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
