Posterity (10 page)

[New York]
November 10, 1958

Dear Thom:

We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of view and of course Elaine will from hers.

First—if you are in love—that's a good thing—that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone. Don't let anyone make it small or light to you.

Second—There are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you—of kindness, and consideration and respect—not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn't know you had.

You say this is not puppy love. If you feel so deeply—of course it isn't puppy love.

But I don't think you were asking me what you feel. You know better than anyone. What you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it—and that I can tell you.

Glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

The object of love is the best and most beautiful. Try to live up to it.

If you love someone—there is no possible harm in saying so—only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

Girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

It sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another—but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

Lastly, I know your feeling because I have it and I'm glad you have it.

We will be glad to meet Susan. She will be very welcome. But Elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. She knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than I can.

And don't worry about losing. If it is right, it happens—The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away.

Love,
Fa

Eugene O'Neill and Eugene O'Neill, Jr.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

John D. Rockefeller and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Good Work

J
OHN
A
DAMS TO
J
OHN
Q
UINCY
A
DAMS

“Go and see with how little Wisdom
this World is governed.”

“All my hopes are in him, both for myself and my country,” Vice President John Adams wrote of his eldest son in 1794. Of admirable character and extraordinary intellect, John Quincy Adams was a Boston lawyer and one of the most prolific political writers of the day. At just twenty-seven years old, he was widely read and traveled; he had been educated in Paris, Amsterdam, Leyden, and Harvard; he was fluent in seven languages; and he had served with the American minister to Russia. That John Quincy Adams was prepared for his first political appointment—Minister to Holland—his father was certain.

Here John Adams, the vice president of the United States under President George Washington, writes a confidential letter to his son.

Philadelphia May 26. 1794

My dear Son

The Secretary of State called upon me this morning to inform me by order of the President, that it is determined to nominate you to go to Holland as Resident Minister. The President desired to know if I thought you would accept. I answered that I had no Authority from you. But it was my Opinion that you would and that it would be my Advice to you, that you should.

The Salary is 4500 Dollars a Year and as much for an Outfit.

Your knowledge of Dutch and French; Your Education in that Country; your Acquaintance with my old Friends there will give you Advantages, beyond many others. It will require all your Freedom and all your other Virtues as well as all your Talents.

It will be expected that you come here to see the President and Secretary of State, before you embark. I shall write you as soon as the Nomination is made and advised by Senate. Be Secret. Dont open your Mouth to any human Being on the Subject except your Mother. Go and see with how little Wisdom this World is governed.

Adieu,
John Adams

J
OHN
J
AMES
A
UDUBON TO
V
ICTOR
A
UDUBON

“. . . every exertion in our power should be kept up, with truth, firmness, dignity and consistency
from begainning to end.”

John James Audubon was the illegitimate son of a French slave-dealing sea captain. By the time he was thirty-four, he had been jailed for unpaid debts. In 1819, after he admitted bankruptcy and was released from jail, he redirected his efforts away from business and began painting portraits and teaching. During the following year, 1820, he concluded that his ambition was to publish a series of paintings of all of the birds of North America. From that point forward, with passion and single-mindedness, he pursued his dream. “My Birds, My Beloved Birds of America fill all my time and nearly all my thoughts,” he wrote.

Searching for specimens, he spent weeks and months in the woods, at times sleeping on the snow wrapped in a buffalo robe and eating everything from red-winged blackbirds to roasted wasps. When his two sons were young, Audubon's work kept him from them and his wife for years at a time and when the boys grew older he brought them in on the project. John, the younger son, often traveled with his father and served as his assistant. The elder, Victor, helped with editing and with the business of publishing. Audubon felt that Victor had “become [his] Right Arm and hand.” In writing to his sons, he referred not to “my work,” but to “our work.”

Here America's most celebrated naturalist-artist writes to Victor, twenty-six years old, who was in England supervising the engraving, tinting, and printing of his father's plates and soliciting subscriptions for the work.

Charleston S.C. Jan'y 14th, 1834

My Dear Beloved Victor.—

God willing we will be with you about the 4th of July next!—

I have been much tormented for some weeks passed on account of the requisitions which you have made that I should return to England as early in the Spring as possible—no
reasons
have you given and sorry indeed will I be, if on our arrival in England I find, as I have done on a former occasion, that I should have been recalled to Europe for the mere gratification of a few Friends & acquaintances; the whole of whom I dare say may long to see me, but none of whom,
can know
the Intentions, the Cares, and the Anxieties which Your Father feels toward
Your
welfare, that of your Brother and equally that of your most kind Mother—The Die is however cast.—I have given up my urgent wishes to revisit the Floridas, and a certain portion of the Western & Northwestern portion of our own beloved Country—and unless you write in answer to my last letters to you on this subject,
with open thoughts of your own
that
I
may remain in America, depend upon what I say at the begaining of this—God willing I and us will be (God willing) with you on the 4th of July next.—

Fearing that you are troubled for the want of money, I will exert myself to the very utmost to send you forthwith 2. or 3. or 4 hundred pounds to alleviate the difficulties (if any there are) in your calls for cash.—I have already written to Doc
r
Parkman to exert himself in trying to have some advances made on a/c of the 2
d
Volume at Boston & have requested to forward you if successful whatever he may get immediately. I shall in a few days go to Savannah to try with W
am
Gaston to do the same there.—I wish you had made it
a point
to have sent me the 20 Volumes for which I have so often written to you.—through these I could have sent you perhaps one thousand pounds—but now this is all over and I must do the best I can without any of them but 2 Copies—

I can do no more in England than you have done—depend upon it the Southern part of that Country will be of no effect when I go there.—America I am sure is the Country that will support us after all.—

This day the N
os
34 & 35 for this City and for Columbia College have arrived in Port—
but I have not seen them yet
.—All the N
os
by the President were
Wet
& good for nothing—These have been sold at auction in New York and have I been vexed enough on that account.

I ask of you most earnestly not to ship any thing more in this
slack manner
—If Havell will not see that our Work is properly packed,
see to it yourself
.—

I shall reach England I hope with as many Drawings of Water Birds as will compleat the 3
d
Volume of our Work—but to tell you the truth it will prove a most wonderful thing if the 4
th
Volume does contain 100 plates. You are afraid of New Species coming in—I am greatly afraid of the want of them—but enough of this—when we meet all will be understood in a few weeks, and in
a few months
I must return to Our Country to compleat my researches, and procure
here
(America) subscribers to enable us all to become one day independent of the World &
particularly of England!

Long ere this reaches you I hope you will have received the Duplicate paper sent you for Louden's Magazine, and that also M
r
Louden will have inserted it in his Journal—that, that paper may produce
some
effect on the mind of many, I have no doubt, but that it will be an equivalent to the representations of my character being false is quite another affair. —
here Rattlesnakes
are known to climb trees—to feed on Squirrels—&
c
—
here
Vultures are known to have
no sense
of
Smell
&
c
but all that
we
know of these matters will require a Century of Time to establish these
facts in the Eyes of the British Public
.—

Our Work will become
important
even long ere it is compleated; for this reason it is imperiously necessary that every exertion in our power should be kept up,
with truth, firmness, dignity and consistency
from begainning to end—that the World and Naturalists especially will become satisfied that when finished, Our Work will be the standard of American Ornothology, I have no doubt, but as this will in all probability only appear after my Death, you & your Brother are the ones that will reap the benefits of the Worthiness of my
practical Studies
, therefor I strongly advise you to believe in Your Father's thoughts, that through this Publication
You
&
John may expect
to become rich, respected and highly thought of—

Twenty Years since, my writing in the present style would have been ridiculous in me—but now, I am
sure
of what I say, and proud that when that I express my feelings freely to my Sons, I am equally sure that I tell them the truth & nothing but the truth; connected with my most ardent wish that they should become most happy, through my exertions connected with theirs—I will finish this as soon as possible after I have seen and delivered the N
os
34 & 35 for this place and the first Volume for M
r
. Rees which is also arrived here—Good night

My Dear Victor—

16
th
—This morning I brought N
os
34 & 35 for the subscribers here, & the Columbia College—I have opened them, and I tell you with pleasure that I think them
very fine
. all I regret is the
errors
in nomenclature, which however may be corrected so that you may have them correct for those persons who have not yet been supplied.—as follows.—plate [—] instead of Grey Tyrant have Titirit Fly Catcher—Muscicapa
Matinatus
—Plate [—]
Muscicapa Cooperii
—also have the
black headed Titmouse
as follows (
for it is a new Species
) The Lesser black headed Titmouse—
Parus Caroliniensis
. My letter press will do the rest. —I will write to Havell.—