December 14th.
_Dear Daddy-Long-Legs_,
I dreamed the funniest dream last night. I thought I went into a
book store and the clerk brought me a new book named “The Life and
Letters of Judy Abbott.” I could see it perfectly plainly--red cloth
binding with a picture of the John Grier Home on the cover, and my
portrait for a frontispiece with, “Very truly yours, Judy Abbott,”
written below. But just as I was turning to the end to read the
inscription on my tombstone, I woke up. It was very annoying!
I almost found out who I’m going to marry and when I’m going to
die.
Don’t you think it would be interesting if you really could read the
story of your life--written perfectly truthfully by an omniscient
author? And suppose you could only read it on this condition: that
you would never forget it, but would have to go through life knowing
ahead of time exactly how everything you did would turn out, and
foreseeing to the exact hour the time when you would die. How many
people do you suppose would have the courage to read it then? Or how
many could suppress their curiosity sufficiently to escape from
reading it, even at the price of having to live without hope and
without surprises?
Life is monotonous enough at best; you have to eat and sleep about
so often. But imagine how _deadly_ monotonous it would be if nothing
unexpected could happen between meals. Mercy! Daddy, there’s a
blot, but I’m on the third page and I can’t begin a new sheet.
I’m going on with biology again this year--very interesting
subject; we’re studying the alimentary system at present. You
should see how sweet a cross-section of the duodenum of a cat is
under the microscope.
Also we’ve arrived at philosophy--interesting but evanescent.
I prefer biology where you can pin the subject under discussion to a
board. There’s another! And another! This pen is weeping copiously.
Please excuse its tears.
Do you believe in free will? I do--unreservedly. I don’t agree at
all with the philosophers who think that every action is the
absolutely inevitable and automatic resultant of an aggregation
of remote causes. That’s the most immoral doctrine I ever
heard--nobody would be to blame for anything. If a man believed in
fatalism, he would naturally just sit down and say, “The Lord’s will
be done,” and continue to sit until he fell over dead.
I believe absolutely in my own free will and my own power to
accomplish--and that is the belief that moves mountains. You watch
me become a great author! I have four chapters of my new book
finished and five more drafted.
This is a very abstruse letter--does your head ache, Daddy? I think
we’ll stop now and make some fudge. I’m sorry I can’t send you a
piece; it will be unusually good, for we’re going to make it with
real cream and three butter balls.
Yours affectionately,