University of Virginia Library

I am very anxious that you should allow me
to receive your son Frederic as a pupil, at my
parsonage, here in the country. I have not lived
in the city without knowing something about
it, despite my cloth, and I am concerned at the
peril to which every young man is there exposed.
There is a proud philosophy in vogue
that every thing that can be injured had better
be destroyed as rapidly as possible, and put out
of the way at once. But I recall a deeper and
tenderer wisdom which declared, “A bruised
reed will he not break.” The world is not

made for the prosperous alone, nor for the
strong. We may wince at the truth, but we
must at length believe it,—that the poor in
spirit, and the poor in will, and the poor in
success, are appointed as pensioners upon our
care.

In my house your son will miss the luxuries
of his home, but he will, perhaps, find as cordial
a sympathy in his little interests, and as
careful a consultation of his desires and aims.
He will have pure air, a tranquil landscape, a
pleasant society; my books, variously selected,
my direction and aid in his studies, and a
neighborhood to town that will place its resources
within his reach. A city, it seems to
me, is mainly valuable as a gallery of opportunities.
But a man should not live exclusively
in his library, nor among his pictures.
Letters and art may well decorate his life. But
if they are not subsidiary to the man, and his
character, then he is a sadder spectacle than a
vain book or a poor picture. The eager whirl
of a city tends either to beget a thirst that can
only be sated by strong, yet dangerous excitement,

or to deafen a man's ear, and harden
his heart, to the really noble attractions around
him.

It is well to know men. But men are not
learned at the billiard table, nor in the bar
room, nor by meeting them in an endless round
of debauch, nor does a man know the world
because he has been to Paris. It is a sad thing
for a young man to seek applause by surpassing
his companions in that which makes them
contemptible. The best men of our own time
have little leisure, and the best of other days
have committed their better part to books,
wherein we may know and love them.

There is nothing more admirable than good
society, as there is nothing so fine as a noble
man, nor so lovely as a beautiful woman. And
to the perfect enjoyment of such society an ease
and grace are necessary, which are hardly to
be acquired, but are rather, like beauty and talent,
the gift of Nature. That ease and grace will
certainly run great risk of disappearing, in the
embrace of a fashion unchastened by common
sense: and it is observable that the sensitive

gaucherie of a countryman is more agreeable
than the pert composure of a citizen.

I do not deny that your son must lose something,
if you accede to my request, but I
assuredly believe that he will gain more than
he will lose. My profession makes me more
dogmatic, probably, than is strictly courteous.
But I have observed, in my recent visits to
town, that Courtesy, also, is getting puny and
unmanly, and that a counterfeit, called Compliment,
is often mistaken for it. You will smile,
probably, at my old-fashioned whims, and regret
that I am behind my time. But really, it
strikes me, that the ineffectual imitation of an
exploded social organization is, at least, two
centuries behind my time. The youth who,
socially speaking, are termed Young America,
represent, in character and conduct, anything
but their own time and their own country.

I will not deny that the secret of my interest
in your son, is an earlier interest in yourself—
a wild dream we dreamed together, so long ago
that it seems not to be a part of my life. The
companion of those other days I do not recognize

in the glittering lady I sometimes see. But
in her child I trace the likeness of the girl I
knew, and it is to the memory of that girl—
whose lovely traits I will still believe are not
destroyed, but are somewhere latent in the
woman—that I consecrate the task I wish to
undertake. I am married, and I am happy.
But sometimes through the sweet tranquillity
of my life streams the pensive splendor of that
long-vanished summer, and I cannot deny the
heart that will dream of what might have
been.

Madame, I can wish you nothing more sincerely
than that as your lot is with the rich in
this world, it may be with the poor in the
world to come.