get into the middle of a sentence, and then those horns would give a tremendous noise, and he had to laugh. So he gave it up and dismissed us. We ran down town at full speed. A crowd was rapidly gathering. The horns were making a tremendous din in front of the post office. No one needed to be told what had happened. You could read “Garfield is elected” in the air, on anybody’s face, especially in those horns. The Juniors came rushing out of French. Classes were all broken up, and soon there was a large crowd thronging the sidewalk. Students gathered in little knots. Suddenly the enthusiasm found a vent. Processions were formed and paraded up and down the street. Everything was seized upon that could help on the noise and make a funny appearance. Coats were turned inside out. Boards were seized on as clappers. The theologues robbed the stores and paraded the street with new brooms. ’83 as well as others sezed upon a huge wagon, filled it to overflowing and drove around the streets raising flags, blowing, yelling, cheering. Two got on the backs of the horses with their horns. The college bell, the town hall, and the Union school bell, all were merrily rung. After a while we left the wagon and processions were formed again. By and by the ladies fell in, a hundred or more of them. There was no German or Greek that morning for ’83. But I cannot tell you half the wonderful things that happened. In the afternoon a special train was secured, and a party of 700 went down to Garfield’s home at Mentor, a few miles from Cleveland. Neither Bowen nor I went, and we are sorry enough now. But I had no idea that it would be a reception. As it was they all marched down to Garfield’s home in battle array, and when there, Pres. Fairchild made a speech to which General Garfield responded. Every last one of them shook hands with him, and all the College men were introduced to both him and his wife, and some of them even got an introduction to his daughter. Rex went down and so he actually had the hand of our next President in his own. Wasn’t that grand? The other evening they had a final big celebration. It had not the advantage of complete spontaneity like the other one, but we had a tolerably gay time for all that. All the college classes marched except the Seniors, and all the Preps. Every class was fixed up in some striking way. We had huge fools caps and made a striking appearance. The freshmen made the finest, though. They all had a sort of sash across their breasts, and looked just as nice as could be. The procession terminated on the Campus where a huge bonfire was in full blaze. They burned over twenty cords of wood in it, and created some light and a little warmth. Everything around it stood out as though it were day, Tappan Hall, Council Hall, the First Church, etc. Late in the evening they commenced to amuse themselves with a kind of fireworks new to me, which they called fire balls. The Campus was crowded, as the country folk had all flocked in to see the fun, and there must have been two or three thousand people there. Among these, hundreds of fire-balls flew in and out, somtimes lighting at one’s feet, sometimes whizzing past one’s head. I didn’t fancy the sport and whenever I saw one coming I always retired behind the tallest man. The idea is that if you pick them up quickly they won’t burn you. But as some folks have been laid up for six months with them, and they burned folks’ bonnets and things, I concluded that they had some of the properties of fire, and preferred to warm my hands in a legitimate fashion, keeping them tucked away in my pockets. Such is life. I am flourishing like a cedar of Lebanon. I have concluded not to flourish like a green bay tree any more. It is getting played out.
With much love, I am, as usual,
HENRY.
OBERLIN, Sunday, December 5, ’80.
DEAR SISTER HELEN,
I received your letter, which came by a sailing vessel some time ago, and will hasten to answer it before I get another from you, which, I hope, will be next Tuesday. Now, as to that plan. It has bust up. I was a little blue when I wrote the letter. But I have got over that now, and I find that reason, judgment, everything tells me to stay right here. What is more, I don’t want to go home; I prefer to stay here. Do, please, destroy that letter; I am thoroughly ashamed of it. I wouldn’t leave my studies now, I wouldn’t have my course broken in upon now for anything. I want to take a course, and I want to do it here and now. I hope that letter wont lower anyone’s opinion of me. It was written in a moment of discouragment, and I suppose every one has those. The fact is I cannot deny that I have galivanted around too much. It has nearly ruined me. What I mean is it has greatly unsettled me. The best thing that could happen to me would be for me not to stir out of this little town till I finish my course. On that account I am glad that I am not to go to Boston this winter. ‘I don’t think going to Europe alone did me any harm, but going to the Islands on top of that. And yet I can’t possibly wish that I hadn’t gone. That is impossible. It is such a host of pleasant memories that I cannot wish it different. Home means so much more to me now, after I have had a chance of comparing it with other countries. I am all out of tune with winter. This last year spoiled me for it. So that now I look forward with much more pleasure to spending my life at the Islands. When my feet and hands get cold, it makes me so mad and disgusted with the climate, that I can’t see an argument in its favor. It is a beautiful day to-day. We have been having the thermometer 8 below zero, but to-day you would be almost willing to swear that it was spring. The thermometer at 56, the sun shining brightly, and a delightful wind. There is one thing we miss at the Islands, and that is the poetry of the change of the seasons. When spring first comes, it seems as though there never were such beautiful days. By the way I never appreciated the indescribable glories of Autumn before. The colour of the leaves is sometimes magnificent, and it is a perfect luxury to cross the Campus. By the way Helen, did you know that Oberlin is a beautiful place. When I first got here this year in August, it was lovely. In summer the college square is a genuine park, and it is crowded with magnificent trees. They wont equal Algerobas and Monkey-pods and tamarinds though. Tell Ida M. that please, from me. Tell her oaks and elms and maples and beeches are nice, but they are not equal to the Island trees. Besides there is not the variety in them. Just think of the difference between all of the three trees mentioned and mangoes. They are not one of them alike even to the most casual observer. While I have not learned to distinguish all these trees yet, I am just learning to see what nature can do with just light and air and sunshine and clouds and sky, while the trees are all bare and the grass a withered green, and the mud thick in the streets and the architecture horrible and the country as flat as a pancake. And the result is glorious. However, it is not so fine when the sunshine disappears and the sky is leaden and gray, and the atmosphere thick and murky with fog and mist and rain. As for Geo. Macdonald, Helen, I don’t once deny that he is fine. If I were counting up the novels in this world which I thought worth reading, and counted them all on the fingers or one hand, one of his would be among the number. But then, fine as he is, it would be unreasonable to expect him to equal George Eliot, who is the high water mark among novelists. You say he is of heaven and she of earth. The distinction is a good one. I don’t know much about painting, but I have an idea that it would be about the difference between the lovely spiritual saints and Madonnas of Fra Angelico (I think that’s the man) and the Hebrew Prophets painted in the Sistine Chapel by Michael Angelo. The Hebrew Prophets were men of the earth. Be sure of that. The same tendency that would make me exalt Macdonald above George Eliot prompts my heart to place a simple ballad like “The day is done” above the finest classical music, or exalt some beautiful tale of Hans Christian Andersen’s whom I admire and revere, above “Les Misérables,” or George Eliot herself. Geo. Macdonald has a vast number of styles. Think, for instance, of “St. George and St. Michael,” and then of “The Portent,” of “Phantastes,” and then of the “Seaboard Parish.” I have read a great deal of Geo. Macdonald—as much of him as of any other novelist. But I will read the books you speak of, except “Ranald Bannerman’s Boyhood.” I have not actually read that, but I have looked through it pretty carefully, and have contracted, perhaps hastily, a very poor opinion of it. Geo. Macdonald is very fond of writing books without any of the point commonly attached to stories, and, to a certain extent, I follow him. But there is such a thing as overdoing the thing, and writing a book without any point at all. That, according to my idea, is the difficulty with Ranald Bannerman. The events of few boyhoods are significant enough for a novel, in my opinion. A story should present a life in its unity. It should, at least, paint the turning points, the crises that make or mar the character. For the same reason that John Halifax gains in force because it is a history of a life, Ranald Bannerman fails because it represents but a short and not very important period of life.
