old house like that one Mrs. Stowe describes in “Old Town Folks” on a windy, rainy day. Only I should want to be a child to enjoy it, and have one more child with me. What a delight to roam all over it with a pleasant kind of fear, and then return with a fresh zest to your cheerful open fire. How much more genuine than ours is the happiness of childhood. Its sorrows are as real, but its joys are far more so. As I think of this, it seems to me more and more that parents should be careful how they unnecessarily deny their children a single pleasure. We are so apt to scorn their pleasures and pains. A happy childhood is such a good send-off for life, and such a pleasant thing to look back to. Childhood is the natural time to be happy, anyhow. Now, we never know a joy that is unmixed with sadness. But I seem to have got into a rather trite train of thought, and one that does not accord very well with my observation that I felt unusually cheerful. I long to see you all more than I can tell. I should like to see the two new homes. Homes! how the word sounds. I haven’t got any now. I never felt the full value of a home before. It is no use talking, man was not made to be alone. It is essential to his best development that he be surrounded by those he loves. It makes the heart grow better, and therefore his head, for the conclusions of the mind always need to be corrected and tempered by the heart. It doesn’t make any difference how acute an intellect a man has, he can’t be sure he is right in any of his opinions if he has a bad heart. How can you expect a poor homeless exile like me to grow straight? It is perfectly natural for a person to get morbid and grow out of proportion who is out of his proper sphere. The deprivation of home, which is unnatural, ought necessarily to turn one to an unnatural development in some way. Consequently if my growth is a little one-sided, you mustn’t complain. Will this theory hold water? I think myself there is a weak point in it somewhere.
Affectionately,
HENRY.
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
