slippers a great comfort. They are plain black ones, and cost 1 dollar and 25 cents. I got four new shirts of different patterned bosoms, costing 2 dollars apiece. They will be finished and sent up to-night. Jim’s ditto. He, as you know, got six, costing the same apiece as mine. I have also new undershirts, drawers, collars, cuffs, handkerchiefs, sleeve buttons, etc. I find that I can wear Jim’s hat, which is too small for him, by putting in some paper, and am so saved the necessity of getting a new one.
Jim and I went over to the city the other day, and saw Dr Coan and Miss Philips, and liked both very much. We also visited the new Catholic cathedral, which is still in process of construction. It is a magnificent affair, second only to European ditto, 330 feet high, and of about the same length, and built, as is usual, in the form of a cross. Standing in the central aisle, you look straight up 112 feet to the roof, supported by magnificent columns, adorned in the Corinthian style and forming Gothic arches at the top. There was an altar there, which is said to have cost 100,000 dollars, adorned with various statues and most magnificently carved. The glass of the windows was covered with brilliant paintings of no mean merit, I understand, though I am no judge, of course, on such matters. The “holy water” impressed me as decidedly dirty and somewhat stagnant, and I was puzzled to know wherein its holiness consisted. If it may be taken as an average specimen of its kind, why, something or anything deliver me from holy water! You certainly may get just such as that in any old pool. While we were in there, some workmen who, as they went forward, made some kind of rude courtesy to the altar, furnished quite a study. I wish that I might have dissected their mental states at the time, to see if there was any sort of worship in their hearts as they bent their knees, but “the fates of men and of Gods” did not allow me the privilege. But “Such is life,” ‘tis, etc.
And now, Mother, you must not stay in Oberlin all this summer. It is a “flying in the face of Providence.” It is your duty to improve your opportunities, and you have numberless ones. You will be lonely there. Come East, and you will not be lonely. But loneliness induces weeping, and I know it says somewhere in the Bible, “Weep not,” or something of that kind. It also says, “Enter not into temptation.” The logical deduction is that, by staying in Oberlin, you are deliberately and basely entering into temptation to weep. Therefore, do not stay in Oberlin. Go West or East, but do not be stationary, that must not be. Remember the immortal lines of the lamented Whittier. “Of all sad words I ever see, the saddest are these, This must not be.” So, Mother, I hope you will be convinced. “Consider your ways and be wise,” always remembering that being wise does not mean staying in Oberlin. If you will not do anything else, do what Father spoke of in his last. Go to a hygienic establishment and get strong—strong as an OX. And, Mother, do not work too hard, when you get home. Do not! When I come home for you, as previously planned, two or three years hence, when I have cultivated with due care a precocious young mustache, so as to appear to the home folks with becoming dignity, I want to, nay, I expect, to find you strong, moderately so at least, and now do not disappoint me. I know I have abused you here in the United States (and no one is more sorry for it than I am), and have kept you from getting strong, but you will not find it so there at home. They will treat you well, so you must get strong. I, or rather we, think very strongly of staying in Europe, if Father approves the plan, studying, so I do not know when I will see you again. In fact, if nothing happens to prevent, the chances are about even that I study in Paris next year. And so, Mother, good-bye, for how long I do not know, but remember what I have said. Good-bye!
Lovingly,
HENRY.
P.S. — When this reaches you, I will be several hundred miles away on the Atlantic. My course lies eastward, yours westward. Space cannot be annihilated. If I stay in Europe, we will be separated by half a world. But we will see each other again. I hope I will not be seasick.—H.
LONDON, INNS OF COURT HOTEL,
Sunday, July 13, ’79.
DEAR MOTHER,
The rest have been writing, but I have been silent long; that is, I have been two weeks in Europe and in the steamer, and have not written my mother a single word. But be it at least said in my defence that I have written to no one else, and if you have been neglected, it has not been that I might write to some bosom friend or other inferior object of affection.
Yes, Mother, think of it; I have sailed 3,000 miles across the Atlantic, and have seen and visited and trod the shores of the old world, but I am as far, probably farther, from the realization of the great fact as yourself. What is more, it seems an absolute impossibility for me to realize it at all. Therefore, dear Mother, realize it for me, do. I feel sorry that I am so far from the realization of the fact that I am in Europe on historic ground, that I have looked out upon the fields that have been drenched with the blood of heroes, and have stood over the graves of martyrs, because it detracts sadly from everything which is to be derived from such a trip as this, whether of pleasure or profit. It detracts from the pleasure of the trip, for when there is no realization, it throws the enjoyment derived from the sights seen back upon their original merit as sights, which, after all, is in some cases, by comparison inferior, so that it might just as well be America as Europe that one is seeing. Do you get my point? I mean that Loch Lomond in Scotland ought to give more pleasure than a fac-simile of it in Central New York, simply because it is Loch Lomond and not a lake in New York. But as long as I don’t realize that it is Loch Lomond, it might as well be only a lake in New York. And it detracts from the profit and instruction of the trip, because when one stands over the grave of Shakespeare, and has no realization of the fact that it is his, it does not lead him to thought any more than if it were the grave of some nameless Kanaka at the Islands; not that I mean to disparage the Kanaka. Both graves teach a common lesson, but Shakespeare’s teaches one in addition, which the other does not. If this were not so, visiting Shakespeare’s grave would be an idle curiosity. One might as well moralize over the last resting-place of the other gent at once. But I am boring you with this tirade. Suffice it to say that I lack this realization, and so my visit to Europe is correspondingly injured; not that I don’t enjoy myself. No indeed! I am wild with pleasure, or would be were it not that I feel that I should get something from this trip besides that. However, enough moralizing. We first saw land about 5 o’clock P.M., on Monday, July 7, 1879, about six days and one hour ago. But what a world has been crowded into six days! The events of one would keep a man in writing material for a year. By yesterday, when we saw Kenil-worth Castle, and that seems a month ago, one felt completely satiated. But now that we have done no sight-seeing to-day—Sunday—though of course one can’t help informally sight-seeing all the time in London, I am hungry to go again.
We had a very pleasant time sailing up the Firth of Clyde. The scenery was good though not impressive. Still there were some very fine pictures looking at the scenery as a series of pictures; and, I remember now, there were some that were very beautiful. So I will retract and say we had a very beautiful though not grand sail up the Firth. I speak of the entrance to the river, below Greenock. The steamer arrived there about 6.30 A.M. Greenock is, of course, world-renowned as the place where two of Oliver Optic’s heroes ran away (“Young America Abroad”). Naturally, then, I surveyed it with great interest, to see if I might find the pier where the aforementioned harum-scarums were landed. I saw a pier which was probably it. You can easily see how the place shone with a borrowed lustre from its connection with historic events of such marked importance. Here our great steamship stopped and, after a delay of five hours, we were transferred to a small river steamboat, which took us up the river to Glasgow. These are as different from our river steamboats on the Hudson and other streams, as night is from day. It was long and low and narrow, drew very little water, and was substantially built, being of iron. It impressed me as remarkably queer, at first. It is very sharp indeed, the prow being at about this angle >, I should think. Then it is built out very suddenly for the paddles, for you must know it is a side-wheel boat, and it travels very fast. All their boats travel faster than ours do. We had a most magnificent ride up the Clyde to Glasgow. The scenery was something like some parts of New York State, perhaps, but better. The color was magnificently rich, more so, I think, than any
