The line of your whiskers alone made me feel again the scratch of you, Papa Bear. I have included it with this letter, though it grieves me to part with it as much as with its owner. Hey-ho, I hope your silence is no sign of your feeling after I pinched your manly image. What youth you had then you have still, and I have felt it. Your manhood, sir, I would press to my heart nightly and not only my heart, and not only its image. True manhood has no clearer outline than a man who serves our nation and its noble way of life. To end our fellowship with only my feeble mind framing your image seemed an impossible task, and so I pray you would forgive me for pocketing the photographe of you in your shiny buttons. But I understand that he has concerns for the business, too.īut I must confess something also which you may have already surmised. It was on her good report as well as mine that he had pledged his blessing. I cannot discern his change of mind, as my aunt, whom you met that first Saturday and again Sunday afternoon, expressed her wish that I would return this fall when we said farewell. I should say at once that my father thinks it best that I attend the university here after all, though I have pressed my cause for Yale. I am returned safe and sound to Columbus (though my heart as you know remained farther east). To the Most Gallant Gentleman of Wilmington,
