I enclose a circular from Amherst College that came to you yesterday.
You would doubtless do as well or better at one of the small colleges
as you would at Harvard. The instruction is quite as good. It is not the
college that makes the man, but the reverse. Or you might go to Columbia
this fall. You would be nearer home and have just as able instructors as
at Harvard. Harvard has no first class men now. But if you have set
your heart on Harvard, you would of course do just as well as a special
student as if admitted to college. You would miss only non-essentials.
Their sheep skin you do not want; all you want is what they can teach
you.
It has rained here most of the time since you left. The grapes are
beginning to rot and if this rain and heat continues we may lose all of
them. If the grapes go I shall not have money for you to go away this
year.
Another duck was killed Saturday night, one of the last brood. It looked
like the work of a coon and I and Hiram watched all Sunday night with
the gun, but nothing came and nothing came last night as we know of.
Let me know what you hear from your chum. I shall look for a letter from
you to-night. It is still raining and at four o'clock the sky looks as
thick and nasty as ever. It threatens to be like eight years ago when
you and I were in the old house. Tell me what Mr. Tooker says, etc. I
may go to Gilders the last of the week.
Your affectionate father, JOHN BURROUGHS.
Your black duck is getting tame and does not hide at all.
It is hard for the present generation to realize what a shadow,
or rather influence, the Civil War cast over the days of Father's
generation. War veterans, parades, pensions, stories of the war--it
coloured much of the life, civil, social, political, and even the
literature of the day. Some have spoken of it, in architecture, as
the General Grant Period. The "panoramas"--what has become of them? I
remember visiting one with Father--you went into a building and up
a flight of stairs and came out on a balcony, a round balcony in the
centre, and all around was a picture of one of the battlefields of the
war, bursting shells, men charging, falling, and all, always the two
flags, smoke enshrouded. It made a great impression on my boyish mind.
Father knew many war veterans and together we read the impressions of
his friend, Charles Benton, "As Seen from the Ranks," and he kept up the
friendships he had made those years he lived in Washington.
Washington, D. C.,