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
