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.”
FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED TO
HENRY PERKINS OLMSTED
“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.
SIDNEY LANIER TO CHARLES D. LANIER
“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
Robert Sampson Lanier Jr (so called), Plaintiff Action on a Bond (of brotherhood),
Versus
Charles Day Lanier
Sidney '' Jr. Defendants
and
Henry ''
we would be obliged to testify that we feel almost as sure—if not quite—that he is your brother as that you are our son.
As I have said, he is a most exemplary young man. He never stays out late at night; neither chews, smokes, nor uses snuff; abstains from all intoxicating liquors, and does not touch even tea or coffee; however much preserves and fruit-cake there may be on the supper-table, he never asks for any; he does no kind of work on the Sabbath; he honors his father and mother, particularly his mother; he plays no games of hazard, not even marbles for winnance; and I am positively certain that in the whole course of his life he has never uttered a single angry or ungentlemanly word. I am bound to admit that he has his shortcomings: he isn't as particular about his clothes as I would like to see him; he has a way of trying to get both fists in his mouth which certainly does look odd in company; and he wants his breakfast in the morning at four o'clock—an hour at which it is very inconvenient, with our household arrangements, to furnish it to him. But we hope that perhaps he will amend in these particulars, as time rolls on, and that he will become as perfect a gentleman as his three brothers. In fact we attribute these little faults of his to the fact that he appears to have been in a Far Country—like the Tichborne Claimant—, and the manners and customs of peoples are so different that we really don't know whether it may not be considered a sign of good breeding There to cram one's fists into one's mouth, and perhaps the very highest circles of the nobility and gentry in that Region take their breakfasts before daylight.
Earnestly hoping that this lovely little (for I omitted to mention that he is small of stature) brother Rob may find a good warm place in your three hearts without being obliged to resort to extreme measures, and with a hundred embraces for you, me dear big Charley,
I am
Your &c &c &c.
WILLIAM JAMES TO MARGARET MARY JAMES
“. . . the beautifullest sight you ever saw.”
With ingenuity and grace, William James solved a problem for a tiny trapped hummingbird. Here he describes the scene to his eight-year-old daughter.
Swanswick—June 19th. [18]95
Sweet Peg.
I am very happy here, and fear that you may already have gone up to Chocorua with your Mamma. Yesterday a beautiful humming bird came into the library and spent two hours without resting, trying to find his way out by the skylight in the ceiling. You never saw such untiring strength. Filled with pity for his fatigue, I went into the garden and culled a beautiful rose. The moment I held it up in my hand under the skylight, the angelic bird flew down into it and rested there as in a nest—the beautifullest sight you ever saw.
/> Your loving
Dad.
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL TO
MARIAN “DAISY” BELL
“Never take a 12.50 train, for it is
ten to one if you catch it.”
Alexander Graham Bell's lifelong interest in and study of the deaf led him to research the possibility of a hereditary component to hearing loss. He had worked with families and communities in New England, studied genealogical records, and by 1901 he was evaluating vast quantities of statistics from the United States census of 1900. It was an enormous undertaking and he felt the pull to get back to his laboratory as never before. Even his normally supportive wife, Mabel, deaf herself, complained, “I hate this census with a personal hatred,” because of the time it was consuming.
Here, taking a break from his work, he writes to twenty-one-year-old Daisy from the Washington, D.C., Volta Bureau. The Volta Bureau was a facility established by Bell that was soon to be one of the leading centers of information on the deaf and deafness in the world.
Volta Bureau, May 4, 1901.
Dear Daidums:—
I was very much interested in your Pompeiian letter. You are evidently having a fine time in Italy and Sicily. Wish I could be with you. IF THE TEMPERATURE IS NOT TOO HIGH. Haven't time to write you a proper letter. I am stealing ten minutes from other matters to send you a few—
Jokes
An Italian Count, the other day introduced his American heiress to a friend as his “financee.” A very appropriate term by the by.
The Queen of Holland's latest remark to her husband:—
“Is my crown on straight?”
Never take a 12.50 train, for it is ten to one if you catch it.
Why is a pretty girl like a mirror?
Because she is a good looking lass.
Heat travels faster than cold, because you can easily catch cold.
Why is a stick of candy like a horse?
The more you lick it the faster it goes.
When a girl faints, why should you always bring more than one doctor?
If she is not brought two she will die.
Why is an empty room like a room completely full of married people.
Because there is not a single one in it.
Theatrical.—The best seats in the house?—the receipts.
What is the longest word in the English language?
The word “smiles,” because there is a mile between the first and last letters.
Why is it impossible for a fisherman to be generous?
Because his business makes him sell fish.
The following are items from my note book culled from the newspapers. They are not exactly jokes, but purport to be true occurrences;—
There was a flood in one of the rivers out west the other day, and the young school teacher had to wade through a foot of water to get to her school where she found thirteen little children assembled. She noticed that the water was rising and remembered that the school house was in a hollow, and determined at once to get assistance. She made the children promise not to leave the building, and then started for the neighboring farm house. She found the water, however, up to her waist and feared the school would be gone before she could get assistance. There was no one at the farm house, and the barn was empty excepting for a horse. Without a moment's delay she seized the horse and a long rope and started for the school, which was then afloat. She swam the horse to the building—tied the rope to the door—and started the horse back to shore with the school house in tow. After a desperate struggle she reached the shore and tied the other end of the rope to a tree. Having tethered the school house she started off again for assistance and brought back the farmer and saved the children. People out west are wild over her now, and she can have as many husbands as she wants.
I have just sent a suicide item to Mr. Kennan, for I doubt whether he has in his collection a more curious cause of suicide.
The man concerned was shot in the Civil War, and had lost both legs beneath the knee. When he recovered consciousness after the amputation he was concerned about the disposal of his feet, but was unable to trace them. He could feel, he said, that something improper was being done with his feet. One heel was cold and the ball of the foot was hot and itching, but he could not relieve the sensation, for his foot was gone. Little by little the extraordinary sensations experienced—apparently in the missing feet—drove him distracted and he committed suicide. He labored under the common delusion of ignorant people that he could feel what was done to his dead feet. The sensations, of course were real, but his friends thought him insane and did nothing to relieve him. They thought he was subject to delusions, whereas any doctor would have known that the sensations simply indicated pressure upon the nerves that had formerly led to the feet.
Probably some small abcess had formed somewhere in the stump of his leg and had his friends been more intelligent they would have placed him again in the Surgeon's care, and a slight operation would have relieved him of the difficulty. But ignorance coupled with superstition made his case seem a hopeless one and the poor fellow ended his misery by suicide.
Elsie has not been very well lately but seems better now. The doctor is keeping her in bed for a few days, more as a precaution than anything else.
I am going to take a cottage at Atlantic City for a month, and Bert and Elsie and my father and mother will come with me and stay with me there.
I understand that my father has presented you with some stock or bonds that will bring you in an income—according to Bert—of about fifteen hundred dollars a year. He has given Elsie the same and has also presented property to others, to Aileen, Bobbie, Ralf Ker and others. I am seriously concerned about it. It is all right to give away the property, but it is not right that he should deprive himself of the income. Elsie, at suggestion, wrote to him accepting the stock, but wishing him to have the income during his life. This he has declined to accept. She has now written to Mrs. Bell asking her to accept the income during my father's life and expend it upon him. I think this is the best plan to do, and if your mother approves I should like you to do the same.
Your loving father,
Alexander Graham Bell
THEODORE ROOSEVELT TO KERMIT ROOSEVELT
AND THEODORE ROOSEVELT, JR.
“. . . they have taught me three new throws
that are perfect corkers.”
When Theodore Roosevelt was a child, frail and asthmatic, his father told him, “You have the mind but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should. You must make your body.”
Here, the president of the United States writes with hilarious effect to his two eldest sons, Ted and Kermit, about his latest form of exercise.
White House, March 5, 1904
Dear Kermit:
It does not look as if Renown would ever be worth anything, and I am afraid that Wyoming is gone too. Bleistein probably, and Yagenka, almost certainly will come out all right. Allan is back here now and very cunning, so you will see him on your return.
I am wrestling with two Japanese wrestlers three times a week. I am not the age or the build, one would think, to be whirled lightly over an opponent's head and batted down on a mattress without damage; but they are so skillful that I have not been hurt at all. My throat is a little sore because once when one of them had a strangle hold I also got hold of his windpipe and thought I could perhaps choke him off before he could choke me. However he got ahead!
Your loving father,
Theodore Roosevelt
White House, April 9, 1904
Dear Ted:
I am very glad I have been doing this Japanese wrestling, but when I am through with it this time I am not sure I will ever try it again while I am so busy with other work as I am now. Often by the time I get to five o'clock in the afternoon I will be feeling like a stewed owl, after an eight hours grapple with Senators, Congressman, etc.; then I find the wrestling a trifle too vehement for mere rest. My right ankle
and my left wrist and one thumb and both great toes are swollen sufficiently to more or less impair their usefulness, and I am well mottled with bruises elsewhere. Still I have made good progress, and since you left they have taught me three new throws that are perfect corkers.
I hope that Congress will only be here a fortnight more. I have gotten on with them very well, and I do not want to take any chances for something wrong happening. I am all at sea as yet as to whom to have for Chairman of the National Committee, which is a very important office. We shall have a hard campaign this year; and if the result depends upon New York State no one can tell how it will come out, so that I want to get as many chances on my side as possible.
Your loving father,
Theodore Roosevelt
P.S. Since writing the above, yours and Kermit's letters about the mumps have arrived. Well, we did play it in bad luck! I am afraid you can not come home at present. Mother starts for Groton this afternoon, and will reach you before this letter.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT TO
QUENTIN ROOSEVELT
“. . . lippity lippity lippity . . .”
Theodore Roosevelt adored reading to his children. The family was particularly fond of Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories. Here the president of the United States writes to his six-year-old son, Quentin.
Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children Page 17