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OBERLIN, Thursday, October 6, ’81.

DEAR BROTHER WILL,

Your postal and letter to me, and postal to Reky have been thankfully received. We feel happy at the thought of having you come east, but very sorry for the cause. Give Ida my love. I earnestly hope she may improve fast there, and also here, if you come. The thought of seeing you both is enough to make one hop up and down for joy. I hope that you can stop here and give us an opportunity to see you. But if you can’t you must get your ticket by the Lake Shore, and come through on the Southern Division, so that Reky and I can get on the train and ride with you. But I won’t plan for that. I shall calculate on your stopping. The Hotel is pretty decent. I guess the accommodations are better than the fare. Of course you know that Auntie would be delighted to have you here, and would do all she could for you. The house is not full. You could have a room on the second floor, and the stairs are short and easy. The Hotel begins on the second floor, and the stairs are long. I went to Cleveland on the day of Garfield’s funeral, but Reky did not. There was a tremendous crowd. The procession marched half an hour or more before I knew it had started. I could not find out what road it took, and there was such a tremendous crowd where I was that one would have thought that that was sufficient warrant for supposing it was coming that way. But then there was such a crowd there that one might very well get in with a few thousand stragglers, who all knew no more than himself. I finally found the procession and I saw enough then. I had the good luck to get on the steps of a church, and espied a window above me into which I got my companion to boost me. The window unfortunately was sloping instead of straight, but the friction of my pants, aided with pressure on the stone with my hands, was just sufficient to overcome that component part of gravity which tended to urge me down the inclined plane (Mechanics). Once in a while I gave an ominous slip, and warned a small boy from under me lest I should crush him by my fall. I managed to retain this uncomfortable position for an hour. I could see everything perfectly, which compensated me for the skin on my hands which I lost. I am very glad I went. The huge depot at Cleveland when I left was fairly swarming with people. The trains were crowded down to the bottom steps of the platforms.

With much love,

HENRY.

OBERLIN, Monday, October 10, ’81.

DEAR SISTER HELEN,

The mail from home was received by two expectant and happy boys this morning. Mine was not quite as large as usual, but your part at least was faithfully performed, and I didn’t mind, because I rejoiced so in the pictures of Will’s and Hattie’s babies. How they have grown. It is no longer appropriate to call W. R. Castle, Jr., a baby; he is a big boy. The pictures are both splendid. I think this last of Will’s beats the other two of him. I have all three, and feel as rich as a king.

You will find, dear Helen, in my general letter, that I have more than your proclivity, though not your talent, for homiletics. As for your homily, it was apt, appropriate, truthful, and welcome. Come again! Carrie and Mother, thank you for your good letters. I missed the usual letter from Father, but know, of course, that he would have written if it had been feasible, and am glad he did not, since it was not. I am very sorry Jim’s health is not better. This world, taken all around, has some drawbacks. That is a moderate way of stating it. For all my complaints and groanings, I believe I am the luckiest one. For there is really nothing the matter with my health or anything else connected with me. The only thing is that I take a kind of delight in magnifying my small woes, while yours at home seem to be real ones. There is one comfort. I shall have my education salted down before the Reciprocity Treaty, and if it is not renewed, no creditor can demand my education. If he does, I’ll step on him. That is, my education will be salted down before ’83, if I don’t return to the Islands with Julia, and work in the store a couple of years and develop some physique and give my eyes a rest. That was my little project a couple of weeks ago, before I resigned my Junior Ex. But since I did that, I have felt so much more cheerful that I haven’t been so enthusiastic over the idea. Still, I think it would be a good idea, if I don’t take a post-graduate course. But I am so ambitious to do the latter, that I do not feel exactly like sacrificing it even to two years at home. But I suppose the idea of two years in Germany is a little dream—a myth of my own, which there is no prospect of realising. In that case, I think it would undoubtedly be well for me to return. If Julia did not return till February or March, I could quite likely finish this year before starting, so that I would have only one year left to take. The fact is, it seems to me just this way, that, if I am never going to study any more, it would be far more advantageous for me to take the Senior year when I am older and more mature. I feel exceedingly young yet, and to think that next year I will be a senior seems ridiculous. I don’t feel any nearer to choosing a profession than I ever have been, indeed not so near, for I have always taken it for granted that I was going to be a lawyer until now, and now I feel very unsettled about it, and not at all ready to choose that profession on the spur of the moment. Perhaps if Will took me into his office if I went home, I might be able to make up my mind better. But he would probably find me a useless encumbrance. In any case, if the Senior year is to be my last year of study, I feel that I could take it to more advantage at 22 than at 20. But it doesn’t lie very near my heart. That is, I am happy and contented here, and if I went home, it would only be because I thought it the best thing for me. Don’t think that my opinions are influenced by my homesickness in this matter. They are not. And don’t think me unsettled, Father. I never was less so. I am contented to stay here. And I am enjoying life in a quiet sort of way; or, at least, if not actually enjoying life, I am more satisfied, and at ease in my conscience, &c, than I have been for a long time. All from resigning that Junior Ex. The same reasons which would lead me to desire to go home, make me want to go to Germany or France for a couple of years’ study. I am in no hurry to choose a profession, and don’t want to have to do so when I am only 20. I want to put it off a year or two longer until I am better qualified to choose. At 20 my tastes and bent will not be sufficiently developed for me to be able to declare with certainty what calling in life is most suited to me, and what one I most desire to follow. I want longer to find out what I want to be, I don’t want to make a mistake in my choice of a profession. I don’t want to study law a year just to find out at the end of that time that I don’t want to be a lawyer. That is too expensive a way to acquire knowledge to suit me. I think by the time I am 22, that my tastes will be sufficiently pronounced for me to choose with some degree of certainty my path in life. The object then, is to put off the choice of a profession until I am competent to choose, whatever time that may be—say two years. Certainly that is a most rational wish. And the question is, what is the best method to secure that end? Both plans suggested have their advantages. Going home would be the best for the practical, active side of my nature, and the best for my temper and views of life. Germany would be the best for my intellect, information, and breadth. The first would make me the greater doer, the second, the greater thinker. It reduces itself to the question as to whether action or thought is the end of life. The practical man will not hesitate to say action. But I am in doubt myself. Certainly the practical side of me needs developing. I have almost no common sense. Anything calculated to develop that article in me will be a blessing.

By the way, you folks must always remember that my general letters are to be considered as answers to your particular ones. So that each one of you now owes me a letter. If you have any objection to this method of correspondence I will answer you separately. I can do it easily enough. For instance, my general letter this time would make two and a half letters of two sheets each, which would answer the letters I received from you, Carrie and Mother, this mail. The particular letter which I generally write is to any one, just as it happens. Generally to Helen, because she writes to me most, and because I always think of her as my agent, and general protector of my interests, as it were. I always make a point to get plenty of sleep, Helen, so you need not worry on that score. Mother has drilled it into me, so that now sleep is one of my hobbies. I always plan for nine hours. But I cannot generally get it, which proves that I do not need quite that amount. That is, if I get nine hours two or three nights hand running, after that I can’t get more than eight and a half, never mind how early I go bed. I will wake up earlier in the morning.

I regard “Thomas Wingfold, Curate” as a good book in many ways, but on the whole as a failure, though no doubt I can agree with you in all you said about it. “Wilfred Cumbermede” I think the best I have read. His “Phantastes” is a delightful work. Have I expatiated on it before? Carrie read it aloud to me when I had the measles. I had read it once before. We also read one of George Sand’s. She is fair. I am not getting so that I cannot enjoy good light reading, Helen. My enjoyment of Hawthorne’s lighter style is too thorough for that. But I confess that I think very little time should be given to that sort of reading. Only when we are seeking amusement, or better, recreation, should we indulge in it. This is not saying that it is not worth reading. For we should make our amusements healthful and beneficial. It is simply limiting its sphere. You are making a gain in reading, and I a distinct loss in not reading, contemporary literature. You read the books of which I only read the notices in Scribner, &c. But I think that my gain is greater than my loss, and your loss greater than your gain. A man must make a sacrifice somewhere, and I prefer to read only those authors whom time and the experience of mankind have pronounced worthy. I miss some rare jewel (mixed metaphor) which I might have discovered among much chaff, but I am more than compensated for it by the assurance that all I read will be pure gold. No dross in my dish. There is so much that is good that it takes more than a lifetime to attain an acquaintance with the classics even, and hence there is no excuse for reading that which is not classic. No excuse but one. To keep up with the times and the spirit of modern thought, one should read a very little of contemporary writers, those, that is, who are not yet classic. This does not include, 01 course, those living writers whose work has been already tried and found good,—Longfellow, Tennyson, Emerson, etc. They are already classic. They belong to the last generation anyway. They are not strictly our contemporaries. I read, and believe in reading, Howells, Henry James, Mrs. Burnett, Geo. W. Cable, etc. But to make that the bulk of our reading, even if we read nothing but fiction, would be spending among pigmies the time we should spend among giants. This is a bad illustration. If one reads, say five hours a day, half an hour of that time would certainly be enough to spend on such reading as that. Why, I could sit down this moment, and in half an hour’s time without the aid of anything but memory, I could map out a course of reading in the English classics, that it would take me years to finish. And when I think of the masterpieces of other languages, of “Faust,” of Dante’s poem, and especially of the masterpieces of Grecian Literature, of the incomparable productions of the Age of Pericles, I am convinced that man has little time to fritter away on trifles, artistic though they be. It is a crime to read anything that is not good. It is a mistake to read anything but the best. Just think of Grecian Literature. It yields to the English alone, and hardly to that. What a prolific age was that which produced the three greatest dramatists after Shakespeare. A great number of well read people of a cultivated literary taste wouldn’t even know their names. Æschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. There are translations of their works. And every well read person ought to have at least some acquaintance with them. To the vast majority of those who have not studied the classics, the great names of Latin and Greek Literature are nothing more than names. And only the greatest have they even heard of. I don’t understand this. You don’t have to understand German to be familiar with the name, position and even writings of Gæthe. I suppose that one reason is that the ancient languages do not admit of as good translation as the kindred tongues of modern Europe, and that besides, the same genius has not been applied to that work. As to the American Book Exchange, I do not overestimate their books. They do print some excellent ones, and those it pays to buy. The difficulty with them is that they try to do too much. If they would print such books as Scribners, &c, do, do as good work in every respect, and then apply their principles of cheap selling and large sales, they would do a great work. Bowen’s Dante leaves nothing to be desired in the line of print and binding for 40 c. Think of it! I have only been tempted by the American Book Exchange because I have hungered so to own books of my own, and haven’t felt able to spend much. As it is, I have spent a good deal on books this last year. Don’t stop your buying on my account, I shouldn’t buy any more for that. I shall still buy of them (the Book Exchange), but only such books as are well printed. They do print some very nice books. I have their Milton for 50 c. I wish I were rich, then I might buy books enough to swamp a kingdom. But as it is, all kingdoms are safe from me.

Affectionately yours,

HENRY.

OBERLIN, Saturday, October, 15, ‘81.

DEAR FATHER,

I am afraid that you folks will not hear much from me this mail. I wrote ten sheets to you at home and sent them to Will, at his request, in California. But I have reason to think that he left Grass Valley before they reached there. I have been working over a debate and also a Monthly Rhetorical. The debate I spoke last night. The Monthly Rhetorical comes off next Monday. I told you in my other letters that I had resigned my Junior Ex. It was, I think, a wise step. It has made me much happier, by relieving my mind of the burden. I will just say here while I happen to think of it, that I think I will make it my principle to avoid all honors of every kind. Not that I will get many. I should like to know what you folks think about it. My idea is this: that (1) No real benefit is lost by foregoing honors; that (2) I worry so over them that they make me morbid, and thus injure me; that (3) In most cases something of value is sacrificed for them, such as reading, etc.; that (4) Fully enough literary work is done without them, and that (5) They are liable to injure class work. I want to buy a Bryant. There is one down town for two dollars. The regular price is $3.50, but it is a little marked up, so they reduce the price. I can rub all the marks out, so that it is an extra good chance to get a copy. This one just suits me too, and I know that it is one which I will be well satisfied to keep all my life, as it is really a fine book. Well illustrated, good paper, print and binding. I think I will buy it, and if you blame me for extravagance, I won’t do so again. It takes me a long time to buy a book. I look at it for weeks before I purchase. I compare it with other books, hesitate, say I’ll come in again or think it over, and when I have once bought it, I tremble lest I should repent. But on the whole I find that I only repent of a very few of my purchases, and those are chiefly some of the very cheap American Book Ex. publications, so that all my mistakes wouldn’t count up a dollar, I believe. I acknowledge that I have been seduced into buying books that I didn’t want (i.e., long for), at least just now. But on account of the cheapness of the books, the experience has cost me almost nothing, and I believe it has been valuable to me. I think I have learned never to buy a book unless I want it, want it very much, and I believe it has been a good time for me to learn it. There are several books I am suffering to get now, especially the works of Emerson. But I know those are out of my reach ($7.50). It is outrageous for them to charge so much. I also want very much Whittier’s Poems (a very nice book, $1.50) and not so much, Bayard Taylor’s Poems (also $1.50). But I ought not to have said anything about them. Teasing like a spoiled child! I have ten times more than I deserve now. Don’t think I am begging for these books. I am contented without them. But will you please write me, Father, whether you are willing I should buy any books, and if so, how much I may spend?

I must tell you, Father, that I cannot, I am afraid, get along on $25.00 a month. I have spent considerably more than that this month, all unavoidably except going to Cleveland and 100. Next month I must spend more than $25.00, or else freeze this winter. I am saved the expense of a new overcoat by Reky’s giving me his old one. It is thin, but I guess will do. Wood is expensive, but I get the cheapest kind, namely perfectly green stuff without any dry. I can’t saw it myself. One stick exhausts me. I can’t saw it thro’ once without stopping to rest several times. Then board has risen to $2.75 a week. I get my room for half a dollar. I shall have to get me a new pair of shoes pretty soon. I have had these resoled once, and the tops mended several times. It won’t pay to resole again. I have had them about a year. That takes $5.00. I have worn my winter underclothing for 4 winters now, and it is worn and ragged. Shall have to renew that. I probably will have to get a new suit by December or January. The ready-made suit I got in New York already looks a year or two old. I do not believe it pays to get ready-made clothing. I have worn this suit now not quite seven weeks. In less than three days it looked worse than my other suit which I had had over five months. To be sure I had travelled in it. But so I had in the other. I will make it last as long as I can. Then Chemistry, which comes in the winter term, is $10.00 extra, on account of waste of chemicals in Laboratory work, breakage, etc. Yet I suppose no one ought to omit Chemistry who can raise the extra money. So you see, Father, it is a sad state of affairs. When I wrote the letters home the other day, I felt exceedingly cheerful. I am just the other way now, for various reasons. Prof. Chamberlain rehearsed me for Monthly Rhetorical to-day. He is Prof, of Elocution, and is excellent. He complimented me quite highly on my delivery of my Senior Prep. Ex. I know he doesn’t like my speaking now. I have lost what little power I had then. I have felt it myself all along, but did not fairly wake up to it till to-day. I feel terribly about it. I was always more interested in those things (not the stage) than anything else, just like Jim, though of course not with his power, and had always hoped some day to study some elocution. But since my voice changed it has all gone. Oh, dear, such is life. Must close.

With much love,

Your Son,

HENRY.

OBERLIN, Tuesday, November, 8. ’81.

DEAR SISTER HELEN,

I take up my pen to write in a mood singularly unfavorable to anything but boring you; the fact is, that some months I am in a chronic state of thinking of things to say to the home folks, while during others I forget all about writing until the last thing, and then find myself without an idea. This is my present condition. Moreover, I can’t get fixed to suit myself. My position in the chair is the epitome of discomfort. I am bending clear down over my paper, cramping my chest and getting a backache, and this state of affairs I seem unable to remedy. Hitch around as I will, the case seems to grow no better, but rather worse, so that I feel somewhat discouraged. At the same time, I don’t want to let the steamer go by without something of a mail. I know how disappointed I feel when my home mail is small, and yet what right have I to expect a large one, when I am unwilling to write myself. This is a good term. Astronomy is a grand study, I think the best that we have met with in our course. I advise you and Carrie to take it up. It is so nice to know the constellations. It is not hard, and is intensely interesting. I am suffering to start for the islands at once, to see how the stars look out there. Astronomy stimulates the imagination. And what study can be more enjoyable than that which takes you out to class in the open air, on a clear, bright night, makes the whole heavens your class-room and the multitudes of stars your teachers. I tell you it is simply immense, and if it wasn’t for the girls pestering around so that you can’t look through the telescope, it would be perfect. However the telescope isn’t any account; you don’t need a telescope to study astronomy; you want to read enough in the text-book to give you an idea of the general nature 01 the heavenly bodies and their motions chiefly, and then you want to go out in the evening and learn the constellations. You see you forget that there are stars to look at, and the chief object of astronomy is to get you to look at the stars. I have learned about a dozen of the constellations, the big and little dippers, Cassiopea’s Chair, Perseus, Andromeda, Pegasus, Draco, Serpentarius, Auriga, the Whale, and the two fishes, besides some of the signs of the Zodiac. I know all the names of the stars in the big dipper, and know the Pole star, which I never knew before. Then every night I take a look at Jupiter and Saturn, and the Pleiades, and I notice the progress of the moon among the stars every night as it travels around us. Oh, I tell you it is fun. I enjoy looking at the Great Cross too, clear up in the sky. That is splendid. I suppose you can see the Southern Cross, which is more splendid yet, I understand. In fact I pine to look at your constellations, at your heavens, in those distant Isles of the Sea.

November II.

You probably have heard about all you care to from me on the subject of astronomy, so that I will start something else. I said this was a fine term. Logic, as well as astronomy, makes it so. The former is a somewhat difficult study, but very valuable and interesting. I think it a fine discipline of the mind. I recommend you to study that as well. The difficulty arises in reciting it well, not in the study of itself, so that you will have no trouble with it. If I were you, I would study regularly three or four hours a day, if you have time. Your hours may be otherwise occupied, of course I know nothing of that. But it is clear to my mind that it is the imperative duty, as well as high privilege, of every person, certainly every young person who has the time, to devote a good portion of that time to study. And I wouldn’t admit that anything else had a right to occupy that time, except unavoidable duties. Not even health, i.e., I think that if the health is good enough to allow a person’s reading good substantial literature, I think it is good enough for some study, unless study be peculiarly trying to the nerves. In my own case, I can say that I find Green’s History of England fully as wearisome to the mind as my studies; in fact, I think generally more so. My lessons never weary me except when they are really hard. A tough, obstinate passage in Latin wearies my mind, and tries my nerves, but I rarely meet with such a passage, and still more rarely allow myself to be troubled by it. (This last I mention to my shame.) Study, if resolutely indulged in, becomes a thorough pleasure, and in no sense burdensome. I have spent as much time, and not much less labor, in reading Gibbon’s “Decline and and Fall of the Roman Empire,” as I expended last spring on the term-work in Greek, when we read the Greek tragedians. And it would be difficult to tell from which I derived the greatest degree of pleasure. But no doubt the Greek has the advantage, in that it has given me the most discipline. Of these two, it would be difficult to say which was the study and which the recreation—such a kindred enjoyment was derived from each. Indeed, study when properly appreciated becomes a pleasure, and pleasure when rightly understood becomes study. I am pleased to observe that my studies give me more enjoyment every day, while my recreations grow more studious. The happy, the perfect man is he whose pleasure and whose profit are the same. I do not think you will perceive that the value of study can well be over estimated. But you will forgive, I hope, all this declamation. It is quite separated from any performances of my own. I am one of those unfortunate beings who are cursed with a clear vision of the right, but who do it not. It makes me feel terribly to think that I am enjoying precious opportunities which the others have not had, and it makes me feel like cutting my throat, to think that those opportunities I am not improving as I ought. I think that no thought on the Judgment Day will be so inconceivably bitter, unless it is the ill-treatment of parents, as the thought of opportunities lost. Both these sins lie on my conscience, so that it would appear as though my goose were cooked. But so we are constructed in this world; a sad jumble of contradictions. However, I think this is a fine world, and it is nobody’s fault but our own that it is not even better than it is, so I am not going to complain. I forgot to say that the Latin this term is rather nice too. We read first some of the “Satires of Juvenal.” And now we have just finished reading selections from Pliny’s Letters. They are pleasant, and very curious reading. The familiar letters of a cultivated Roman of 1800 years ago ought to be interesting, and they are. We have read his letters about the destruction of Pompeii, and the Christians. One letter to a friend relating two or three well authenticated ghost stories, and asking whether he believed in these things at all, was really quite a curiosity. Next term we are going to have the Greek orators. I hope to get great enjoyment out of that. But “we can’t most always sometimes tell,” etc. That feeling Helen, that you speak of, whenever a steamer goes off or a train, I used to have but have got over it. When Will left last night for the long trip across the continent, I told him that I did not envy him the journey. I am pretty well contented. There is nothing like being interested in your work to make one so. I am convinced that I love my home as well as Reky, but I very rarely frame the words “I wish I were home.” It is a test of a well-stored mind to be able to find employment, and not be bored in the most unfortunate circumstances. Waiting in a railroad Depot for instance, Macaulay found ample protection from ennui in his magnificent memory, which contained the treasures of literature. For my part, I think a lover of books and of natural scenery ought to be happy in Honolulu, especially if there are cultured family and friends. Of course it depends entirely upon what you care most for in this world. The three things named above are what I chiefly want. I care neither for the bustling activity of the City, nor for general society. Friendship indeed I want, but that is very rare. Outside of my own family, there are few indeed who either would care to claim, or whom I would admit to that sacred companionship. And perhaps those few would be as likely to be found in Honolulu as in New York. So I could be happy in Honolulu. Is Baedeker’s Switzerland anywhere around the house at home? You sent me the Paris. The Switzerland was the one I chiefly wanted. I want to amuse myself picking out my future route in that lovely land.

By the way, what do you folks regard as the ideal mail, so far as length is concerned? It always seems to me that when I write more than ten sheets, I am trespassing on your time. And certainly if I should write twenty-three as Reky does, I would regard it as an abuse of your patience not be tolerated. But I suppose it makes a great deal of difference about being the oldest son. When the oldest boy goes away to school, it is a more momentous event than when the youngest does, custom by that time having worn away the novelty of the thing. As to the advice you have given me, Helen, I am sincerely always glad to receive it, and generally find it pat. I do remember the view from the Pali, Helen, distinctly. It is exceedingly fine, but is not perfectly colored. The green, I think, is too light. I suppose it is too late to advise you not to read the Wandering Jew, but if it is not too late, why then I advise you not to read it. I admired it at the time, but do not now, and certainly think you will find much better reading for years to come. As I privately think, forever. But I will not press my views too far on that point. Also as to Green’s History. I do like it very much indeed, and I suppose it is a valuable history. I am now reading it (the larger history). But I advise you, unless you have got too far along with it, to drop it and read Gibbon first. You need not be alarmed at the size of that work. It is not very long, and is certainly very interesting indeed, more so by far than I have found Green yet. The object of reading it first, is that it is an excellent introduction to modern history, and should be read as a preliminary to reading English and French history. Prof. Smith takes that view of the matter. I have finished Gibbon, and have spent about two months reading him. But I have not been able to put very much time on it, and then I read slower than you do. He is delightful in every way. When I finished, it seemed as though I had lost an old friend. The style, there is some difference of opinion about among critics, but I liked it immensely. It is splendid reading, no use talking, and some of the chapters read like a novel. The only objection to reading it before Green, is that the latter seems poor in comparison. But I suppose his method is better than Gibbon’s. His method, i.e., in dwelling more fully on the manners of the people. That idea I suppose originated with Macaulay in 1850, etc., while Gibbon wrote a hundred years ago. Gibbon is impartial to all but the Christians, exact, laborious in research, careful, with a dignified and magnificent style, artificial certainly, and possibly affected, but still majestic, while the work is interspersed with pleasing and suggestive reflections, and covers a long, interesting and extremely important period of history. It is the standard work on the subject not only in English but in all languages. Read it, my dear, and share with me the pleasure that I have enjoyed.

With much love,

BRO. HENRY.

OBERLIN, Saturday, November 12, ’81.

DEAR HATTIE,

I have been under the impression all the time lately that you owed me a letter, but on giving the subject a little meditation, I have concluded that the reverse is true. But do not be alarmed, this isn’t to bulldoze a letter out of you. You needn’t write unless you want to. It is simply to tell you that when you wrote so often, I enjoyed it ever so much, and have missed your letters proportionately when they stopped. I have a full sense, however, that you have already written me at least three times as much as I deserve, and perhaps more. So that you are under no obligation, human or divine, to write me one little word more. Besides, I suppose you are not able. I have been very sorry indeed to learn that your health is even worse than usual. What a world of trouble this is. As I look it over now, I can only remember two bits of good news from home since I returned here. All the rest has been uniformly bad. Those two are Father’s health being so much better than it was when Carrie first went home, and Helen’s, which I understand is considerably improved of late. Oh yes, Will tells me that Mother has excellent health, and is preparing to settle down into a green old age. Well, there is a good deal to be thankful for yet. And you can have one consolation—you people who have sickness and trouble in this world are really the most blessed after all. For there will be no sickness and no trouble in heaven, but the rich heritage of character and patience which they have given you will remain. Just think what a millionaire you will be in heaven. You alone will be able to support the whole family. I think I will be a pensioner of yours in the next world. For I shall be a pauper sure, and may have to go to the poorhouse unless I borrow a little of your credit. I am laying up no “treasure in heaven.” It is curious to think what sudden changes in the social scale there would be if we should all die at once. How many, who now live in style on Fifth Avenue, would be compelled to live very modestly on a retired street? How many rags would change to royal attire? How many princes’ clothes to rags? The boy that blacks my boots might be my patron. What a change there would be in the market. How low would sink Vanderbilt’s railroad stock, and how precious some would become that are now far below par. In fact, I think there would be some very curious social changes. Perhaps our ideas of “good society” would change somewhat, and we might find virtue and goodness more important essentials to that society than culture and wealth and taste. How ridiculous it seems that practical men should lay themselves out to get rich here, when they know perfectly well that they can only enjoy it a few years at most, and then must become bankrupt. Whereas they know it is their privilege to acquire wealth that will endure, and which they can enjoy always, if they only will take the trouble to get it. The first, too, they may not be able to get. Their efforts may fail. The disaster of an hour may sweep away the acquisitions of years. But the other they are sure of, if they try for it. Their efforts for that kind will never be in vain. And when they get it, it is safe. They never can lose it. They never can diminish it. It is theirs for ever. But you have read all about this in the Bible. “Moth and rust,” etc. Why should I repeat it? It is trite. I do it simply to prove to you that I am cut out for a minister. An awful bad one to be sure, but still a minister. All I have to do, for instance, to the above, is to add a text of Scripture to it, expand it, and it would make a very inferior, but most indubitable, sermon on the deceitfulness of riches—a new subject which I have originated. Having now convinced you of my methodistical propensities, I will change the subject. I am tantalized by poetry going through my head which I cannot quite remember. It always seems as if it were something which I had read, but I do not believe it is. I think it is the music, the wonderful music, which all human poetry merely suggests and imperfectly transcribes. It always affects me like distant music “faint and far.” Whenever I think of the real flesh-and-blood poetry which has evidently suggested it, it loses the heavenly radiance which it had till then retained, and “fades into the light of common day.” Are you ever troubled that way? I know poetry in heaven will be just like that which goes through my brain. Just think what fine poetry there will be there, if it is so fine on earth. My goodness, what reading Tennyson and Shelley and Keats will be, when the earthly part of their writings is purged away. I think I will do nothing whatever in heaven (when I get there) but just sit and read poetry all day. Perhaps I shall be able to write it there; I think we all shall, in fact. But, fortunately for my fellow creatures, my poetical powers are now in a state of suspension—another proof of the pity of nature for man. You will be able to see that I am a great believer in heaven, more so indeed than I am in hell, though I believe in them both. But I don’t take much pleasure in thinking of the latter; I prefer to spend my time speculating on heaven with the more reason, as I fear my knowledge of that place will always remain purely theoretical. Notwithstanding, I thoroughly believe in heaven. Why, any fool can see the gates of heaven open, looking up into the blue sky through sailing white clouds, or on a starry night. But it takes a fool to do it. A wise man can’t. What do you think of the distinction between fools and wise men, as pointed out in the preface to A Fool’s Errand? I believe in the devil too, else why should men ever think this a bad world, and God a cruel God, if there were not some bad little devil in their hearts to shut their ears and blind their eyes? My sheet I see is at an end, and your patience no doubt was so long since, so I will say farewell without more ado.

With much love,

BRO. HENRY.

OBERLIN, Sunday, November 13, ’81.

DEAR SISTER HELEN,

It is against my principles to let Sunday go by without writing some home. Someway I feel as blue as a brimstone match this afternoon, and besides I have a scratchy pen—a combination of evils which I am not able to resist, so I will go out and take a walk, and try to recover my spirits.

I have taken the walk, and my spirits are even lower, if possible, than before. I walked out to the end of West College here, where I could look out on quite an expanse of desolate country. It gave me a fresh sense of how alone I was, thousands of miles away from my kindred, in this lonely country, a homeless wanderer. It is one of these days when there is nothing in Nature to cheer or comfort, positively all beauty seeming to have been withdrawn from her. Such a state of affairs is doubly depressing in a perfectly flat country like this, where all beauty depends so entirely on Nature’s moods. The beauty in Oberlin is in grass, trees, and sky, and those, alas, are all variable. The grass is all faded. The trees are stripped of their leaves, and the sky is covered by dull and dismal clouds. A cold chill is in the air, not cold enough to be stimulating, but just enough to be depressing, deadening, discouraging, chilling ardor, and repressing life. There is all the prose, but none of the poetry, of winter. Winter abounds in the first, and when the second is withdrawn, the state of affairs is gloomy indeed. I do not deny that there is plenty of poetry in winter. But we have not got to that yet. My hands are beginning to get rough and chapped, and I shudder to think of all the terrors of winter so swiftly approaching. Yet I think with as little pleasure of the terrible heat of summer. Spring alone seems pleasant to the anticipation. And yet even in spring the greatest share of the weather is disagreeable in the extreme. It seems to me that if I could once get to those happy, happy isles of the sea (troubled only by fever, small-pox, and Chinamen) I might be happy. I can think too well how merrily the boisterous trades are sweeping over the blue Pacific, and rustling in the leaves of the canefields. I can see too plainly the familiar outline of the mountains, the golden light in the tamarind tree, and the faces of you all in the old house at home. My pent-up feelings seek an outlet. I never longed for poetical expression as I do at this moment. But it has been denied me—so ordained by a merciful Providence. I said that if I were only at home I might be happy. But the heart is restless. Why are we tortured with these vain longings, these unfulfilled aspirations, unaccomplished hopes? Why are we always looking forward to something more than anything we have yet had, something better than we have yet experienced? Why do our hearts continually point us forward to something better, the best, of which all earthly joy is but the imperfect type, and the unsubstantial shadow? Is it one of “the intimations of immortality”? More likely of indigestion. Oh, you folks have no idea how I long to see you. My heart is absolutely hungry for you. What is man’s greatest blessing here on earth? Love. How, then, can it be for his good to deprive him of his greatest blessing by exiling him? But if it is not for my good, why do you keep me here, you cruel folks? Why don’t you let me come home? You see I am getting sentimental. But you will have to stand it. You ought to let a fellow be maudlin once a month. And probably you will infer from the tone of my letters that I am diligently embracing that privilege. I am not, however, then more than any other time. It is my chronic condition. I don’t use a student lamp now. Mine met with an accident last year.

November 20.—I have just read this letter over, Helen, and positively I pity you when you read it. I feel for you, but I can’t reach you, as the poet remarks. Such a douse of sentiment, you will hardly survive. However, I will send it. If I waited until I said something good before sending off a letter my handwriting would never go on an envelope. It is Sunday, of course, or I would not be spoiling this paper. A different Sunday, too, from that which drew from me the effusion on the first sheet. Winter has come at last, or at least appears to be coming. The ground is frozen hard, and there is a little bit of snow on the walks and roofs out of reach of the sun. Cold enough for a fire, certainly, and I have one, which is going out. I have poked it into life again now. We had a grand night a short time ago. It was quite dark, with no moon. The whole sky was covered by thick heavy masses of black clouds, very much lighter in places (which circumstance made their blackness and heaviness all the more striking), and the wind blew gustily and fierce. Here and there appeared an opening very small, through which a few bright stars shone. It made a deep impression on me. I never saw such a night before in my life. But such is the infinite variety of nature that a man with his eyes open will see something new in her visage till the last day of his life. While at the same time a man with his eyes in any other condition will see nothing that he thinks he has not seen before, unless it be a volcano or a waterspout. I thank the favouring divinities who assigned me my birth in a forest city between mountains and sea—situation so favourable for tuning the ear to nature’s harmonies. I suppose my thanks must be rendered to the gods of Greece, for does not the poet say: “‘Tis Jupiter who brings whate’er is great, and Venus who brings everything that’s fair.”

A few nights ago Reky and I went up to Cleveland to hear Barrett play Othello. I am not, you may possibly know, a very strong partisan of the theatre. I have been holding my opinion in a state of suspension, and still do so. I was, on the whole, disappointed in this performance. I read the play three or four years ago, and read it again the afternoon before going up. There was an excursion train, of course, and quite a large crowd from Oberlin. We had a merry time both going and coming on the train, singing College songs most uproariously, etc. I have never been to the theatre but once before, and that was at Paris, to hear Sarah Bernhardt and Mounet-Sully play in Hernani. I have been to the Opera three times, I believe,—Mignon and Faust in Cleveland, and Lohengrin in Munich. I am inclined to think that in theory at least the union of singing and acting is not conducive to the best effects. It produces a kind of heterogeneous, incongruous mixture—a kind of a mongrel affair. I am bound to say however, that my own experience will not perhaps bear this theory out. But enough of this. I said that I was disappointed in the performance. It was perhaps due to the surpassing excellence of the theatre to which I first went, and in this light it was unfortunate that my first experience of the stage should have been in the Théâtre Français. I suppose the scenery and all the appointments there were so superior as to make these seem poor in comparison. There wasn’t enough illusion here. And then the acting might well suffer compared with that of Sarah Bernhardt. There was an immense deal of strutting, and more yet of pure affectation and bombast. I have my opinion of a man that talks of raising turnips in the passionate strains of Cicero’s Second Philippic, and yet much that I saw the other night was hardly better than that. Affectation, mannerism, stage tricks! The fact that Barrett overdid his part in the early part of the play, spoke commonplace things in a pompous way, etc., detracted from my enjoyment of the rest, because it made me suspect his acting in the latter parts. Otherwise I should have perhaps been enthusiastic over some of his acting. And indeed I am. But far more now, when I come to think it quietly over, than I was at the time. Indeed, when I think of it, it seems to me that he did some very fine acting. I noticed and admired some while there. Iago was very well played. Desdemona decently. But there was so much that was unnatural, so much that existed only on the stage. In spite of the footlights, the men and women behind them should be real men and women. Whereas one could hardly help exclaiming, “Do these men and women, and do these actions appear anywhere but here?” I said that I was doubtful as to the real value of theatrical representations. I am. Certainly the theatre is very sensational at the best. The opera still more so, and therefore of less value than the former. It seems to me probable that the theatre is not the “pulpit of all ages” just now. Or at least that that pulpit is occupied by a T. de Witt Talmage, and not a Henry Ward Beecher. It seems to me that the influence of those plays which have no literary value can be no better when acted than when read. For surely all the stage professes to do is to bring out the good that is in them (as well as the evil). Consequently if there is no good in them, they must be as injurious when played as when read. Now practically all the plays that appear on our stage, not Shakespeare’s, are worthless in a literary point of view. Consequently the bulk of the theatre’s present work is the diffusion of bad literature. A much worse mission than this I cannot conceive. You will observe that the above argument has force only against the theatre as it is. Not as it might be. It is no argument against the theatre per se. There are arguments against it, in itself, however. If one gets into full sympathy with the play, i.e., if he allows himself to be deceived by the scenery, etc., so as to believe for the time being in the reality of the events, and the actual personality of the actors, the tragedy naturally makes a powerful effect upon him. As in Paris, at a certain point in the piece, I shuddered violently, exactly the same physical effect involuntarily being produced in me, as the actor at the same moment so successfully counterfeited on the stage. Now I take this effect (upon the imagination, feelings, etc.) to be the legitimate object of theatrical representation. And yet I question whether this effect is a healthy one. Certainly to see the same awful tragedy enacted in real life would be a horrible, and an undesirable experience. And yet the effect produced upon the stage is kindred in its nature. However, this extreme effect is not produced upon the majority, and in any case I am inclined to think that the above argument can be answered. Yes, I think there is a valid answer to it, but I will not inflict it upon you. On the whole I think I am more favorably inclined to believe in the value of dramatic representation than when I went—or than when I returned. For the benefit I received after my return, I did receive great benefit from going. Not while there perhaps—that I am not fully decided upon—but after I returned, I made a point to read the play over the day after I got back, and I got more out of it than out of all the rest of my Shakespearian reading together. I got the dramatic part, the tragic part. Whole scenes which were before fragmentary, disjointed, and imperfectly understood, have now received a flood of light. Places that before had no more pathos in them than “bean porridge hot,” now almost move me to tears. And the play as a whole takes thorough hold of me. Yes, I have at last got a little insight into Shakespeare (all through seeing him played), and I am happy at the result. Yes, O Barrett, I owe thee a debt of gratitude, and I here discharge it. Thou hast shown me the greatness of Shakespeare, and I thank thee for it. Thou, thou and thy compeers, have removed from my eyes the mist that has blinded them, and revealed to their astonished gaze the wealth of that master mind. To thee I owe it, that I am brought within the sway of that kingly genius, and made to feel some part of the power of his wonderful enchantments. Your work it is, that I too am reached and blessed by the beneficent influences of that omnipresent mind. How shall I thank thee? (At the same time, my dear Mr Barrett, I may as well say that you ain’t such a very killing actor, and some of your performances I thought were utterly cussed.) Helen, you must forgive the above apostrophe; it is due to the baleful influence of De Quincey, of whom I have been taking a dose lately. By the way, Helen, you must read some of him. But my sheet has come to an end, and I will not discourage you by beginning another. Farewell.

HENRY.

OBERLIN, Thursday, Nov. 24, 1881.

DEAR HOME PEOPLE,

It is Thanksgiving Day, and I hardly think it can be better employed than in the way I am now doing it. I have been reading Green’s History, and wading painfully through Dante, and, oh yes, I have had the delightful pleasure of reading some of Milton’s short poems over again—L’Allegro, II Penseroso, Lycidas. But the sublime incomprehensibility of Dante’s Paradise has driven me, to your grief, to take refuge in this letter. This is hardly the traditional Thanksgiving Day. We have had unusually mild weather so far, and we have been even led to doubt whether winter were going to vouchsafe us his presence at all this year. However, the signs of his approach are in the air, in the shape of fine snow-flakes, and the wind blows as though he were coming to stay. In view of the latter fact I will open the damper of my stove. This stove has roared most pertinaciously all the morning, but without offering to give out the least degree of heat. A roaring fire may be cheerful, but I think it is regarded so for the heat which the roaring implies. This stove, however, disdains all such implications, and obstinately asserts its inalienable right of roaring without a suspicion of heat. However, it is warming me up in some way, and I will shut the damper again. Auntie and Uncle have gone to Berea to take their Thanksgiving dinner, and spend a few days, and have left Sarah and myself alone in our glory. You don’t know Sarah, but Bowen does. She continues to improve, Will. Brother Will has seen her too. Next term we are all going across the hall to board with Mrs Harvey. Auntie thinks she cannot keep house in the winter on account of the exposure which it necessitates. The wind howls outside and rattles the sash! Quite different is it where you are! I am a good way from home. However, we will have quite a family party in 1883, when Mother and Will Bowen, at least will be here, if not some of the others. What an occasion that will be! I shall be as “happy as a big sunflower, that nods and bends in the breezes.” And that time is not very far distant. Only one year from next June. I shall have to begin to write my little piece. My chances for graduating then are excellent. The Faculty are on the best of terms with me. I am a regular junior. I have no conditions. It is five dollars extra for chemistry in the Winter term, Father, and not ten. I shall elect it. And five or else ten in the Spring term. This term has well-nigh reached its close. Only three or four weeks after this. It has gone rapidly, as time always does. Though my scholarship has not improved, I am inclined to think that this term, on the whole, has been better spent than any since I came here, unless it may be some in the Middle Prep. year. I have read a great deal. I am keeping a diligent record or account of my reading, and propose to cast it all up at the end of the year. I had proposed to devote this year almost exclusively to historical reading, and with that in view have this term read Gibbon (unabridged), and am now reading Green.

Wednesday, December 7.—The letters from home came Monday, a splendid mail. They were as follows: two, long ones, from Father, of November 20th and 14th, three sheets from Mother, of the 9th, one from Helen, of the 15th, and another of October 30th. By the Lady Sampson came yesterday, ten pages from Bowen of the 11th, and a note from Carrie, and last, but not least, three sheets from Sister Hattie of November 13th. Wasn’t that a splendid mail? It made me happy to get such a big one. The Christmas cards were very acceptable. Thank you, Carrie and Helen, for them. The one with the pansies was lovely. I am constrained to say, “Pansies let my flowers be.” The large envelope containing the cards was almost to pieces. I almost wonder that any of its contents reached me. When Reky took it from the box, the letters nearly fell out. It was completely split on both sides. Helen and Mother both said that Jamie was going to write me. I received no letter, so that I am afraid there was one in that envelope, and that it slipped out. Oh, what luck that would be! When I hardly ever hear from him anyway, to lose his letter when it is written. Please let me know by return mail whether he wrote or not. When you write the adverb, Mother, always spell it “too,” not “to.” And “exigency” looks better on paper spelt with an “i” instead of “e “in the second syllable. What fun it is to detect mistakes of this kind. I thought I was going to get Helen, for saying “conversationist” instead of“conversationalist.” I thought there was no such word. But when I came to look it up in the dictionary, I was disgusted to find that there was. So I shan’t make that point this mail, Helen. I shall wait till I can get out a new dictionary. About books, Father, I think I shall try to get along without buying many, except the poets. Those I need for constant reference. They are necessary for the “best mental discipline and development.” It does no good to draw a poet from the library and read some poem and return it. You lose most of the good, unless you have the book at hand, so as to reread the striking passages. For this reason I am suffering for copies of Byron, Bryant, and Whittier. I already have a number of poets—Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Mrs Browning, Tennyson, Longfellow. My policy has not been what you advise, Father, about reading, as you will see from this letter. I have devoted considerable time to solid reading. This might not be advisable if the studies required as much time as you suppose . . . . . . No college, I imagine, in this country, pretends to occupy all the student’s time. They do not even require the bulk of it, so that he is left to employ the rest of it as he pleases. Though not responsible to the College for but four hours a day of my time, I am to myself, and could not feel justified in failing to take in some good solid reading. You spoke of unnecessary travelling. I do not know whether you would class my trip to Cleveland to hear Barrett, under that head or not. I will say this for myself, however. I was animated quite as much (nay, more) by a sense of duty in going up, as pleasure, i.e., I regarded it as an important part of my education. I will say more. I was thinking entirely about the profit to be derived, not about the pleasure at all (that of itself was an insignificant consideration), and so far as I can tell, I never spent a dollar more profitably. Why, you will see in my letter to Helen. I do take care of my own room, Mother. Auntie has made my bed four times this term, but the other eighty times I have made it myself. She has swept my room two or three times, when I have been gone to class. I am fully conscious of the defects of my handwriting, and have been meditating on the subject for some time. I wonder if that Gaskell’s Compendium is of any use. I believe Helen and Bowen both agree that they didn’t derive much profit from their writing lessons here. The College offers microscopic work in Zoology next term, which is going to be interesting, I suppose, but it is about $4.00 extra, I believe, and so I guess this child won’t take it. A Dr. Lord is giving a course of lectures on History here now. He has given two, one on Hildebrand, the other on Elizabeth, and his last will be on Madam Maintenon. They are very fine. I am taking them all in. He is a celebrated lecturer on historical topics, and a decidedly amusing old man. Miss Cary has just been here with the Temple quartet. If I had gone and taken a girl, it would have cost me $2.33, nearly enough to take me to Cleveland to hear Mr Barrett twice. I did not go at all. Do not imagine, Helen, that I remember what I read, any more than you do. I imagine that failure of memory is the greatest discouragement that all readers have to contend with. Never mind, “It cleans the sieve.” If we forget facts, we retain ideas, and that is far more important. So let us keep up our courage. Your last letters, Helen, were splendid. You have no idea how much I enjoyed them. Your remarks about going on and graduating are perfectly just. I wish to do so. I have got over my little fit of dissatisfaction long ago. In fact, I had forgotten that I had one. I am well (saving a cold) and happy (saving occasional fits of the blues), and as contented as I am likely to be very soon, anywhere. I have not that divine discontentment which is the perpetual assurance of better things. My dissatisfaction is of the grumbly kind, which portends indigestion, or some kindred ailment.

Allow me to defend, Helen, my criticism of Hypatia. I have not read Kingsley’s Life, and so do not know the circumstances under which the work was written. I have forgotten just what I said, and I may have fallen into error. But the novel must be judged finally as a work of art, and from that point of view it makes no difference whether the book is “strictly historical” or not. It explains, of course, the author’s purpose, and perhaps gives the book value in other respects, as a picture of the times, etc. But my impression is that I objected to it before as a work of art. And from that standpoint, as I remarked above, it makes no difference whether the novel is strictly historical or not. If Kingsley was so unfortunate as to choose a subject incapable of thoroughly artistic treatment, it is to be regretted, of course. But the misfortune of the selection remains unchanged. But after all, I think the misfortune was as much with the artist as with his subject. The novel was not all historical, by any means. Philammon was, I suppose, purely fictitious; also the Jew, I forget his name. I believe that the story was in his own hands after all. It all depended upon his manipulation of it. A few central facts were prescribed for him, to be sure, but the rest was all his own. The grouping of those facts, the perspective, and the arrangement of light and shade. The story, though horrible, is perhaps really no more tragical than Romola. And yet, what a contrast. Romola is nothing if not artistic. The storm and play of passion in it (Hypatia) is no greater than in the middle of Adam Bede, yet how different is the shadeless, unrelieved, tense horror in which it ends, from the deep peace and calm of the close of the latter work. Dan Bradley, however, thinks that it is an exceedingly fine novel, one of the best three or four, I understand. It is needless to add, however, that Dan Bradley is crazy. As to Wilfred Cumbermede, of course I am probably mistaken in setting so high a value on it, as I never knew any one, that I know of, who thought much of it. If I had the book by me, I could point out some of its excellencies. All I can say now is that one of them is that it portrays well a strong and beautiful friendship. I have always been a great believer in genuine friendship. David and Jonathan are exceedingly interesting figures to me, and so I suppose I was prepared to be unduly pleased when I read this. The close of the book is very unfortunate. It is essentially tragic, and the attempt to make it end happily, by saying that Mary sent for him, etc., injures the effect. But we may suppose the book to end just before that episode. I liked the book because I regarded it as a fine recognition of the fact that what seemed a tragic and unfortunate ending is not really so. Then there are religious discussions scattered through it which have pleased me, and which seemed to me infinitely superior to the sermons which he so obdurately sprinkles through The Seaboard Parish and Thomas Wingfold. The latter work I think is an undeniable failure. The sermons in it may be good as sermons, but I hate to have them stuffed down my throat artfully concealed in the pages of a novel. It is simply a theological treatise inside the covers of a story; a veritable wolf in sheep’s clothing. The first time I read Wilfred Cumbermede I didn’t like it at all. The second time I read it aloud to Mother in 1880, and liked it exceedingly. How long is it since you read it? I have an intense sympathy with the temperament of Charlie (not that I am like him at all), but I am not capable of comparing the book with his others, as I have not read any of the others for a good many years, and Robert Faulkner I have never read at all. By the way, how do you like Phantastes? That is a delightful work, I think. Carrie read it aloud to me when I was laid on my back with the measles. I am not sure that I fully understand it. Of course it is allegorical partly, but how much I cannot tell. It is meant to be read between the lines. Must close.

Affectionately,

HENRY.

OBERLIN, Sunday, December 25, 1881.

DEAR ONES AT HOME,

I shall not have many more opportunities to write you this year. Only a few days and we must all head our letters “1882.” This is one of the most disconsolate Christmas days I ever spent, or ever will spend, I hope. I wonder how your day is passing. What are you doing as I write? Four hours of my Christmas more than of yours has dragged away. With me it is three o’clock, with you after ten. Perhaps at this moment the horse (Prince no longer?) is being harnessed; or perhaps at this very moment you are coming out of the dining-room door, to enter the carriage. I like to dwell on the picture. It is a pleasant one to me, though of course humdrum enough to you. What right have I to be unhappy to-day? You have taken pains to remember me most kindly. And I have nothing to complain of. I have stayed cooped up in the house all day, and done nothing. This is vacation, you know, and what an amount of reading and writing letters and essays, and studying, etc., I was going to do. What has it all amounted to? How I was going to enjoy the vacation! How much enjoyment has it given me? O, I have felt wretchedly all vacation. Something the matter with my head. But to-day the ailment has turned into a headache (not at all violent, and intermittent), and a headache is quite curable. To-morrow morning I expect to wake up well. What a host of disappointed hopes, broken resolutions, unfulfilled aspirations, there are in this world. How I have looked forward to this vacation as a time of unbroken happiness, when I could sit quietly in my cosy corner room and read to my heart’s content, and write long letters home, and in the clear evenings learn at my leisure new constellations. And what a wretched time it has been. The first four or five days it rained almost all the time, and we didn’t see a single ray of sunshine until Friday afternoon, when a little streak of sunshine broke through the clouds and poured through our window on to the floor. That night it cleared off. How grand it seemed to see the stars again. But I was not well enough to go out and look at them. The other morning I tried to saw one stick of wood, and managed to get it cut through and split, after which latter process I felt such a curious sensation in the pit of my stomach that I dropped into a convenient chair. I crawled upstairs and lay down. This child hasn’t sawed any wood since, and doesn’t expect to for some time to come. He has made arrangements to have his wood sawed for him. We are differently constructed in this world. Some of us were made for sawing wood and others not. The Divine Architect of the Universe did not intend me to make my way through College by sawing wood. He intended Chauncey to do so, because he endowed him with the muscle which made it possible, and denied him the money which would have rendered it unnecessary. So that he clearly intended Chauncey to saw wood. In the same way, by denying me the muscle which would have made it possible, and endowing you, Father, with the money that made it unnecessary, by the same logic he clearly intended me not to saw wood for my support.

January 1, 1882.—I think, Father, your argument about self-support, etc., must have a weak spot in it somewhere, for logical deductions from it will give us a false conclusion. You argue that it is a good thing for a young man to have to work his own way through college and school. But if this were so, a low state of civilization, when there is less wealth and more general indigence, ought to be more prolific of strong characters than a high one, which we will hardly believe to be the case. The argument, as I have put it, needs bolstering, but I think there is something in it. It can certainly be shown theoretically, that a student should not be self-supporting. The principle on which society is run is that every man should work at what he is best adapted for; work, that is, where he can do so to the best advantage. A young College student who expects and is fitted to be a professional man can clearly work to better advantage preaching or lecturing, or pleading cases in Court, than he can sawing wood. It is a waste of force, therefore, for him to employ himself in the latter way. Suppose I take a year longer to my course, in order to support myself. I saw in the year a hundred cords of wood, for which I receive $100.00. In one year following the law, say I could have earned $1,000.00. My loss, then, is $900.00. What kind of a year’s earnings is that? I can imagine a man of strength of character and purpose with a thorough self-dependence and self-confidence, a self-confidence grounded in a knowledge of his own capabilities, and in the consciousness of work on his studies well done, preferring to borrow money than to work his own way through. In fact, I believe that is what Garfield did at Williams. The argument of course is theoretical. The practical question would involve other considerations as well. And yet I think it is a good one. I thank you, Father, for this grand opportunity you have given me of educating myself. I hope one day to make it plain that it has paid. I do not wish to waste your money, but I should like to be able to invest it well. Certainly this is the privilege and opportunity of my life. But by this time you have perhaps wearied of the subject, and would perhaps prefer to see a little more harmony between my actions and my expressions on this matter. You would like perhaps to see some high marks on my cards, before you pin your faith to my fine words. And you are right. I will go to work, so as to be able to ask you to let me go. to Germany when the time comes, without a blush on my cheek, or the condemnation of my own record. It would be a sad and shameful day for me, if in 1883, before granting my request, you were to look over my record on the books of Oberlin College, and be compelled to say, “You have not done any studying here. You have idled through your course, you have squandered your time, you have cheated me of my money, you have deceived my expectations, and you have disappointed my hopes. Take his talent from the unprofitable servant, and give it to him that hath ten.” However, what is the use of borrowing trouble? New Year’s Day is the day for beginning again, for remedying old faults and acquiring new virtues. Perhaps one or two of my good resolutions may not prove abortive.

Monday, January 2.—I am made happy this afternoon by the receipt of my home mail, four sheets from Helen, two from Mother, and one from Hattie. Seven in all. I am very sorry to hear that Julia has been sick. When I left her she was feeling so much better that I had good hopes that she was going to get real well and strong. I have not heard from her for seven weeks or more, I think it is. About my writing personal and general letters, I may say that I really never write either one or the other. When I write to a particular person I am quite often thinking of you all, or sometimes even one different from the person addressed. And when I write a general letter I am quite often speaking in my mind to a particular person, now one, now another, as the case may be. For instance, I do not now know whom I am writing to. I happen to have two sheets in my portfolio addressed to Helen and two to the home folks in general, and I picked up this sheet and began to write on it, without the least idea as to which letter it shall form a part of. I have recovered the health which I temporarily lost in vacation, and am feeling better than ever. Have no fears for my health, Mother, or any one else. Next term I expect to take systematic exercise. The winter is going to be an exceedingly mild one, and I am dressed with abundant warmth, though I have not followed your direction and procured some new clothes. I need some new underclothing, however. Miss Stewart has convinced me of that. She said to me, “Henry Castle, if your Mother knew you were wearing such underclothing as that, what would she say? She would go into a fit.” This brought me over to her opinion. It set the matter in a new light. And indeed I could not but admit that if you saw the various holes and apertures in the undershirts I have worn since ’77, you would be somewhat astonished. To put them on requires scientific calculation. And when I tell you that I can do it in the dark, I make known to you the greatest practical achievement in exact science, of the age. About my ability to do it in the dark, however, I have grave doubts. A large part of my back and shoulders was protected by a large hole; a rather unsubstantial covering from the winds of January. The winds of January, however, exist more in the poet’s imagination this year than anywhere else, and I merely introduced the expression to ornament my rhetoric and give dignity to a subject, otherwise it must be confessed somewhat commonplace, not to say vulgar. Miss Stewart and I have conspired together, and we have come to the sage conclusion that the undershirt can be mended. The intention, therefore, is to make the ancestral garment do duty through this winter, when it shall be retired to the rag-bag with a pension, or else relegated to the unfortunate poor.

Affectionately,

HENRY N. CASTLE.

OBERLIN, Tuesday, Dec. 27,1881.

DEAR SISTER HELEN AND OTHERS,

I am too hungry to be brilliant just now. It is eleven o’clock in the morning, a whole hour to wait for dinner. I have done something rash. I have bought an elegant set of Emerson, five volumes, with a gold fern leaf on the side, just like Jim’s set, if my memory serves me correctly. A magnificent copy of Bryant, and a very decent one of Byron. I am getting my library pretty well stocked with poets, and when it is tolerably complete, will feel pretty well contented not to buy any more books for some time to come. These books are a perpetual source of joy to me, and I cannot be sorry that I have made the purchase. Emerson is an author whom it is not profitable to draw from the library, read and return. You want him perpetually by you to refer to occasionally. I read him a few minutes at a time. I have taken a small dose of his poetry lately and find it very fair. Next Monday we hope for letters from home again. Oh what a joyful occasion! How I wish I would get a whole hundred sheets. I feel peculiarly sentimental and homesick just now, because I want my dinner. George and Ida, I suppose, reached home yesterday. Next Tuesday school begins again. I am surprised, Helen, that you should not like Howells. I think he is a good writer, and a true artist. James is no favorite of mine. They are not, of course, men to receive the mantle which Dickens and Thackeray left to George Eliot, and to which, since she is gone, no worthy successor is found. They are not giants, but neither are they pigmies. They are not men of genius, but they are men of talent. As to the Fair Barbarian, it has made some stir in the world of books, but I confess that I do not admire it in the least. I must confess, however, in addition, that I never finished it. Dr Breen’s Practice I have not read. Let us read together Howells’ new story beginning in the January Scribner, “A Modern Instance,” and see how we like it. George W. Cable is the new writer who has made the most stir. He is very highly praised, is called the most promising American writer, and is boldly compared to Hawthorne. He has had several stories in Scribner, “Old Creole Days,” “The Grandissimes,” etc. He is a Southern man. I have not read any of his books, have you? I have finished Green’s History of the English People, the larger one, and do not hesitate to pronounce it the best history I ever read. It is inferior to Gibbon, indeed, in every respect save one, but that single one places it ahead of them all. That is, it is not a history of kings, or of wars, but of the people. It gave me some little insight into history. More certainly, than all the history I have ever read before. It doesn’t really begin to be interesting, in my opinion, till the time of Henry the Eighth. I wouldn’t read the short one if I could possibly get the larger, as the one objection which I have to find to the latter is, that it is too short. So read the long one if you can. Its length is to the other as a little more than 3 to 2.

January 1, 1882.—The first day of the New Year. I am somewhat more cheerfully disposed than I was one week ago to-day. I have recovered my health, and in fact am feeling better than usual, and happier than usual too. And I hope and intend to keep in both conditions. I am better than usual because I have slept a great deal this vacation. I am happier than usual, because I am in the first flush of New Year’s good resolutions. Sleep will be lost again, and good resolutions will be broken. What are my chances for keeping well and happy? For the first, excellent; for the second, poor. My health I have no fears for, but as for my good resolutions, they of course will go the way of the hosts which have preceded them. However, it is a comfort to think that I have had the grace to make them. No one is past hope as long as he can make good resolutions, notwithstanding their popularity as paving-stones in the lower world. For we know that a good resolution is occasionally kept. And why should it not be mine as well as my neighbor’s. It is, indeed, demoralizing to make and break good resolutions. But then it is more demoralizing not to make them at all. It is best of all, of course, not to need to make any, to have one’s life all one good big resolution. But such is not the case of most of us. And we must take the world just as we find it, alas! which is generally in a somewhat tangled shape, not without good hope of disentanglement however, thank God, for deft fingers and a brave heart. I received your letter, Helen, by the W. H. Dimond, for which I thank you. Auntie told me that she had one from Bowen, whereupon Reky and I both thought that there was probably one lying in our box from my dear sister Helen for me. So it turned out. Thank you more than I can tell, for justifying the prediction. You’ve no idea what a treasure my regular inter-steamer mail is. I can depend upon it, it has become so regular. My only fear now is lest you will send postals instead of letters by the sailing vessels. Of course I don’t want to burden you, and I am keenly alive to the fact that you write to me now considerably more than I deserve, yet so grasping is love that I am never satisfied. My plan is this, that you send me letters on every occasion when you do now, and then, in addition, send off a closely-written postal on every sailing vessel that goes. I haven’t got any cheek, have I? One advantage of the new arrangement is that members of the family from whom I now rarely or never hear, can write me a postal occasionally. For instance, how long will it take Jamie to scribble a postal when he is at his desk at the store, where his pen and ink are all handy? Not more than a minute, would it? Of course I don’t want to burden anybody, but a minute a month isn’t much, is it? If this arrangement is adopted I shan’t forget George’s handwriting, which I hardly know by light now, only by faith; though just now I am the last person in the world to complain of not hearing from dear George.

Tuesday Morning, January 3, ’82.—School begins with prayers this evening. And as I want to go to work unencumbered, I shall try and get considerable of my writing done to-day. I have already got six sheets written, and a few months ago, that would have seemed a mail in itself. But as I write more my ideas of what a mail should be arise proportionately. I now think that if I write ten sheets, I have done all that can be desired. But I shall probably overstep that boundary this month. The “discouraged feeling” that you speak of, Helen, in reference to your reading and studying, arising from the numberless new fields of knowledge which rise so fast before you, should not trouble you. It is a good sign. There can be none better. In fact, not much is to be hoped of any one as a scholar if they have not had that feeling. The very basis of all true progress is in a correct understanding of our real relation to the universe of things. Until we know, and more than know, until we feel, that the fields of study for man are as infinite as the ocean of space which surrounds him, and that the knowledge of the very wisest of men is but a judicious selection, more, that the combined knowledge of the whole human race is to what they do not know, as an infinitesimal to infinity, until we feel, I say, these things so that our spirits are humbled in the very dust, until that point is reached there can be no true progress. The days are gone by when we could look upon our elders with awe and reverence, and say, they know everything. In view of these awful heights all human distinctions are annihilated. What is the difference between Pres. Fairchild’s knowledge and mine in comparison to the mighty field which is unknown to both of us alike? So, Helen, your “discouraged feeling” is a ground for encouragement. Your feeling troubled at not being able to express yourself clearly, is also another thing to make you feel encouraged rather than otherwise. It simply proves that you have things to say more and more worth saying every day. It is not easy to say things that are really well worth saying. Language is an excellent medium to express common and surface ideas, and in general almost all facts of universal experience. “I liked my breakfast,” “It is a cold day,” are not ambiguous. Every one has enjoyed a good meal, or experienced the keenness of the weather, and know that they have done so, because these are facts of obvious experience, and are noticed by the child in the cradle. But when you come to express feelings and emotions of the soul, language becomes comparatively inadequate. The real fault is partly in the language and partly in your auditor. If your auditor has never had the experience you are trying to express, he cannot understand you, never mind how clearly you put it. If you should say it is a cold day to a man who had no sense of feeling, he would never understand you, although you repeated the sentiment in every variety of form for a thousand years. Because he has never had any experience corresponding to your expression. So when you try to express an abstruse idea do not be discouraged if your language seems faulty and inadequate. If your auditor has sympathy with you he will understand you, and if he does not understand you, you may lay the blame to him as much as to yourself. Emerson, for instance, to any one who cannot sympathise with him, must seem positively senseless and meaningless. The ideas which he has are really (I think) in the literal meaning of words, inexpressible. But he manages to suggest them, so that if you are in sympathy with him, by reading between the lines, you can be made to share his thought. I confess there are passages in Emerson which are perfectly incomprehensible to me. They might just as well be in Chaldaic for all the good they do me. And yet I do not lay the fault to Emerson or think they could be much more clearly expressed (without of course enormous expansiveness. No doubt a sentence could be made clear by being written out into a page). The real difficulty is that I have not yet had any experience corresponding to the passage. Language is a medium well fitted for the communication of material ideas, but when it comes to the deeper feelings and experiences of the soul, it is faulty indeed. Its very formation illustrates this truth. Every word is originally derived from and expresses some object, or experience of sense, and then is transferred by analogy or metaphor to immaterial ideas. Without the five senses, where would language be? How could I say, “Your thought is clear” or “I see your point,” if it were not for the eye? “I feel that I am right,” if it were not for the sense of feeling. “It is noised abroad,” if it were not for the ear; “It does not suit my taste,” if it were not for that sense; or speak of an “odor of sanctity,” if it were not for the sense of smell? The best that language can do for the soul is to call it spirit (spiritus, a breath, breeze), or soul (meaning a strong wind or storm). How fine it will be in heaven, where we will communicate as we sometimes do now by a pressure of the hand or a glance of the eye (by a method, that is, analogous to this, when soul communicates with soul directly, without the medium of language). This stuff about the origin of language I got from the Logic! But I expect I have exhausted this subject by this time, as well as your patience, so I will change the topic. You must be careful, Helen, and not overdo. You did perfectly right that day not to read a thing, though I sympathise with the feeling which made you long to get to your book. Your difficulty about sleeping I have felt something of. When my brain is unusually active, I have found it almost impossible to go to sleep. I have felt that same weariedness which you speak of arising from incessant thought, I have thought sometimes till it was positively painful, and till I wished that I might think no more. But in my case it has generally arisen from my mind’s going painfully over and over again the same wearisome, troublous questions, without ever being able to solve them or seeing the smallest clue to guide it from the inextricable endless labyrinth. It is painful to be perpetually and for ever tortured by problems which you cannot solve, sphinx riddles to which you can never reply. You must not work too hard, for good health is essential to progress. Much as we may affect to despise material things, it is still useless to ignore the fact that our poor souls are in this world inextricably intertwined and connected with matter, so that moral conditions are involved in physical conditions, and physical in moral. Can I feel the emotion of the sublime when I have a stomach-ache? The vulgar fact is that it is impossible. Can I appreciate poetry when I am seasick? Can I listen favorably to a moral appeal when suffering the pangs of hunger? No. If this answer is true, what must I say to the question: Then, does not a good dinner help moral regeneration? I must be logical and answer, it does. So are we, in this world, the slaves of vulgar clay. What is a noble thought? The product of certain physical conditions, the joint effect of good digestion, sound sleep, and exercise. Change the physical conditions somewhat. Make my sleep restless, my digestion impaired, my exercise non-existent or too violent, and what is the result? A morbid or unhealthy thought. In the first case I took a cheerful view of life, believed in the goodness of God, and the regeneration of man, regarded the world as not quite ruined, and was happy. In the second case, I become a pessimist, regard the world as bad, mankind only evil, God a cruel tyrant, and am unhappy. Truly, “dust we are.” I do not think this is all, however. I am not a materialist, whatever that may be, but I hope I have convinced you not to work too hard and lose your newly found health. I am perhaps in an over particular mood, but I am sorry you are reading Gibbon in an abridged form. For the period that it covers, the whole work is not long, and I would as soon read it mutilated as I would read a poem all carved up. Of course I do not understand the principle on which the abridgement is made, but I should think it would detract much from the excellence of the style. I suppose it is the greatest historical work in the English language, it covers an important period, is the authority on the period which it covers, and, except on one or two points, it is impartial, so that I expect that if there is any historical work in existence which is worth reading entire, it is the one. But of course you have to take what you can get. Isn’t it in that library established in connection with the reading-room? If it isn’t some one of our numerous families ought to be in possession of it, if they are not now. I am sure I do not know what historical work they consider it worth while to place on the shelves of their libraries if not that. However, chacun a son gout. How much Cæsar have you read, and how do you like it? I would not read Cicero after Caesar if I were you. I would take up Virgil at once. It is no harder, not as hard, I guess, and I am sure you will get much more out of it. To me Cicero seemed very dull and dry, as well as really being somewhat hard, while I never got one idea of the eloquence and power of the orator. I am afraid I would not get much more out of it now, though I hope to take up the Second Philippic (his finest oration) someday, and try what can be done with it. Virgil, on the contrary, I am sure you will enjoy immensely, and get a great deal of pleasure and profit from him. But do as seemeth unto thee best. I am so sorry that you cannot know Greek. But who knows? You may study it yet. Cato learned Greek after he was eighty years old, and why not you? If you find after a year or two at Latin that you are going to enjoy it, you can take up Greek, which introduces you to a far more glorious literature than the Latin. Who knows? Perhaps you can study Greek before we go to Germany in the summer of ’83. I hope you will have an opportunity to read Tacitus sometime. He is the greatest of Latin historians. The style is magnificent, and he is not difficult. Your letters never bore me, Helen, as you seem to imagine. You never give me any advice that is not thoroughly welcome. And there is no “egotism” in your letters. If they seem so to you, what must mine seem, I should like to know. I have read about eight hundred lines of Greek this vacation for amusement, in the “Orestes,” a play of Euripides. What I read I enjoyed very much. I have also read three volumes of Guizot’s History of France. I have also taken considerable of a dip into Emerson’s poetry, and find that I like it pretty well. I have also read aloud to C. B. pretty regularly. You know he cannot use his eyes very much. Doesn’t read at all hardly, and feels his loss, so I offered to read aloud to him. We have read the whole of Paradise Lost over again together, Manfred, and a number of other things. I like Milton more than I can tell. I have “got on “to him more than I ever dared to hope. I think I soon shall have him in his proper place, above every other English poet, except Shakespeare, of course. The first books of Paradise Lost are by far the best. How crowded they are with similes. And almost every simile needs marking (for I mark freely almost all my books). Read Lycidas, Helen, over and over; you cannot read it too much. You will soon get to liking it immensely. But perhaps you are already familiar with it. All Milton’s short poems are good. Comus I am just commencing to appreciate after two readings. How is this? —

“They left me then when the gray-hooded even,

Like a sad votarist in palmer’s weed,

Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus’ wain.”

And to think that six months ago Milton was a school book to me. And now how much he is to me. As I look back over the year that has just passed, I can see a decided progress. My acquaintance with literature is very perceptibly widened, and in this respect I feel somewhat encouraged. But, dear Helen, it is evening, prayers are over, school has begun, and I must leave you, much as I hate to do so, for Plautus. However, the first lesson is short, and I have already read it once, so perhaps I may talk with you again to-night. An hour later. I guess I have done my duty by Plautus, and so will continue this letter. But why should I, you poor girl? I am already on my seventh sheet, and your patience must be already well-nigh exhausted. I will and must stop before I kill you completely. I will adjourn the various other subjects on which I wish to talk with you till the next steamer. However, I believe I am about at the end of my rope already; it only remains to hang myself. The question is: Is or is not Taine the most delightful, vivid, picturesque, entertaining, fascinating, and animated of writers or not? I say he is. He is the most entertaining of writers. But his style does not lack gravity, elevation, and force. I thought that Macaulay was the worst writer for keeping you hanging on for page after page when you happen to open the book at random, but I do believe Taine beats him. I do not pretend to endorse all that he says, nor indeed do I especially admire him as a critic, though his opinions are always interesting, but as a writer I do admire him most heartily, and it is rather a wonder that I do not swear by everything that he says, so brilliant and so fascinating is his way of saying it. I pick him up and read him at odd intervals. I have never read his book through, and do not expect to very soon. I have done another thing lately. I have read Vanity Fair and Pendennis. So my ignorance of Thackeray is done away with and he has begun to influence my thoughts, and has been added to my circle of friends. My circle of friends! What a circle it is! How happy I ought to feel in the thought that I can share their deepest feelings and their profoundest reflections. I know a student here who has in his autograph album facsimiles of the handwriting of many of the distinguished modern men of letters—Longfellow, Tennyson, Whittier, Bryant, Emerson, Hawthorne, Irving, and Poe, as well as others. He has them in his autograph album, I have them in my head—and my heart. What a comfort and a joy they are to me! How they brighten and cheer my life! How could I get along without their familiar faces looking down on me from their shelves? What would I do if it were not for my books? But this subject is an old one with me, and you will be glad to have me dismiss it. I promise to close at the bottom of this page, though I have it in me to write more. You see I managed to postpone my talk with you about our dear mutual friend Thackeray, by this little digression on books. The dear old fellow with his sharp eyes looking out through his glasses, how I like him, and how glad I am those sharp eyes were not turned on me. But here I am at the bottom of the page, and the hour of your release has come,

Your Affectionate Brother,

HENRY N. CASTLE.

OBERLIN, Tuesday, Jan. 31, ’82.

DEAR SISTER HATTIE,

The home mail arrived this morning, and a fine home mail it was, one of the biggest I have ever had. A large sheet from Father, nearly three of the same from Will, a short note from Mother, five or six sheets from Helen, and two closely written ones from yourself. Not a word from Carrie. Why is it, I wonder? She isn’t dead, is she? She used to write me such long letters.

After getting such a big mail I ought to send back a good one in return. But I am afraid that my letters will be very slim this time. Just now I happen to be feeling somewhat wretchedly, being bunged up generally with a cold. First it settled on my lungs. Then it removed to myhead. Now it is scattered all over my body. But I feel better than I did this morning. Probably the home mail is what has set me up.

I never paragraph my letters at all. Perhaps I had better begin now. I have no special desire to be a lawyer, Hattie, any more than you have to have me. I have always thought of the law as something to which I supposed I would be driven, because there was nothing else available. But I have felt more and more lately that it was not what I wanted. My tastes are inclined to something more literary—either to something directly literary, or to the ministry. The latter would suit me excellently, i.e., the life would. An easy, scholarly, sedentary, studious life, affording abundant opportunity for reading and enjoyment of that kind, seems almost ideal. But horrors!—visiting parishioners—that does not suit my tastes. I would not preach more than one sermon a week; I would have a kind of general Church Bible Class instead of the second service. I would not confine myself closely to religious topics, but would not hesitate to preach on any subject which bore on reform of any kind. I would try to make myself an intellectual and literary leader, rather than a merely religious one. I would try chiefly to lead the thought of the community, and would not spend my strength on revivals, but on reading-rooms. I would aim to get young men interested in good books, and try to make them feel the value of their opportunities. But, alas, I shall never be a minister. Moral questions interesting me more than any others, and a sedentary life being to my tastes, I conclude that I am cut out for the ministry. But unfortunately in these days, they won’t allow a man to enter that profession unless he will swear that he believes certain things. And they choose just the things he don’t believe. Then again, they expect a minister to be the best Christian in his parish, to furnish an exemplary example, etc. Another absurd requirement, to which I am quite unwilling to conform. So that it seems that I am shut out from the ministry. Then I am too much of an epicurean to care to starve as a literary man. I have a horror of going around among police stations looking up the details of a murder, as the reporter of a newspaper. I despise newspaper literature too much to care to swell the volume of it. As a merchant, no doubt, I would ruin myself and any one unfortunate enough to be my partner, in three months, by the indiscriminate exercise of my business talent. So that I do not see anything for it but to be a lawyer. One of these half-starved ones, most likely. And yet I dread the thought. It seems to me a sharp lawyer must often have it to say to himself, “Thanks to my skilful manipulation of the case, justice was not done.” Or, “If it had not been for my ability this scoundrel would have been punished.” I do not want to flatter my intellect at the expense of my character in that way. This may not be the case, but I cannot well see how it can be otherwise. Then my talents are not those of a lawyer. I could not cross-question a witness. However, I suppose it will all come right, especially if I take two years in Germany to think about it. Why in Germany, you ask? Why not in America as well? Because that we are educated in two ways: first, as the result of our own aims and studies; second, by what we drink in unconsciously from our surroundings. The last is by far the most important. The first is insignificant in comparison. It is for this second chiefly that I would go to Germany. That is not so either. But what I would say is that I don’t need the American atmosphere. I have been brought up in it. I want to breathe the atmosphere of another civilization, and be broadened thereby. It is to be in Germany, not to study there, that is of primary importance. If I should spend a couple of years there, the whole course of my life would be influenced by it. It would widen my whole horizon. Nothing like looking at a thing from two sides, both to learn something about it, and to acquire a liberal habit of mind. I wish to test my American ideas. Two years in Germany will make a bright spot for a lifetime. The memory of a life, of an experience so different, will always serve to correct and enlarge my ideas when they become narrowed by sticking to one place for a quarter of a century. In fact, six 10 reasons why I wish to go to Germany come out quite clearly in my mind from what has been said:—

1. To breathe a foreign atmosphere and learn to understand the spirit of a great civilization.

2. To learn the German language.

3. To become acquainted with German literature and philosophy.

4. To study.

5. To enjoy the advantages of foreign travel.

6. To acquire a knowledge of art.

Of these objects only one, the fourth, would be equally well secured by remaining in this country. To accomplish the other five I wish to go to Germany, and take Helen with me. You might consult Frank Damon about it. You need not be at all afraid that I will get spoiled by having my doubts confirmed in an atheistical atmosphere. I get more orthodox every day. I don’t go a cent on infidels, they are a great nuisance. Sometimes when I see how some perfect idiots profess to be infidels, it makes me disgusted to think that I ever had the smallest difficulty about believing. For instance, when I hear that G. T. has religious difficulties, it makes me fervently wish to become a deacon of the Church at once, so as to get out of bad company. Bowen can tell you who G. T. is, so I will not expand on his character. To be an unbeliever brings one into low company. It is curious how sinners try to take refuge from their sin in denying the existence of a God. It is a good argument for belief in one, that men deny Him when they are in an unhealthy moral state, associating belief in Him with healthy moral conditions. As for me, my views on the subject are as sound as could be desired. Carlyle says a fine thing, “From of old, doubt was but half a magician; she evokes the spectres which she cannot quell.” I am reading his French Revolution. It is fine. With love to all,

Affectionately your Brother,

HENRY N. CASTLE.

OBERLIN, Sunday, Feb. 26, ’82.

DEAR SISTER HELEN,

You see I have got some new paper, of our old-fashioned family kind. It is not quite as thin as the other, still I think I can still afford to write all I please. Home letters to-morrow, if fate favors, when I hope, for one thing, for a long letter from you, and also for one from Carrie, who has relapsed into total unconsciousness of my existence. This is the first word I have written home this time. It looks as though my mail would not be of the largest. The weather (to introduce a new theme) has been cold for a couple of days, just to remind us that it was February, but has now become decent again, though somewhat unsettled. Ben McMichael and I have built ourselves an observatory on the top of the house, where we go to observe the stars. It is good and strong, with ropes and boards, and chimneys and nails; and is a splendid place, for this is an awful high house, and we can see clear down to the horizon all around. There we stretch ourselves out on our backs and gaze up into the sky. I take the astronomical map, and by the light of Reky’s dark lantern look up the constellations, and give directions to Ben, who finds them in the heavens. Isn’t that splendid? Think of it, lying ‘way up on that high roof, in the darkness, flat on our backs, gazing up at the stars. One night we learned three or four new constellations. New to us, that is. How many thousand ages they have shone in the heavens, no one knows. It is a splendid way of passing time, with the old names of the Grecian mythology, and the Arabic names of single stars; it links you with the thought of all past ages. Reminds you of Milton—” As when the glass of Galileo, less assured, observes imagined lands and regions in the moon.” It has its drawbacks, however. Last time we were up there, the neighbors couldn’t see us, but they could the light from the dark lantern, and they came rushing in to tell the Deacon that his house was afire, whereupon there was a great commotion, of which we, the innocent cause, were all unconscious, alone on our lofty perch, far above the tumult of the world below. Next morning, however, we heard of it, and the Deacon forbade us to go up there again, ostensibly on account of some supposed, hypothetical, possible, remote, imaginary damage to the shingles. So there is an end to that happiness. However, we shall have to do something to protect the shingles. We can’t lose our observatory. Wasn’t Galileo persecuted, and can we expect less? This term is almost passed. Four weeks more only, and then vacation. I have not managed to read much this term, but hope to do considerable yet. I have finished Guizot’s History of France, as possibly I mentioned last mail. It is just moderate. Very interesting in places. Somewhat dull in others. But it is full and complete, and that is a merit. I am glad I read it. The style when I first began I thought below the average, but I got accustomed to it before proceeding very far. It is finely illustrated, which is a great merit, and seems to be a fair-minded work. You would never know from it that the author was a Protestant. There is no trace of bitterness or partizanship. I have the greatest fun arguing with the young ladies downstairs upon the subject of music, and the advantages of studying it. You know I am red-hot on this subject, as I am on that of education generally. I regard it as a shameful waste of time for these three hundred young ladies to spend all their powers in the study of music. In my opinion it is the imperative duty of at least nine-tenths of them to stop studying music and go to work at a full classical course. It is ridiculous the way we get in the habit of assuming as a matter of course that if a girl is in the conservatory she is an ignoramus, and not to be addressed with sensible remarks. The assumption is all right, but it is a disgrace to the young ladies that it should be a safe one. Supposing all the young men, instead of pursuing a general course of study, should go to work and spend all their time and energies reading poetry, studying metre, and practising writing barbarous poems. The result would be disastrous to think of, but the case would be analogous to that of our fair sisters of the conservatory. All the advantage, however, even then would lie on the side of the boys, because poetry stimulates thought and brings you into contact with a far wider range of mind. However, why should I hector you on this subject? We agree perfectly. In all uncultivated women reason is subservient to passion. It is a comfort to turn from the idle chit-chat of the empty-headed conservatory girls to the conversation of a young lady that has ideas of her own, dear Helen, and therefore I am writing this letter. I am reading just now Lanfrey’s Life of Napoleon. I find it singularly depressing to read about a bad man much at a time. One gets so weary of his crimes and longs so for something good and pure. It is like sleeping under one of those poisonous trees in India which they tell about, and under which it is death to sleep. No mere genius for me. That is not enough. Napoleon cannot get a bit of real admiration from me. I hate him. He is thoroughly bad. There is nothing really great about him. Nothing to call forth respect. Not that a man must have good character to win admiration. I hardly admire Burns the less for the life he led, because that in spite of his making by his weakness life a failure, he yet was a man of true nobility, of lofty thoughts, of worthy ambitions, and of love only for what is true and good. But he had strong temptations, and no will. Napoleon, on the contrary, had none of these good qualities. He was essentially a mean man. There was not one elevated thing in him. I think I shall adopt Carlyle’s view, and admire real genius, believing with him that it must bring with it such a perception of truth, that its possessor cannot be other than a noble hearted and minded man in his primitive impulses, however corrupted and ruined by circumstances, like Burns, Poe, and Byron. In this view Napoleon could not be characterized as a man of genius, but only as having a genius in particular fields. For instance, it is inconceivable that Shakespeare could have been an admirer of anything except what is truly noble. Whereas the wicked not only do, but admire, wickedness. This theory would hold that all greatness is goodness. I think the single division into good and bad will include everything in the world of mind, and that that is not alone moral which we call character, but that all beauty, all happiness, all strength, are moral, whereas, on the other hand, all weakness, all ugliness, as well as all sin, are immoral or bad. I believe this is Carlyle’s theory. He nowhere expresses it, but I imagine that at least it would be in harmony with his views as found in and inferred from the Heroes and Hero-Worship. I could not have expressed the last page or two worse if I had thrown the words all up together and trusted them to come down and arrange themselves. I have lately finished Carlyle’s French Revolution. It is a very peculiar work, of very little value as a history purely, being disjointed, fragmentary, and confused. It does not give a clear connected view of the events of the French Revolution. But if it has these defects, it is also relieved by many merits. Some of its scenes are magnificent, more vivid, more lifelike, more powerful, than anything of the kind I know of in literature. For example, the description of the Feast of Pikes, of the Insurrection of Women, of the attempted flight of the king, of the tremendous rising of the 10th of August, and of the horrible September massacres, are flashed upon the mind with a life-like distinctness which it would seem as though nothing could efface. Why, because it is the work of a man of genius, but especially of a poet. For Carlyle, though he never wrote a word of verse, though he seems to take delight in a style which is sometimes harsh, rude, abrupt, and rugged, was a true poet, and often breaks forth into short bursts which are as musical in form as they are poetical in feeling. I cannot resist the temptation at the risk of boring you, of quoting one or two such places. Notice this, for example: “They are all gone; sunk—down, down with the tumult they made; and the rolling and the trampling of ever new generations passes over them: and they hear it not any more for ever.” Or this line, “They have left their sunny Phocæan city and sea haven with its bustle and its bloom.” Or again, “O Man of Soil, thy struggling and thy daring these six long years of insurrection and tribulation, thou hast profited nothing by it then? Thou consumest thy herring and water, in the blessed gold-red evening. O why was the earth so beautiful, becrimsoned with dawn and twilight, if man’s dealings with man were to make it a vale of scarcity, of tears?” etc. I know these passages are much better in their connection, but I think you will enjoy them even when detached. Read them over and over, and I shall be mistaken if they do not “pass like music” through your brain. There are plenty of other places that I should like to quote, but must not trespass on your patience. I have completely changed my opinion of Carlyle. When I read the Heroes and Hero-Worship, I wasn’t at all enthusiastic over him, whereas now I can hardly keep my head. Some of the passages in the French Revolution are indescribably touching, and almost move one to tears. I think Carlyle was undoubtedly a man of great genius, and I am now inclined to admit that his natural genius is greater than that of Emerson. Notice that last passage I quoted about the “blessed gold-red evening,” and compare it with Keats about Ruth standing “in tears amid the alien corn,” in the “Ode to the Nightingale.” There is not the slightest resemblance, except in the effect upon the mind, which seems to me to be exactly the same. Both are wonderfully pathetic, and it is hard to tell which is best, but just now I confess Carlyle’s seems to give me at least equal pleasure. Comparisons, however, are invidious. Both are great, both the work of great men. I confess I am finding passages in prose now which impress me as deeply as the finest poetry. If you have access to Webster’s speeches, you will find a noble passage (in the Speech on the Laying the Corner Stone of Bunker Hill Monument) beginning, “But alas, you are not all here. Time and the sword have thinned your ranks,” etc. Daniel Webster was a big man. No doubt of that. Don’t trouble yourself about Emerson, Helen. No doubt you can read him and enjoy him now. You mustn’t be discouraged if you don’t understand all he says. Nobody does that I know of. Because he is not profound merely, but he is mystical, which makes him incomprehensible. But if you don’t happen to enjoy him now, lay him aside, and don’t let it trouble you; you will get to him by-and-by. That is my experience. When I can’t understand him I drop him, expecting that what I don’t understand now will become clear by-and-by. I like Milton better and better. I now rejoice to be able to say that I prefer him to every other English poet, and hope that he will yield first place in my imagination only to Shakespeare. Notice this passage. Speaking of an angel he says that he was thrown from heaven by angry Jove—

“Sheer o’er the crystal battlements; from morn

To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,

A summer’s day; and with the setting sun

Dropped from the zenith like a falling star

On Lemnos, the Ægæan Isle.”

What a pity that he should have hashed in so much theology. Paradise Lost contains about as much truck as any poem I know of, except the Prelude. I think Macaulay is right. If Milton had only written the first four books of Paradise Lost he would be the greatest of all poets save Shakespeare. But the last eight books are too much cumbered with theological disquisitions. I have seen it predicted that Milton’s heaven and God, etc., would militate against the endurance of his poem. But why should they? We don’t accept Homer’s mythology as true, and yet this does not threaten his permanence. Why should Milton’s theology? It cannot possibly affect his poetic beauties. What you said about home, Helen, in your last was excellent. And so you are at Kohala. I hope you will be happy and not homesick. It isn’t fun to be homesick. However, I find the real source of homesickness, as of almost all my ailments, is in an uneasy conscience. O for a strong will; a powerful determination that nothing can shake; an energy that overleaps all obstacles! What are all the intricacies of the locomotive, its wheels and piston rods, and polished brass, what are they all worth—without the steam? Without that it stands useless on the track for ever. I agree with you perfectly, Helen, when you say we never know what we may do under certain circumstances. I feel more and more that as long as a man is not shaping his life on the foundation of principle, he is never safe, not even for a moment. He is liable to commit any crime. For as he does not recognize the moral life in the conduct of his life, any sin will be consistent with his practice, however much it may be opposed to his theory. It is trite to say that there are horrible depths as well as lofty heights in man. I enjoy your descriptions of scenery, etc., more than I can tell. And now you have gone to Kohala I shall expect to gain a more vivid idea of that place than I have ever had before. You must tell me just what kind of a place it is, what kind of a house, what sort of a room you have, what kind of a view you get from your window, and what books you have taken with you. We have had a few cold days this winter, and accordingly a few fine nights. It is wonderful some of these winter nights. They are like one solid crystal. The air seems the very essence of purity, and the stars shine so brightly. I have come to the conclusion that the two most beautiful sights in the whole world are two which can be seen everywhere every day. The clouds in the daytime, and the stars at night. So one has no business to complain of the place where he is. In the Sahara, to be sure, I suppose one can see no clouds. But then the stars are always visible at night. Not a cloud to hide them; not a house, or a tree, or a mound, to break the circle of the horizon, —” the ring dial of the heavens,” as Carlyle calls it. As for reading, do not for a moment suppose that I read any better than you do, or forget any less. It is not so. It is one of my great trials that I read so inattentively and carelessly. But here is the bottom of my fifth sheet, and as one of my friends has suggested that if I wrote home a postal a month it would be sufficient, I guess I will at least stop now.

Affectionately,

HENRY N. CASTLE.

OBERLIN, Wednesday, March 1, ’82.

DEAR HOME FOLKS,

Here it is Wednesday afternoon, and no home mail yet. It is enough, as the poet feelingly remarks, to make a horse leave his oats. We cannot imagine what the trouble is. There are no floods and no snow that we know of. Perhaps the steamer has encountered a storm, perhaps she has broken her shaft, perhaps she didn’t stop at Honolulu on account of fever or small-pox, or some new unheard-of ailment, or perhaps the volcano has put an end to the Sandwich Islands, as in Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island, and the steamer cannot find you. All these hypotheses are cheering, especially the last, but they do not comfort us for the loss of the letters. Perhaps they will come on this noon’s train. We have just had a pleasant visit from Jennie Pond. She is a good girl and a smart one, and it is a great relief to talk with her. Minnie Mawhir (?) has also been down here, and they have had a grand ceremony at the First Church to start them off on their mission. By them I mean, Mr and Mrs S., F., and Minnie, who are now all going to Africa in a few days. Mr F. and Mr S. both spoke, and then Minnie, who completely eclipsed both the gentlemen. Her speech was touching and simple, and a model of good taste. Prof. Smith and Mr Brand also made addresses. The meeting was a good one, though it could not compare with the Ordination Service they had for some young men last spring. I sat with Jennie, and was a great trial to her, for I made ten puns during the evening, which was almost more than she could bear. I had others in reserve, but withheld them, out of consideration for her feelings. But I paid excellent attention during the service, and enjoyed it very much. It is about time to enquire what I am to do next summer vacation. Tempus fugit. This term is almost gone. I did not make a striking success of manual labor last vacation, that is sure—I am not extraordinarily muscular. There is also another question which I must agitate. How many members of the family is Bowen to escort to Oberlin in 1883, the grand Jubilee year of the College? I shall adorn (???? etc.) the occasion with a speech. How fine it would be to have Father sitting on the front seat. I would make him hear every word. He has given me this grand chance to make a man of myself. I owe it all to him, and I would like to make my little speech all to him. Mother, of course, is to be there, that was all arranged long ago, and perhaps it would be a good idea to import the whole family. When we consider what the merits of the speech will probably be, it does not seem too much to expect.

Affectionately,

HENRY N. CASTLE.

OBERLIN, Saturday, March 4, ’82.

DEAR FATHER,

At last the home mail has come. We have waited for it until our patience was well-nigh exhausted, and of all the various theories that we had devised to account for the delay, the only one we did not think of, was that of a change in the time-table. But the mail was abundant enough when it did get here to compensate for all delays. Six sheets from Helen, six pages from Carrie, a sheet from Mother, one from Hattie, and one from Will, with a large closely-written one from yourself were all, I believe. Since this morning the world has looked brighter to me than it has for several days past, and that is saying a good deal too, for we have enjoyed some of the most glorious of days this week. The thermometer at 64° in the shade. I never saw clouds of such strange and curious shapes. All day yesterday and the day before, it was a study to watch their shifting figures in the sky, never for a moment the same. School is nearly through for this term, and then comes a vacation of about ten days, and then school again. Have I spoken of my studies this term? They are in Latin—a comedy of Plautus, and a portion of the philosophical works of Lucretius. The first was very amusing, full of real fun, with here and there a pun interspersed. The latter is also interesting, because it is amusing to hear gravely expounded the absurd theories which have been replaced by the demonstrated systems of modern science, and also because here and there through the poem are scattered bursts of genuine poetry. Just now the Professor keeps us digging at the philosophy, instead of reading passages where he forgets his foolish theories and writes what is worth reading. But the Professor doesn’t know good poetry from a ball of Dutch cheese. The other studies, Chemistry and Zoology, are both very interesting. The latter would be especially so, if I had a good microscope. The College offer microscopic work in Zoology for $3.00, which I almost regret not having taken. But I tried it a day or two, and found it very trying to my eyes. However, I could work at home, where I could stop when my eyes hurt, and could work at odd intervals without injury. However, a good microscope costs. There is one at home, is there not? I know there used to be one in the family, for I remember looking through it. I have about decided not to take Analytical Chemistry next term (for which there is an extra fee of $10.00), and so I hope by careful management to be able to buy myself a new suit of clothes without exceeding my $25.00.

I understand there is being considerable effort made in this country to secure the abrogation of the treaty. There seems to be a spirit of opposition to it throughout the country, in New Orleans, in New York, and in California. The reminiscences, Father, of which you gave me the benefit in your last letter, I found very interesting indeed. The advice about exercise which I found in yours and in some of the other letters, I recognize as good, and hope to follow. I have done so already, by jumping, these last fine days, until I am very lame in my muscles. You will say that I have exceeded the bounds of moderation. I think not, but jumping is naturally very violent exercise. I do not intend to shut myself up in my room this spring, but will get out more, take tramps in the woods, and play ball a little perhaps. The objection to ball is that it takes too much time. However, I am not so fond of it, as to go beyond the bounds of moderation, I think. Now that I have left the Gymnasium, I have become convinced of its importance, and think that it is the very best exercise that I can take. Does not exhaust but thoroughly exercises. Sister Ellie will not forgive me for saying so.

Your Affectionate Son,

HENRY.

OBERLIN, Wednesday, March 15, ’82.

DEAR SISTER CARRIE,

This is supposed to be your birthday, and therefore I think the next thing to seeing you and giving you 23 pounds or kisses will be to write you a letter. The first remark that occurs to me as an appropriate one to the occasion is—tempus fugit, an affirmation which, though startlingly new, is, I think, one which no one will take the pains to deny. I ought to write you a cheerful letter, I suppose, but somehow do not seem to be in the mood. Life is certainly a wheel. Yesterday I was on the top and was happy. The sun was shining brightly, the air was warm and balmy, the buds were swelling, and the skies were clear. To-day I have got to the bottom of the wheel. The sky is sullen and gray, the air is raw and damp, the sun is hidden behind the clouds, and I have got the blues. It is thus that man responds to the changes in his circumstances. It is thus that matter rules mind. Like a little lake in the mountains which mirrors the snowy peaks and sky above it, his mind reflects his surroundings. But a breeze ripples the surface of the lake, and the scene painted in its depths becomes a “vision that hath perished.” There is no extra charge for this little sermon. We have been having a sensation in Oberlin over a big fire. Goodrich’s Book Store was destroyed with a number of other buildings on that corner. Goodrich and some of the others have built some temporary establishments on the corner of the campus. And now I must make a sad confession. I did not attend the fire. Ben woke me up, but I could not muster energy enough to crawl out of bed. My bed is in a nook where I could not see the reflection, and so I concluded that the fire was a one-horse affair, quite unworthy of the attention of a Junior. Quite a number of the girls in this house were there, Eva and Sarah among them. Sarah worked hard carrying books, like the good girl she always is. I wonder how you are spending to-day. I suppose your labors in the kitchen have long since been terminated by the reappearance of Ah. Yung.

March 31st.—The home mail has come. I have no heart to write anything. I dare not think of home now. My courage fails me and my heart sinks when I think of what has happened, of what may be happening now at home. Vacation was just beginning when the mail came. It was smaller than usual, and somehow I did not feel the usual thrill of joy. I might have known there was to be some bad news. I was feeling unusually happy, and was planning for a delightful vacation, with my books. It was all upset in a minute. Oh, Mother, I wish I could bear the pain for you. That wish comes from my heart. But it is easy to wish, and idle. I long to hurry home. But that is out of the question, as Ida has company—an uncle, Mr Hathaway, is to return with her as far as San Francisco, so of course I shall not. I wonder what I am to do next summer. I haven’t much more than time to hear before commencement, so you folks must tell me pretty quick. I am reading a good deal. I have abandoned (temporarily) pure literature, and am reading a little science, etc. Have been reading Edwards on The Freedom of the Will, and am now reading Darwin’s Origin of Species and Carpenter’s Mental Physiology. Both of these works are very interesting, especially the latter. Edwards also is very interesting, and a masterpiece of logic, though it does not help one to the solution of that vexed and difficult problem, since he practically proves that there is no such thing as the freedom of the will. He was a wonderful old fellow, that Jonathan Edwards, an incomparable logician, a man of wonderfully clear ideas, conscious of his power too, and yet humble withal. Tell Jamie that I have finished Lanfrey, and do not think him all he is cracked up to be. I think, to be sure, his portrait of Napoleon is correct, and will be changed in no essential feature. The grand lines will remain. But the background is too dark. The tone of the book is bitter, and it is written in the style of the stern accuser, not of the unimpassioned judge. As a Republican, during the second Empire, Lanfrey could hardly write without a tinge of feeling. He has too much to say, too, about the claims of History and the duties of Historians. The book, however, is a good one. I shall not write to Helen this mail, I am sorry to say. This will be the smallest mail but one that I have ever sent home. But how can I write about books and authors when Mother is so sick. I guess I will send the first sheet of this letter notwithstanding the jokes. But you need not let the rest read it.

Affectionately,

HENRY N. CASTLE.

OBERLIN, O., Tuesday, April 25, ’82.

DEAR SISTER HELEN AND ALL,

I suppose as I sit down to write this, Edward is passing through the southern part of the State with Ida B. and Julia. I am not to see them. I should have to board the train at midnight, and Edward agrees with me in thinking that it would not be at all wise to have Ida disturbed at that hour. Well, so geht es mit allen Geschicten. When this letter reaches Honolulu they will all be back safely in Honolulu. I am immensely relieved to hear such good news about Mother. I heard twice between mails, through the thoughtful kindness of Bowen. I long to see dear Mother so, and all of the dear ones at home. But, as Prof. White says, “This cannot be.” The home mail came yesterday morning right on time, and it is a fine full mail too, and brought such good news about Mother that it made me very happy. I acknowledge here all the letters, as I cannot answer all individually, this mail, and this is intended for a kind of general letter. The mail brought a long letter from Father, one from Hattie, and one from Carrie, a welcome postal in Jim’s unfamiliar hand, a delightful letter from Ethelwyn—which I thank you for, Ethelwyn, and promise to answer soon—and a long one from yourself, Helen. The mail was doubly welcome as I was not feeling well yesterday. Edward has come and gone. I saw very little of him. He was only here a few days, and he and Reky were off together about all the time. He was very kind, and it was delightful to have him here, only rather tantalizing not to see more of him. Reky has gone East with his father, and I suppose has enjoyed himself immensely. He will get back to Oberlin to-morrow. It is rather unfortunate that he should lose three weeks and a half of the term, but it ought not to prevent him from accomplishing anything. You speak of my going into the little brick house, Helen. I am not going with Uncle and Auntie. They cannot take any one. It is sad, but too true.

You ask what histories I have read besides English. I have read Gibbon, Guizot’s France, Carlyle’s French Revolution, Lanfrey’s Napoleon, Schiller’s Thirty Years’ War, Motley’s Dutch Republic twice, his History of the United Netherlands, Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico, and Conquest of Peru, Irving’s Mahomet and His Successors, and Conquest of Granada, Carlyle’s Early Kings of Norway, besides John Abbot’s histories of the different European States. Of course I must have read other histories, but these are the principal ones, and all the great ones, I guess. I wouldn’t be in any hurry at all to read Froude. There is great difference of opinion as to his merits. His history is not probably a perfectly fair estimate of the times it deals with. He is fearfully extended. His whole work of eight or ten volumes only covers a few years. The same may be said of Macaulay. The reputation of his history is on the decline. It is probably a brilliant but not a profound or remarkably just production. His whole 3,000 pages only cover a period of about fifteen years. I suppose, however, it is as interesting a history as ever was written. I look forward, of course, to reading Ruskin with great pleasure, and shall surely come to him before long. I do not find nearly as much time as usual to read this term. But that is as it should be. My studies ought to occupy most of my time. Hull is back here rooming. You remember him, don’t you? Hull is a mighty nice fellow. I have the jolliest times with him. You don’t often come across a much nicer fellow. Just such an experience as yours, the day you planned to do so much and accomplished so little, apparently, is mine constantly, so I know just how to sympathize with you. It is appalling to think how time can slip by and leave no trace. So poor old Prince is dead. Well! Well!

The other night I was sitting pensively at prayers, when I happened to cast my eye down among the seats in front of me, and whom do you think I saw? Jim Kyle! You may be sure that the Amen had hardly left the Prof.’s mouth when I found my way down, and gave him a hearty handshake. And you know what a hand he has, so you can imagine what sort of a shaking hands that was. I tell you I was glad to see him. It brought back a flood of old recollections. He was in town giving Thayer a little visit. I had a moment’s talk with him then, and the next evening he came up and spent about an hour or less at my room. He came again the next afternoon for a few minutes, and I showed him the Island pictures. I also went down to the Depot and saw him off. So that altogether I saw quite a little of him, though I wanted to see much more. He sent his kindest regards to you all whom he knows, and inquired after you. He was looking just as natural as life, doesn’t seem to me to have changed a bit. He is a splendid man, and I predict that he will make a grand success of life. What a hearty way of shaking hands he has. There is a nervous grip to his fingers that I like. I see that my enthusiasm is running beyond all bounds, so I will endeavor to curb it. He is settled over a kind of a collegiate institution in Utah, and also does some preaching. He is going to make a big thing of it. He says his home is in a lovely valley, which nothing reminds him of so much as some of the pictures I showed him. He seemed as glad to see me as I was him. I always knew I liked him, but I never knew I liked him so well. I tried to persuade him to come to Oberlin in 1883, telling him that I was going to import half my own family on that occasion. But he doesn’t know whether he can come or not. It is unfortunate that Auntie and Uncle were in New York, so as to miss his visit.

April 29.—Oh dear, here I have allowed the time to slip away until it is Saturday afternoon, half-past two o’clock, and my mail must go off this evening, I suppose. But I have been busy: first an essay to write and copy, then just as I got that off my hands, along comes Junior Ex., and that takes time wonderfully, then Dan Bradley wants a lot of stuff for the Review, and so it goes. This last job is just off my hands (I wrote a couple of editorials in Bible Class), and now I can turn to my home mail again—and a very slim one it will be this time, I fear. By the way, Reky tells me that Julia and Ida B. spoke of the small amount of writing I did. Does it seem to you at home that I don’t write much? If it does, I will write more. But I have thought that I wrote a good deal. I know that very commonly I have written home alone more than all the letters to me combined. I think since last summer I have averaged as much as twelve or thirteen sheets a mail. I know that often I have felt as though I wrote too much, and have stopped through sheer shame, because I covered so many sheets of paper to so little effect. I have supposed that lately I had written as much as any of the boys had ever done; because I remember distinctly our astonishment and joy at the longest letter Will ever wrote us (I think it was eight sheets of letter paper), and I have written about that amount two or three times.

Yesterday our Junior Exhibition came off, and I will enclose a programme of the exercises. Yesterday morning Ben called me downstairs, where we found Reky making merry over a mock programme! I will enclose a copy of that also. Keep it carefully, as I may not be able to secure another. You, Bowen, will be especially interested in it. It is highly edifying. We do not suspect the Sophomores, but our beloved ex-classmates, J. C. M. and Mr P. The whole thing doesn’t trouble me a bit, and wouldn’t a whit more if I were one of the speakers. Indeed, I believe I should rather enjoy it, especially if I happened to have a good piece. I got as much fun out of it as any one as it was, and made money out of it too. I sold three of the mock programmes, and got 35 cents for them. You see they were distributed in the night, and our boys got hold of almost all of them. They got wind of it somehow, and ran all over town, and managed to get almost all of them by morning. I was appointed one of the boys to parade up and down the streets near the church to see that none of the programmes were distributed or sold, and while so doing I embraced the opportunity to sell one myself for 15 cents. How’s that for an example of corruption in high places? Think of it, a Junior selling mock programmes on his own class! Such degradation is sad—sad! But after all they would have them, and why shouldn’t a man turn an honest penny? You will be especially edified, Bowen, by the motto. Your prediction seems to have come true. But I have discoursed enough on this sad subject. Turn, my muse, to happier themes. Sing of parties at Prof. Ellis’s, of happy Juniors and bewitching third-years, of the delights of biscuits and sliced ham, cake and ice cream, and of all the sweet joys of social converse. I am ashamed to say that I did not attend the party in the evening. It is a disgrace. I never could have had a better chance, and at the Ellises too. But I could not muster up my courage. So I missed it. I must go into society, there is no use talking. I have got to come to it. Somehow or other, I do not seem to have much to say. It ought not to be so, because this month seems to have been quite eventful—mock programmes, Kyle, Reky’s moving, Longfellow’s death —which, I believe, I haven’t expanded on, a fire which really didn’t amount to much, and which I have not mentioned before, Edward’s visit, etc., etc.; notwithstanding them all, I am at the end of my rope, and there is nothing left for me to do but to hang myself. I am going to send a whole load of things this time. A programme of Alpha Zeta Special Quarterly for one. It was that occasion which made my reputation. You will see the criticism on it in the Review. I was merely elected in place of a Senior who had resigned, as the only available man, the only Seniors left being an old stick about forty years old (name Wood) and a colored fellow, who was not available. I have had the misfortune to be elected Society Editor of the Review, and also one of the orators for the Contest. But the first evil will end at the close of this term, and I will expire with the other next winter. I have learned to take things easy, Bowen, and so these woes do not trouble me much—astonishingly little in fact. Not long ago every thought of them would have given me a horrible sinking at the stomach. I felt sorry yesterday that I had resigned my Junior Ex. It would have tickled my vanity to be one of the speakers, while the inducement which led me to resign, viz., hatred of the worry, no longer has any influence over me. That thirst for honors from which a year ago I was so free, has now attacked me. Not that I have much of it in comparison with others. It is not a fever with me, as with some. But in comparison with my condition about one year ago to-day (the day of the Junior Ex. election), I have a touch of it. O that I might have a thirst for real honor, instead of for these vain and empty titles, which my mind tells me are as meaningless and worthless as the popular favor ever is—that popular favor which passes over true worth to fix upon and exalt those qualities which are conspicuous, not noble. I guess I will send you my Review, Helen, as I have a couple of extra ones, and you may be interested to see what I write. My editorials are hastily written and bungling, and make but a poor appearance beside the graceful sentences and smooth style of Miss McKelvey, with whom I divide the labor of the department. As to our Junior Ex., all the language orations were excellent, better than any I ever remember to have heard. I am afraid, Father, that I shall not send any account home this mail, but I will try to get one in next month. I should like very much to go to Chatauqua, and will look the subject up. I have noticed some of the subjects of the lecture courses. Most of them I should not care to attend, but some I should judge would be very valuable—for instance, those on the “History of Music.” Probably I shall work a little on my contest oration next vacation, and I hope to get somewhere where I can take a good deal of light exercise. Chatauqua will be just the place for that, I expect. One objection to going there will be that there will be enormous crowds there, which will be very disagreeable. I don’t care to go visiting round at any relatives. Besides, I have had no invitations. I should think though, from what you said of the prices there, Father, that it would cost about as much as to go to the White Mountains. Perhaps I can get a chance to camp somewhere part of the vacation. I like the Chatauqua plan, however, very much. I send heaps and heaps of love for Mother. I hope and trust that by the time this reaches you, she will be almost well. I have got a splendid Burns. It only cost $1.40, is absolutely complete, good print, good paper, pretty binding, one volume, not bulky, with a great deal of information concerning the circumstances of the writing of many of his poems, etc. I am busier than I have ever been before, and have read almost nothing this term. I am intending to read the best models of British oratory—Burke, Pitt, Fox, Chatham, Sheridan, etc. My health is excellent. I am going to take a great deal of exercise too and enjoy life generally, and I am going to send a better mail home next month if I can. Love to all, from

Your Affectionate Brother and Son, etc.,

HENRY N. CASTLE.

OBERLIN, Monday, May 22, ’82.

MY DEAR, PRECIOUS MOTHER,