Posterity (21 page)

Already you have shown me that you have some of the same qualities. Honesty. Kindness. Sweetness. Courage. Understanding. You have all of these to a degree that is extraordinary in a girl your age. There are unlucky girls who grow into womanhood without any of them. You have something else: humility. And it is your humility that keeps you from realizing that you have the other qualities. Humility is a quality that the possessor of it does not enjoy, but that makes her or him easier to live with. Sometimes it is seen as shyness and sometimes as sensitivity. Whatever it appears to be, it is a gracious quality, a warm quality that is particularly attractive when it is accompanied by the five other qualities I mentioned. I'm very glad you have it now, because you are also going to become a handsome woman, and it is as a handsome woman that you will live the greater part of your life, not merely as a pretty teen-ager.

Please do me a favor. Save this letter and read it when you have time to give it some thought. There are things in it that will guide you and that you may overlook in a quick, first reading.

As I told you, we'll be on our way home before you will get my later communications. We sail from England a month from today and will be home on the 3d of November, and I will make plans to go see you. Do write me, all that you want to tell me. Once again the address: Care of Cresset Press; 11 Fitzroy Square; London, W.1; England. But letters mailed after about the middle of October will probably not reach me.

All my love
Dad

William James and daughter Margaret

Mark Twain and family (Clara far left, wife, Olivia, second from left,
Jean center, and Susie far right)

The Pleasures
of Life

J
OHN
A
DAMS TO
J
OHN
Q
UINCY
A
DAMS

“You will never be alone with
a Poet in your Poket.”

John Adams was one of the most learned Americans of his time and his eldest son, John Quincy, was his pride and joy. The following letter was written while the father was serving as Minister to the Netherlands and the son was a student at Leyden. The fourteen-year-old John Quincy was himself already one of the most well-traveled and well-read Americans of the day.

Amsterdam, May 14. 1781

My dear Son

I received yours of 13 this morning.

If you have not found a convenient Place to remove into, you may continue your present Lodgings another Month.

I am glad you have finished Phaedrus, and made Such Progress in Nepos, and in Greek.

Amidst your Ardour for Greek and Latin I hope you will not forget your mother Tongue. Read Somewhat in the English Poets every day. You will find them elegant, entertaining and instructive Companions, through your whole Life. In all the Disquisitions you have heard concerning the Happiness of Life, has it ever been recommended to you to read Poetry?

To one who has a Taste, the Poets serve to fill up Time which would otherwise pass in Idleness, Languor, or Vice. You will never be alone with a Poet in your Poket. You will never have an idle Hour.

How many weary hours have been made alert, how many melancholy ones gay, how many vacant ones useful, to me, in the course of my Life, by this means?

Your brother grows daily better but is still weak and pale. He shall write to you, Soon.

Your affectionate Father,

J. Adams

M
ARK
T
WAIN (
S
AMUEL
C
LEMENS)
AS
S
ANTA
C
LAUS TO
S
USIE
C
LEMENS

“I will call at your kitchen door about nine oclock
this morning to inquire. But I must not see anybody,
& I must not speak to anybody but you.”

In the mid-1870s, Christmas at the Clemens's Hartford, Connecticut, home was a grand affair. Mrs. Clemens spent hours on end in the “mahogany room” wrapping gifts and the children later remembered riding over the countryside in a horse-drawn sleigh delivering Christmas baskets and turkeys to less fortunate neighbors. Samuel Clemens himself dressed as Santa Claus and delighted in the family rituals, yet he also referred to the elaborate holiday production as Mrs. Clemens's “infernal Christmas-suicide.”

On Christmas morning 1875 the following letter from “Santa Claus” was left for Clemens's three-year-old daughter, Susie.

Palace of St. Nicholas
In the Moon
Christmas Morning, [1875]

My dear Susie Clemens:

I have received & read all the letters which you & your little sister have written me by the hand of your mother & your nurses; & I have also read those which you little people have written me with your own hands—for although you did not use any characters that are in grown people's alphabets, you used the characters which
all
children in all lands on earth & in the twinkling stars use; & as all my subjects in the moon are children & use no character but that, you will easily understand that I can read your & your baby sister's jagged & fantastic marks without any trouble at all. But I had trouble with those letters which you dictated through your mother & the nurses, for I am a foreigner & cannot read English writing well. You will find that I made no mistakes about the things which you & the baby ordered in your
own
letters—I went down your chimney at midnight when you were asleep, & delivered them all myself—& kissed both of you, too, because you are good children, well trained, nice mannered, & about the most obedient little people I ever saw. But in the letters which you dictated there were some words which I could not make out, for certain, & one or two small orders which I could not fill because we ran out of stock. Our last lot of kitchen furniture for dolls has just gone to a very poor little child in the North Star, away up in the cold country above the Big Dipper. Your mama can show you that star & you will say: “Little Snow Flake (for that is the child's name) I'm glad you got that furniture, for you need it more than I.” That is, you must
write
that, with your own hand, & Snow Flake will write you an answer. If you only spoke it, she wouldn't hear you. Make your letter light & thin, for the distance is great and the postage very heavy.

There was a word or two in your mama's letter which I couldn't be certain of. I took it to be “trunk full of doll's clothes”? Is that it? I will call at your kitchen door about nine oclock this morning to inquire. But I must not see anybody, & I must not speak to anybody but you. When the kitchen door-bell rings, George must be blindfolded & sent to open the door. Then he must go back to the dining room or the china closet & take the cook with him. You must tell George he must walk on tip-toe & not speak—otherwise he will die some day. Then you must go up to the nursery & stand on a chair or the nurse's bed, & put your ear to the speaking-tube that leads down to the kitchen, & when I whistle through it you must speak in the tube and say, “Welcome, Santa Claus!” Then I will ask whether it was a trunk you ordered or not? If you say it was, I shall ask you what
color
you want the trunk to be. Your mama will help you to name a nice color, & then you must tell me every single thing in detail which you want the trunk to contain. Then when I say “Good bye & a Merry Christmas to my little Susie Clemens,” you must say “Good bye, good old Santa Claus, & I thank you very much—& please tell that little Snow Flake I will look at her star tonight and she must look down here—I will be right in the west bay-window; & every fine night I will look at her star & say, “I know somebody up there, &
like
her, too.” Then you must go down in the library & make George close all the doors that open into the main hall, & everybody must keep still for a little while. I will go to the moon and get those things, in a few minutes I will come down the chimney which belongs to the fire-place that is in the hall—if it is a trunk you want, because I couldn't get such a thing as a trunk down the nursery-chimney, you know.

People may talk if they want, until they hear my footsteps in the hall—then you tell them to keep quiet a little while till I go back up the chimney. Maybe you will not hear my footsteps at all—so you may go now & then & peep through the dining-room doors, & by & by you will see that thing which you want, right under the piano in the drawing room—for I shall put it there. If I should leave any snow in the hall, you must tell George to sweep it into the fireplace, for I haven't time to do such things. George must not use a broom, but a rag—else he will die some day. You must watch George, & not let him run into danger. If my boot should leave a stain on the marble, George must not holy-stone it away. Leave it there always in memory of my visit; & whenever you look at it or show it to anybody you must let it remind you to be a good little girl. Whenever you are naughty, & somebody points to that mark which your good old Santa Claus's boot made on the marble, what will you say, little Sweetheart?

Goodbye for a few minutes, till I come down to the world and ring the kitchen door-bell.

Your loving
SANTA CLAUS
Whom people sometimes call
“The Man in the Moon.”

F
REDERICK
L
AW
O
LMSTED TO
H
ENRY
P
ERKINS
O
LMSTED

“A pile of 5000 cats and kittens, some of them black
ones, in front of my window would make my office
so dark I should not be able to write in it.”

On a “fine day” in May 1875, Frederick Law Olmsted wrote to his youngest child, Henry (whose name was later changed to Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.). The four-year-old boy was likely with his mother visiting family friends, the Knapps, in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Olmsted is apparently responding to Henry's request to send the family dog, Quiz, to Plymouth.

This letter illustrates clearly what Olmsted once wrote to a friend: “I enjoy my children. They are the center of my life.”

13th May, 1875

Dear Henry:

The cats keep coming into the yard, six of them every day, and Quiz drives them out. If I should send Quiz to you to drive the cows away from your rhubarb he would not be here to drive the cats out of the yard. If six cats should keep coming into the yard every day and not go out, in a week there would be 42 of them and in a month 180 and before you came back next November 1260. Then if there should be 1260 cats in the yard before next November half of them at least would have kittens and if half of them should have 6 kittens apiece, there would be more than 5000 cats and kittens in the yard. There would not be any place for Rosanna to spread the clothes unless she drove them all off the grass plot, and if she did they would have to crowd at the end of the yard nearest the house, and if they did that they would make a great pile as high as the top of my windows. A pile of 5000 cats and kittens, some of them black ones, in front of my window would make my office so dark I should not be able to write in it. Besides that those underneath, particularly the kittens, would be hurt by those standing on top of them and I expect they would make such a great squalling all the time that I should not be able to sleep, and if I was not able to sleep, I should not be able to work, and if I did not work I should not have any money, and if I had not any money, I could not send any to Plymouth to pay your fare back on the Fall River boat, and I could not pay my fare to go to Plymouth and so you and I would not ever see each other any more. No, Sir. I can't spare Quiz and you will have to watch for the cows and drive them off yourself or you will raise no rhubarb.

Your affectionate father.

S
IDNEY
L
ANIER TO
C
HARLES
D
.
L
ANIER

“A young man came to our house yesterday morning who claims that he is a brother of yours and
Sidney's and Harry's, and that he is entitled to
all the rights and privileges appertaining
unto that honorable connection.”

In an unusual and creative fashion, musician and poet Sidney Lanier makes an important announcement to his eleven-year-old son, Charley.

West Chester, Pa.
August 15, 1880

My dear Charley:

A young man came to our house yesterday morning who claims that he is a brother of yours and Sidney's and Harry's, and that he is entitled to all the rights and privileges appertaining unto that honorable connection. You will be surprised to learn that both your mother and I are disposed to allow his pretensions, from the fact that he looks a great deal like Sidney,—and from several other circumstances which I need not detail. Indeed your mother has already gone so far as to take him on her breast and nurse him exactly as she did you three young scamps somewhere between twelve and seven years ago. I write therefore to ask whether you and Sidney and Harry are willing to accept our opinion of this young person's genuine kinship to you, or whether you will require him to employ a number of lawyers, like the Tichborne Claimant in England, to assert his rights in due form before the courts of the United States. If the latter, you had best give him early notice of your intention; for the fact is he has taken such a hold upon our affections here, by the quietness and modesty of his demeanor and by the beauty of his person, that if we were summoned into Court as witnesses in the case of