Name/Title
AU Harris, Joseph Hastings - 1895-03-31 letter to Bertha Elizabeth LambertEntry/Object ID
1990.1.26Context
[Ada, OH, to Miss Bertha E. Lambert, Plantsville, Ohio, “Morgan Co.”]
Box 479, Ada O.
Mch. 31, 1895.
Dear Bertha: — Ha! with pleasure I come again to this hour after the labors of the day and pour forth as space and time permit in this slow way the thoughts and sentiments that are seeking expression toward you.
This has been a pleasant and busy wk. Your pleasant missive found access to the deepest recesses of my heart and made me feel more fully how pleasant, how blissful it is to know that there is one, even an earthly friend, whose life seems our very own. Divine gift indeed! Soul commune with soul in the great realm of thought. Somehow, though far away you be it seems to me that our thoughts flow together and although we do not understand now why this is, I believe the time will come when this great mystery to the human race shall be revealed.
I heartily agree with you concerning the slow process of talking and of the presence of a living personality. The power of personality in this instance is wonderful indeed and becomes stronger all the time.
I could not help thinking of your thought concerning self-reliance and your experience of this year. It makes me think of my experience of the last seven years, of the many mistakes I made, of the many places where I stood on the balance and it seems that Providence alone made the decision. I presume you do feel very lonesome at times, as there is not so much to divert your mind as we have here.
You seem undecided about how to spend your vacation. Those are hard questions to decide, you certainly have my sympathy and prayers and I trust that your decision may be such that you shall spend a pleasant and profitable time. Perhaps I may not be presuming when I say that doubtless the financial question enters largely into your considerations, perhaps I judge others by myself as that has always been my experience. It certainly is one of the first things to look after in securing an education.
If you could possibly be engaged in school work of some kind it would be a great aid in your educational work, however it is not in place for me to make a speech here as you know the conditions and I do not, but were it not for the financial phase (if you look at that) nothing would suit my taste any better than to see you join with us in the Normal Term and take commencement and quadrennial reunion. (especially if I stay here) Prof. Smith would smile to see you return.
I feel that your decision will be guided by reason and judgment whatever line you may choose to take.
Now I shall tell you of some of my troubles if you will lend a listening ear. I received a letter from my old friend, Mr. Geren, of Col. stating that he would likely have 100 or 120 days work this season and if so he wants me to take the trowel again. Now from a financial point of view I ought to go out a portion of the summer but that would deprive me of going to the Summer School and of commencement and reunion, besides making a break in the Y.M.C.A. work. Added to this I have planned to finish the Classical course entire besides what German I will have and in order to do that it will keep me very busy and ought not to miss a day. Just to give you an idea of what it means I will say that there is due me with what is secure almost enough to put me through till July '96, but I can not get it now under any considerations, so if I stay all the time, it will oblige me to use the credit system considerably, which I certainly despise to use, but I feel that time is so precious that the most must be gotten from every moment as it passes.
This will be my roughest year as in other institutions they have longer vacations. I feel sometimes like taking the step offered and pushing right forward. Perhaps your decision in your work may have some influence in my decision in some respects.
Will you please pardon me for referring to this to you now uninteresting topic, but these things must be considered at some time so they come now.
I received a letter from headquarters this morning stating that the Conference of College Y.M.C.A. Presidents would convene at Oberlin April 4-7, so I shall go there Thursday. The State Com. pay my expenses, so perhaps I can afford to go. So if your letter or rather my letter does not reach you so soon as usual you will understand the reason. Our reunion was a complete success as the Herald will show. I should like if we might make some arrangements about when I might visit you, for the time seems too long to be thus separated, but perhaps we had best leave that until our decisions are made concerning the vacation. You are too brave to cry, however if your courage should fail I should like to happen in just in time to brush away the tears.
So let us work away and hope that our work now shall tell for the future and that our joys shall be sweeter because of the tempering of our lives at present. O yes I had a girl four or five of them at the reunion reception and then went home by myself. I did not attend the Concert last night (Lecture Course). Leonard says he knows your hand-write. Perhaps some people know mine.
I feel pretty dull tonight which accounts for a dull letter, so trusting that my next letter shall have a different tone, I bid? you good-night love and send the best [ ] in store. May the Holy Spirit be our counsel in these questions before us now. With love,
J. H. Harris.
