to row from Oyster Bay in their small boats to Whitestone, near
Flushing, where my aunt Mrs. Gracie was living in an old farmhouse.
Elliott was really the sailor of the family, an expert sailor, too,
and loved to manage his 20-footer, with able hand, in the stormiest
weather, but Theodore craved the actual effort of the arms and back,
the actual sense of meeting the wave close to and not from the more
sheltered angle of a sailboat; and so the two young brothers who were
perfectly devoted to each other started on the more adventurous trip
together. They were caught in one of the sudden storms of the Long
Island Sound, and their frail boats were very nearly swamped, but the
luck which later became with Theodore Roosevelt almost proverbial,
was with them, and the two exhausted and bedraggled, wave-beaten boys
arrived sorely in need of the care of the devoted aunt who, as much
as in the days when she taught their A B C’s to the children of the
nursery of 20th Street, was still their guardian angel.
In September, 1877, Theodore returns as a sophomore to Cambridge
and writes in October again: “Sweet Pussie: Thank you ever so much,
darling, for the three, cunning, little books which I am going to
call my ‘Pussie Books.’ They were just what I wanted. In answer to
your question, I may say that it does not seem to make the slightest
difference to Brooks and Hooper that they have been dropped, although
Brooks is universally called ‘Freshie.’ My respect for the qualities
of my classmates has much increased lately, by the way, as they now
no longer seem to think it necessary to confine their conversation
exclusively to athletic subjects. I was especially struck by this
the other night, when, after a couple of hours spent in boxing and
wrestling with Arthur Hooper and Ralph Ellis, it was proposed to finish
the evening by reading aloud from Tennyson and we became so interested
in ‘In Memoriam’ that it was past one o’clock when we separated.”
(Evidently the lover of books was beginning to be a leader in making
his associates share his love of the poets.)
In November he writes again: “I sat up last night until twelve,
reading ‘Poems & Poets’; some of the boys came down to my room and we
had a literary coffee party. They became finally interested in Edgar
Poe--probably because they could not understand him.” My brother always
had a great admiration for Edgar Allan Poe, and would chant “The
Raven” and “Ulalume” in a strange, rather weird, monotonous tone. He
especially delighted in the reference to “the Dank Tarn of Auber” and
the following lines:
“I knew not the month was October,
I knew not the day of the year,--”
Poe’s rhythm and curious, suggestive, melancholy quality of perfection
affected strongly his imagination, and he placed him high in rank
amongst the poets of his time.
One can picture the young men, strong and vigorous, wrestling and
boxing together in Theodore Roosevelt’s room, and then putting aside
their athletic contests, making their coffee with gay nonchalance, and
settling down to a night of poetry, led in the paths of literature by
the blue-eyed young “Berserker,” as my mother used to call Theodore in
those college days.
During the summer of 1877 my father accompanied my sister Anna to Bar
Harbor on one of her annual excursions to that picturesque part of
the Maine coast, where they visited Mr. George Minot and his sisters.
He writes to my mother in his usual vein of delightful interest in
people, books, and nature, and seems more vigorous than ever, for he
describes wonderful walks over the mountains and speaks of having
achieved a reputation as a mountain-climber. How little any of the
family who adored him realized that from a strain engendered by that
climbing the seed of serious trouble had been sown in that splendid
mechanism, and that in a few short months the vigorous and still young
man of forty-six was to lay down that useful life which had been given
so ardently and unselfishly for the good of his city and the joy and
benefit of his family.
At this time, however, when Theodore went back to college as a
sophomore, there was no apprehension about my father’s health, and the
first term of the college year was passed in his usual happy activities.
Shortly after the New Year my father’s condition became serious, due
to intestinal trouble, and the following weeks were passed in anxious
nursing, the distress of which was greatly accentuated by the frightful
suffering of the patient, who, however, in spite of constant agony,
bore the sudden shattering of his wonderful health with magnificent
courage. My brother Theodore could not realize, as did my brother
Elliott, who was at home, the serious condition of our father, for it
was deemed best that he should not return from college, where difficult
examinations required all his application and energy. Elliott gave
unstintedly a devotion which was so tender that it was more like
that of a woman, and his young strength was poured out to help his
father’s condition. The best physicians searched in vain for remedy
for the hidden trouble, but in spite of all their efforts the first
Theodore Roosevelt died, February 9, 1878, and the gay young college
sophomore was recalled to a house of mourning. In spite of the sorrow,
in spite of a sense of irreparable loss, there was something infinitely
inspiring in the days preceding and following my father’s death.
When New York City knew that its benefactor lay in extreme illness,
it seemed as if the whole city came to the door of his home to ask
news of him. How well I remember the day before his death, when the
papers had announced that there was but little hope of his recovery.
The crowd of individuals who filled 57th Street in their effort to
hear the physicians’ bulletin concerning his condition was huge and
varied. Newsboys from the West Side Lodging House, little Italian girls
from his Sunday-school class, sat for hours on the stone steps of 6
West 57th Street, our second home, waiting with anxious intensity for
news of the man who meant more to them than any other human being had
ever meant before; and those more fortunate ones who had known him
in another way drove unceasingly up in their carriages to the door
and looked with sympathetic interest at the children of the slums who
shared with them such a sense of bitter bereavement and loss in the
premature death of one so closely connected with all sides of his
beloved native city.
Meanwhile, the family of the first Theodore Roosevelt seemed hardly
able to face the blank that life meant when he left them, but they also
felt that the man who had preached always that “one must live for the
living” would have wished “his own” to follow out his ideal of life,
and so each one of us took up, as bravely as we could, our special
duties and felt that our close family tie must be made stronger rather
than weaker by the loss that we had sustained.
On March 3, 1878, my brother writes from Cambridge:
My own darling, sweet, little treasure of a Pussie: Oh! I have
so longed for you at times during the last few days. Darling one,
you can hardly know what an inestimable blessing to a fellow it is
to have such a home as I have. Even now that our dear father has
been taken away, it is such a great pleasure to look forward to a
visit home; and indeed, he has only ‘gone before,’ and oh! what
living and loving memories he has left behind him. I can _feel_ his
presence sometimes when I am sitting alone in the evening; I have
not felt nearly as sad as I expected to feel, although, of course,
there are every now and then very bitter moments. I am going to
bring home some of his sweet letters to show you. I shall always
keep them, if merely as talismans against evil. Kiss little mother
for me, and my love to Aunt Susie and Uncle Hill. [My mother and
I were staying in Philadelphia with my aunt Mrs. West.] Tell the
latter, Uncle Hill, I am looking forward to spending a month of
nude happiness with him next summer among the wilds of Oyster Bay.
YOUR LOVING TEDDY.
When my brother speaks of keeping my father’s letters to him as
“talismans against evil,” he not only expressed the feeling of desire
to keep near him always the actual letters written by my father, but
far more the spirit with which these letters are permeated. Years
afterward, when the college boy of 1878 was entering upon his duties
as President of the United States, he told me frequently that he never
took any serious step or made any vital decision for his country
without thinking first what position his father would have taken on the
question. The day that he moved into the White House happened to be
September 22, the day of my father’s birth, and dining with him that
night in the White House for the first time, we all mentioned this
fact and felt that it was a good omen for the future, and my brother
said that every time he dated a letter that day he felt with a glow
of tender memory the realization that it was his father’s birthday,
and that his father’s blessing seemed specially to follow him on that
first day when he made his home in the beautiful old white mansion
which stands in the heart of America for all that America means to her
sons and daughters.
Several other equally loving letters in that March of 1878 proved how
the constant thoughts of the young sophomore turned to the family at
home, and also his own sense of loss in his father’s death, but I think
the many interests and normal surroundings brought their healing power
to the boy of nineteen, and at the end of that year of his college
life he had become a well-rounded character. His mind, intelligently
focussed upon many intellectual subjects, had broadened in scope,
and physically he was no longer the delicate, dreamy boy of earlier
days. The period of his college life, although not one of as unusual
interest as perhaps other periods in his life, was of inestimable value
in the forming of his character. Had Theodore Roosevelt continued to
be abnormally developed along the scientific and intellectual side of
his nature, he would never have become the “All-American” which he was
destined to be. It was necessary for him to fall into more commonplace
grooves; it was necessary for him to meet the young men of his age on
common ground, to get the “give-and-take” of a life very different from
the more or less individual life which, owing to his ill health and
intellectual aspirations, he had hitherto led, and already, by the end
of the second year of college, he was beginning to take a place in the
circle of his friends which showed in an embryonic way the leadership
which later was to be so strongly evidenced.
On October 8, 1878, returning to Cambridge as a junior, he writes to
his mother: “Darling, beloved, little motherling: I have just loved
your dear, funny, pathetic, little letter, and I am now going to write
you the longest letter I ever write, and if it is still rather short,
you must recollect that it takes Teddy-boy a long time to write. I have
enjoyed Charlie Dickey’s being here extremely, and I think I have been
of some service to him. We always go to prayers together; for his own
sake, I have not been much with him in the daytime, but every evening,
we spend a good part of the time together in my room or his. He is
just the same, honest, fine fellow as ever, and unless I am very much
mistaken, is going to make a thorough success in every way of college.
My studies do not come very well this year, as I have to work nearly as
hard on Saturday as on any other day--six, seven or eight hours. Some
of the studies are extremely interesting, however, especially Political
Economy and Metaphysics. These are both rather hard, requiring a good
deal of work, but they are even more interesting than my Natural
History courses; and all the more so from the fact that I radically
disagree on many points with the men whose books we are reading, (Mill
and Ferrier). One of my zoological courses is rather dry, but the other
I like very much, though it necessitates ten or twelve hours’ work a
week. My German is not very interesting, but I expect that my Italian
will be when I get further on. For exercise, I have had to rely on
walking, but today I have regularly begun sparring. I practice a good
deal with the rifle, walking to and from the range, which is nearly
three miles off; my scores have been fair, although not very good.
Funnily enough, I have enjoyed quite a burst of popularity since I came
back, having been elected into several different clubs. My own friends
have, as usual, been perfect trumps, and I have been asked to spend
Sundays with at least a half-dozen of them, but I have to come back to
Cambridge Sunday mornings on account of Sunday School, which makes it
more difficult to pay visits. I indulged in a luxury the other day in
buying ‘The Library of British Poets,’ and I delight in my purchase
very much, but I have been so busy that I have hardly had time to read
it yet. I shall really have to have a new bookcase for I have nowhere
to put my books.... Your loving son, T. Jr.”
The above letter is of distinct interest for several reasons: first of
all, because of the affectionate pains taken by the young man of now
nearly twenty to keep his mother informed about all his activities,
intellectual, physical, and social. So many young men of that age are
careless of the great interest taken by their mothers and do not share
with them the joys and difficulties of college life. All through his
life, from his boyhood to the very last weeks of his busy existence,
my brother Theodore was a great sharer. This is all the more unusual
because, as a rule, the man of intellectual pursuits is apt to deny
himself to the claims of family and friends, but not so with Theodore
Roosevelt, except during the period of some specially hard task, when
he would give himself to it to the exclusion of every other interest.
Unless during such rare periods, no member of his family ever went to
him for guidance or solace or interest without the most generous and
most loving response. In the above letter he shows his response to
the tender inquiries of his mother, so lately widowed, and he wishes
to give her all the information that she desires. One can see that
the young junior, as he now was, was coming into his own in more ways
than one. He is working harder intellectually; already metaphysics
and political economy are catching up with “natural history” in his
affections, and, in fact, outdistancing the latter. His individual
point of view is shown by the fact that he “radically disagrees on
many points with Mill and Ferrier,” and he again shows the persevering
determination, so largely a part of his character, in the way in which
he walks to and fro the three miles to practise with his rifle at the
range. The modest way in which he speaks of his “burst of popularity”
is also very characteristic, for he received the unusual distinction of
being invited to join several of the most popular clubs. Altogether,
this letter in which he tells, although he makes no point of it, of
his still faithful service at Sunday-school, no matter how much it
interferes with the gay week-end visits which he so much enjoys, and
the glimpse which he gives us of his love of poetry as an offset to his
harder studies, seems to me to depict in a lovable and admirable light
the young Harvard student.
Having written in this accurate way to his mother, within a month he
writes to his younger sister:
Sweet Pussie: I am spending Sunday with Minot Weld. It is a
beautiful day and this afternoon we are going to drive over to
Dick Saltonstall’s where we shall go out walking with Miss Rose
Saltonstall and Miss Alice Lee, and drive home by moonlight after
tea. I have begun studying fairly hard now, and shall keep it up
until Christmas. I am afraid I shall not be able to come home for
Thanksgiving; I really have my hands full, especially now that my
Political Economy Professor wishes me to start a Finance Club,
which would be very interesting indeed, and would do us all a great
deal of good, but which will also take up a great deal of time.
Of course, I spend a good deal of my spare time in the Porcellian
Club which is great fun. Night before last, Harry Shaw and I gave
a little supper up there, the chief items on the bill of fare were
partridges and Burgundy,--I, confining myself to the partridges. I
am going to cut Sunday school today for the second time this year,
but when the weather is so beautiful as this, I like every now and
then to spend Sunday with a friend. Harry Chapin is going to take
my class for me today. Good-bye sweet one,--
YOUR LOVING TEDO.
Here again we see the growth of the young man, the growth of his
influence in his class, for it is to him that the Political Economy
professor turns to start a finance club, and we see also the
proportionate all-round development, for not only does he read poetry,
start finance clubs, differ with Mill and Ferrier on abstract subjects,
but also joins with Harry Shaw in a little supper of partridges and
Burgundy--he confining himself, I would have my readers know, to the
partridges! Theodore Roosevelt was growing in every way and especially
becoming the more all-round man, and it was well that this growth
should take place, for if the all-round man can still keep focussed
ideals and strong determination to achieve in individual directions,
it is because of the all-round qualities that he becomes the leader of
men. Again the happy Christmas holidays came, but this time shadowed by
the great blank made by my father’s loss, and in February, 1879, he
writes again--now of happy coasting-parties at the Saltonstalls’, where
began his intimate relationship with lovely Alice Lee, who later became
his wife. One can see the merry young people flying, as he says, “like
the wind,” on their long toboggans, and then having a gay dance at the
hospitable house of Mrs. Lee.
In March he writes: “I only came out second best in the sparring
contest, but I do not care very much for I have had uncommonly good
luck in everything this year from studies to society. I enjoyed my trip
to Maine very much indeed; of course, I fell behind in my studies, but
by working pretty hard last week, I succeeded in nearly catching up
again.” This trip to Maine cemented the great friendship between my
brother and those splendid backwoodsmen, Bill Sewall and Will Dow, who
were later to be partners in his ranching venture in the Far West. Bill
Sewall was a strong influence in my brother’s young manhood, and for
him great admiration was conceived by the young city boy and, later,
by the college student. The splendid, simple, strong man of the woods,
though not having had similar educational advantages, was still so
earnest a reader and so natural a philosopher that his attitude toward
books and life had lasting influence over his young companion.
About this same time, March, 1879, my brother wrote me one of the
sweetest and most characteristic of his little love-letters. It was
dated from the Porcellian Club on March 28, and enclosed a diminutive
birch-bark book of poetry, and the letter ran as follows: “Wee Pussy,
I came across such a funny, wee book of poetry today, and I send it to
a wee, funny Kitty Coo, with Teddy’s best love.” The page on which the
sweet words are written is yellow, but the little birch-bark book is
still intact, and the great love engendered by the tender thought of,
and expression of that thought to, his sister is even deeper than when
the sweet words were actually written.
[Illustration: LETTER TO CORINNE ROOSEVELT ACCOMPANYING “BIRCH BARK
POEMS”]
On May 3 he writes in a humorous vein: “Pet Pussie: At last the deed is
done and I have shaved off my whiskers! The consequence, I am bound
to add, is that I look like a dissolute democrat of the Fourth Ward; I
send you some tintypes I had taken; the front views are pretty good,
although giving me an expression of glum misery that I sincerely hope
is not natural. The side views do not resemble me any more than they
do Michael Angelo or John A. Weeks. The next four months are going to
be one ‘demnition grind’ but by great good luck, I shall be able to
leave here June 5th, I think.” The whiskers were permanently removed
and never again reappeared, except on his hunting trip the following
year, and I think he felt, himself, that the lack of them added a touch
of elegance to his appearance, for he writes again within a day or
two: “I rode over on Saturday morning (very swell with hunting crop
and beaver) to Chestnut Hill where I took lunch with the Lees.” He is
beginning to be quite a gentleman of fashion, and so the care-free days
glide by, another summer comes, with pleasant visits, and another Maine
woods excursion; but even when writing in the midst of house-parties
of bewildering gaiety, he adds at the end of a long letter in August,
1879, “For my birthday, among the books I most want are the complete
editions of Prescott, Motley, and Carlyle,” and signs himself “Your
loving St. Buv.,” a new pet name which he had given himself and which
was a conglomerate of St. Beuve, for whose writings he had great
admiration, and the brother for whom his little sister had such great
admiration.
His last year at college was one of equal growth, although the
development was not as apparent as in his junior year, and in June,
1880, he graduated with honors, a happy, successful Harvard alumnus.
A number of his New York friends went on for class day, and all made
merry together, and not long afterwards he and his brother Elliott
started on a hunting trip together. Elliott, who as a young child had
been the strong one, when Theodore was a delicate little boy, had,
during the years of adolescence, been somewhat of an invalid and could
not go to college; our father, wise as ever, decided he must have
his education in another way, and he arranged for Elliott to spend
several years largely in the open air. He became a splendid shot, and
my brother Theodore always felt that Elliott was far the better hunter
of the two. The brothers were devoted to each other, and were each the
complement of the other in character. Theodore writes from Wilcox’s
farm, Illinois, August 22, 1880: “Darling Pussie: We have been having
a lovely time so far, have shot fair quantities of game, are in good
health, though our fare and accommodations are of the roughest. The
shooting is great fun; you would laugh to see us start off in a wagon,
in our rough, dirty, hunting-suits, not looking very different from our
driver; a stub-tailed, melancholy looking pointer under the front seat,
and a yellow, fool idea of a setter under the back one, which last is
always getting walked on and howling dismally. We enjoy the long drives
very much: the roads are smooth and lovely, and the country, a vast
undulating prairie, cut up by great fields of corn and wheat with few
trees. The birds are not very plentiful, but of great variety; we get
prairie chickens in the stubble fields, plover in the pastures, snipe
in the ‘slews,’ and ducks in the ponds. We hunt about an hour or two in
a place, then get into our wagon and drive on, so that, though we cover
a very large tract of country, we are not very tired at the end of the
day, only enough to make us sleep well. The climate is simply superb,
and though the scenery is not very varied, yet there is something very
attractive to me in these great treeless, rolling plains, and Nellie
[his pet name for Elliott] and I are great chums, and in the evening,
sit and compare our adventures in ‘other lands’ until bedtime which is
pretty early.”
[Illustration: Theodore Roosevelt in his twenty-second year.
Elliott Roosevelt in his twenty-first year.
Portrait taken in Chicago, July, 1880, on the way to the hunting trip
of that season.]
And again he writes a few weeks later from Chicago, in a very bantering
vein: