Gods” did not allow me the privilege. But “Such is life,” ‘tis, etc.
And now, Mother, you must not stay in Oberlin all this summer. It is a “flying in the face of Providence.” It is your duty to improve your opportunities, and you have numberless ones. You will be lonely there. Come East, and you will not be lonely. But loneliness induces weeping, and I know it says somewhere in the Bible, “Weep not,” or something of that kind. It also says, “Enter not into temptation.” The logical deduction is that, by staying in Oberlin, you are deliberately and basely entering into temptation to weep. Therefore, do not stay in Oberlin. Go West or East, but do not be stationary, that must not be. Remember the immortal lines of the lamented Whittier. “Of all sad words I ever see, the saddest are these, This must not be.” So, Mother, I hope you will be convinced. “Consider your ways and be wise,” always remembering that being wise does not mean staying in Oberlin. If you will not do anything else, do what Father spoke of in his last. Go to a hygienic establishment and get strong—strong as an OX. And, Mother, do not work too hard, when you get home. Do not! When I come home for you, as previously planned, two or three years hence, when I have cultivated with due care a precocious young mustache, so as to appear to the home folks with becoming dignity, I want to, nay, I expect, to find you strong, moderately so at least, and now do not disappoint me. I know I have abused you here in the United States (and no one is more sorry for it than I am), and have kept you from getting strong, but you will not find it so there at home. They will treat you well, so you must get strong. I, or rather we, think very strongly of staying in Europe, if Father approves the plan, studying, so I do not know when I will see you again. In fact, if nothing happens to prevent, the chances are about even that I study in Paris next year. And so, Mother, good-bye, for how long I do not know, but remember what I have said. Good-bye!
Lovingly,
HENRY.
P.S. — When this reaches you, I will be several hundred miles away on the Atlantic. My course lies eastward, yours westward. Space cannot be annihilated. If I stay in Europe, we will be separated by half a world. But we will see each other again. I hope I will not be seasick.—H.
LONDON, INNS OF COURT HOTEL,
Sunday, July 13, ’79.
DEAR MOTHER,
The rest have been writing, but I have been silent long; that is, I have been two weeks in Europe and in the steamer, and have not written my mother a single word. But be it at least said in my defence that I have written to no one else, and if you have been neglected, it has not been that I might write to some bosom friend or other inferior object of affection.
Yes, Mother, think of it; I have sailed 3,000 miles across the Atlantic, and have seen and visited and trod the shores of the old world, but I am as far, probably farther, from the realization of the great fact as yourself. What is more, it seems an absolute impossibility for me to realize it at all. Therefore, dear Mother, realize it for me, do. I feel sorry that I am so far from the realization of the fact that I am in Europe on historic ground, that I have looked out upon the fields that have been drenched with the blood of heroes, and have stood over the graves of martyrs, because it detracts sadly from everything which is to be derived from such a trip as this, whether of pleasure or profit. It detracts from the pleasure of the trip, for when there is no realization, it throws the enjoyment derived from the sights seen back upon their original merit as sights, which, after all, is in some cases, by comparison inferior, so that it might just as well be America as Europe that one is seeing. Do you get my point? I mean that Loch Lomond in Scotland ought to give more pleasure than a fac-simile of it in Central New York, simply because it is Loch Lomond and not a lake in New York. But as long as I don’t realize that it is Loch Lomond, it might as well be only a lake in New York. And it detracts from the profit and instruction of the trip, because when one stands over the grave of Shakespeare, and has no realization of the fact that it is his, it does not lead him to thought any more than if it were the grave of some nameless Kanaka at the Islands; not that I mean to disparage the Kanaka. Both graves teach a common lesson, but Shakespeare’s teaches one in addition, which the other does not. If this were not so, visiting Shakespeare’s grave would be an idle curiosity. One might as well moralize over the last resting-place of the other gent at once. But I am boring you with this tirade. Suffice it to say that I lack this realization, and so my visit to Europe is correspondingly injured; not that I don’t enjoy myself. No indeed! I am wild with pleasure, or would be were it not that I feel that I should get something from this trip besides that. However, enough moralizing. We first saw land about 5 o’clock P.M., on Monday, July 7, 1879, about six days and one hour ago. But what a world has been crowded into six days! The events of one would keep a man in writing material for a year. By yesterday, when we saw Kenil-worth Castle, and that seems a month ago, one felt completely satiated. But now that we have done no sight-seeing to-day—Sunday—though of course one can’t help informally sight-seeing all the time in London, I am hungry to go again.
We had a very pleasant time sailing up the Firth of Clyde. The scenery was good though not impressive. Still there were some very fine pictures looking at the scenery as a series of pictures; and, I remember now, there were some that were very beautiful. So I will retract and say we had a very beautiful though not grand sail up the Firth. I speak of the entrance to the river, below Greenock. The steamer arrived there about 6.30 A.M. Greenock is, of course, world-renowned as the place where two of Oliver Optic’s heroes ran away (“Young America Abroad”). Naturally, then, I surveyed it with great interest, to see if I might find the pier where the aforementioned harum-scarums were landed. I saw a pier which was probably it. You can easily see how the place shone with a borrowed lustre from its connection with historic events of such marked importance. Here our great steamship stopped and, after a delay of five hours, we were transferred to a small river steamboat, which took us up the river to Glasgow. These are as different from our river steamboats on the Hudson and other streams, as night is from day. It was long and low and narrow, drew very little water, and was substantially built, being of iron. It impressed me as remarkably queer, at first. It is very sharp indeed, the prow being at about this angle >, I should think. Then it is built out very suddenly for the paddles, for you must know it is a side-wheel boat, and it travels very fast. All their boats travel faster than ours do. We had a most magnificent ride up the Clyde to Glasgow. The scenery was something like some parts of New York State, perhaps, but better. The color was magnificently rich, more so, I think, than any I saw in America. We saw the oldest steamboat built on the Clyde—a regular old tub. But I must hasten on, as I fear I must stop soon.
I went to hear Spurgeon this morning. Jim, C. and H. stayed at home, but I was bound to hear Spurgeon. On my way I crossed the Thames, getting my first sight of that celebrated river. I crossed on Blackfriars bridge. Spurgeon’s church is called the Tabernacle. It is a very large building, with two galleries, one above the other, like an opera house. I sat in the top gallery on a front seat. The house will seat about from 4,000 to 4,500 people. I think my calculation was very accurate. Mr. Spurgeon read and commented, as did Dr. Eggleston, whom I heard in Brooklyn. I thought he talked very well, too. When he preached, the text was from Hosea, 5, 15: “I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, etc.” Mother, it was a magnificent sermon. I think I liked it rather better than any I have ever heard or read. I cannot tell about that, but it was fine. How I wish you could have heard it. I took about eight pages of notes in my little red book, but it was not a sermon to take notes on. He first talked about it as applied to England in her present troubles, and then in its personal application. I guess he preached an hour or more, but it seemed very short. It did me good, for the time at least. I would go again to-night, if he would preach the same sermon over again.
We went to Westminster this afternoon to hear Dean Stanley. It is a grand old place, but I do not like their service. I could not help contrasting it with the morning. That fellow reading now; he read along in an attempt, I imagine, at a chant, until out of breath, then took breath and steamed ahead again. I saw the graves of many illustrious men. I forgot to say, Mother, that you and I must revise our impressions of Spurgeon. I believe neither of us had a very favorable idea of him. Give French my blessing. Be sure you do.
Affectionately,
HENRY.
