The Collected Letters of Henry Northrup Castle. Henry Northrup Castle

made me quite homesick. I have just been thinking what an exile I am; banishment has always been a common punishment for some of the greatest crimes. The deprivation of home, country and friends has justly been regarded as not inadequate for very serious misdemeanors. I am banished, an exile from my native land; yet I am guilty of no crime; I have not stolen, I have not wronged any one, nor is my conscience stained with the blood of any human being. Why then am I here? Man is so constructed that the society of relatives and friends is his first need, and often one who is alone in the world is acknowledged to be in an unfortunate, unnatural condition, and the kindness of nature has established that the ties of affection which are formed in our earliest years should not be broken until new ones shall have been entered into by the maturity of manhood. I have not formed new ones, yet I am rudely torn from the grasp of the old. Why is this thusly? You probably observe something unnatural in the style of the above page. I was trying to imitate Gibbon; not very successfully, either, as I find on reading it over, but I can’t tell what it is like. I went up to Cleveland last Monday to see the funeral of President Garfield. It was not very impressive. Like one of our royal funerals at home, only vastly longer and more tedious. But the arches over the streets and the catafalque were well worth seeing, and I’m glad I went. I found too, on my return, that it had made more impression on my imagination than I had supposed. There was a tremendous crowd, but I had no difficulty in seeing considerable. I have read “Hypatia,” Helen. It is a very striking work, and I wish I could see you and talk with you about it, but that is not possible at present. As a novel it is far superior to “Westward Ho,” but it is far too tragic for a genuine work of art. The tragedy in it is oppressive and unrelieved. In this respect it is in striking contrast to Romola, which, though ending tragically, is written in the highest style of art. The last part of “Hypatia” is painfully wrought up. You are whirled from one horrible catastrophe to another, until you are fairly dizzy, and the different threads in the story are so tangled and snarled, and finally broken. But I suppose this was in line with the author’s purpose. The story simply is Philammon’s going out into the-world and return from it, and the author has certainly succeeded wonderfully in displaying the contrast between the whirlwind and storm of passion in the city and the silence and calm and loneliness of the monastery in the desert. If this was his purpose he has accomplished it magnificently. It is a genuine stroke of genius, but the object is a limited one, and limits the degree of excellence to be found in the story. Because taken as a whole by itself the picture of the world is not a true one. There are tangled threads in the world, but the world on the whole is not as inextricably tangled as this book would represent it. The picture therefore must be regarded as a fragment, true as far as it goes, true in detail, but not more; typically true, that is, true as a block of stone correctly represents a building, but not true as a model of the building represents the whole. The latter is a type of the complete structure. I am pleased with the courage with which Kingsley dares to paint the Christianity of the period. “Hypatia” is doubly interesting to me, because I am reading about the same things in Gibbon.

      I am impressed more and more every day with the value of a liberal education. It seems to me that every one who has the health and means should get one; and there is no reason in the world why women should not take a classical course. They ought, as a matter of course, to be as well educated as men. It is absurd on the face of it for them to assert their equality as long as they are not as well educated. Every child of mine, without regard to age, sex, or colour, shall take a College course, if I ever have the means to give them one. Much as I have abused my opportunities and wasted my time, I am convinced that I shall always be able to point to my course as a thing of inestimable value, and I know that I should always have regarded the omission of it as the mistake of a lifetime. If I were you, Helen and Carrie, and expected to remain in Honolulu a couple of years, I would get a tutor from Punahou or somewhere, or go without a teacher. Study alone if you can, and map yourselves out a two year’s course and take it. It would not perhaps pay to begin Greek, but it might to continue Latin, and certainly would to study German, and French, and Botany, and Moral Philosophy and Physiology, and also Logic and Rhetoric, Political Economy, Geology, and History, &c, if you felt so disposed. It doesn’t make any difference where you get your education, or what you call it. You can get as good an education at home as I can here if you choose to. The grand point is to be intellectually alive and progressing. I thought when Hattie wrote so enthusiastically about that Chatauqua Society (I don’t know the name of it), that probably she was getting a better education than I was. And I presume she was and is, because she is faithful in whatever she undertakes and I am not. You don’t need Greek and Latin and Mathematics to be educated. I suppose you think it is a little thin for me to be preaching—me, the reprobate of the family—me, the one who has had the best chance of all (the chance to get through College before 21), and is so continually wasting his opportunities. If I were at home probably I wouldn’t study a bit. But it is so easy to sit here and moralise, and theorise, and give good advice, and think what fine things I would do if I were anywhere but where I am. But never mind that. Do not be like Brabantio, one “that will not serve God, if the devil bid you.” Take good advice, without considering the source.

      October 9.

      Sunday is here again, the last Sunday before sending the mail off, so I must hurry up and write. I heard the best joke on myself this morning that I have heard for a long time. I went up to Cleveland this last year sometime, and got drunk. The Faculty found it out and expelled me. Isn’t that a fine story? In view of this sad story, Father, you will perhaps infer that that big error to balance in my last account covers up the expense of a trip to Cleveland to procure liquor. Isn’t it sad for your youngest son to turn out so? Do you know, Mrs. Pierce who used to be here in Oberlin—you remember her, Mother—really heard this story about me, and believed it? Some fellow from Oberlin told her son Charlie. She was down here yesterday, and she asked Auntie if I was here. Auntie told her I was. Then she asked if I had made up my difficulty with the Faculty. It is too good a joke. You needn’t be discouraged about me. I have reformed. I’ll never get drunk any more. To-day is a beautiful day, reminding one of the days of spring. We always have such days. What a lot of poetry there is in the change of the seasons. That’s where we miss it out to Honolulu. I believe that is what the seasons are for—to inspire the poets. We had a frost the other morning, and some cool weather. I have got my stove up, and am awaiting the coming of winter. Wood is exceedingly scarce this fall. They are selling 16-inch wood for $2.25 and $2.50, which is at the rate of about $7 for a cord of four-foot wood. Uncle has engaged some green wood for us at $3.75 a cord (4 ft.), which is cheap enough, if it ever comes. But there doesn’t seem to be much prospect of its getting in for some time yet. I think I shall get my wood sawed for me. I find it tires me like fun to saw just one stick. I have to carry it up two flights now, you know, which I don’t enjoy very much. I look forward to this winter with pleasant anticipations. I expect to enjoy it very much. It gives me a thrill of pleasure to think of toasting over my fire in the long delightful evenings, when the wind is howling outside and drifting the snow into great heaps, when the air is filled with the dancing flakes, and the silence is occasionally broken by sleigh-bells. To sit and read the long evening through — read some good noble book; what better can one do? I draw this pleasant picture now, because next winter I probably won’t be in the humour for it. Doubtless other thoughts will then intrude—thoughts of getting up in the cold mornings with no fire—thoughts of feet that I can’t get warm and fingers that are tingling, of chapped hands and chilblains, cold and ill-ventilated class-rooms, and plenty of thoughts of home. But I won’t borrow trouble. Just now I feel unusually cheerful, and will stay so. There is one rather strange reason why I am going to enjoy rooming up here in Bowen’s room, and that is because the wind will howl and whistle so about this corner. I like the wind. It seems to me that everyone who likes Hawthorne ought to. I love the wind and the rain. What a fine thing it would be to get into an old house like that one Mrs. Stowe describes in “Old Town Folks” on a windy, rainy day. Only I should want to be a child to enjoy it, and have one more child with me. What a delight to roam all over it with a pleasant kind of fear, and then return with a fresh zest to your cheerful open fire. How much more genuine than ours is the happiness of childhood. Its sorrows are as real, but its joys are far more so. As I think of this, it seems to me more and more that parents should be careful how they unnecessarily deny their children a single pleasure. We are so apt to scorn their pleasures and pains. A happy childhood is such a good send-off for life, and