Letter from Horace Sumner Lyman on his thoughts on marriage

O'Berlin, April 3rd 1881.

We have been laving an unusual run of weather. Snow is 14 inches deep, though melting. The storm I spoke of continued with but hills in [?] for 4 days. Though the snow only drizzled down the last two days. Yesterday morning the ther. stood at 23 [degrees], but it [?] by noon and is about 40 [degrees] today. There was a stiff N.E. and N.W. wind during the storm. I received your valuable letter of the 20th. W. yesterday. The contents I have duly read and noted. You speak of Carlyle. I do not think it so strange that he sympathized with the South. He looked upon the North as a people of penn[?] yankee traders sunk in sordid care for gain, hard, course-fibered, practical; without sentiment, without an eye for truth as beauty except to make them pay; with a course sentiment that they called 'freedom, liberty' meaning nothing by it but 'I am as good as you'; their politics run by bribery and loud-voiced [?]; opinionated, enabled, [?]. He was [?] of calling Washington a little man. He thought American liberty was mostly froth and [?]. He had some singular notions worth up in itself considered. But then again he would say some thing that was dazzlingly true. The great value of his books is not in what they say, but in what they suggest. He takes you right into the thick of life, and though you may reject every utterance he makes, you can not help thinking right on these huge questions. There is probably more valid mental [?] in [?] his books that in any author - exclusive of the Bible. He takes one for enough so that he can see the dusky forms of problem of life. Very few authors try to do that ever, and most that try either point to some low [?] near by as the K[?] of the awful Himalaya range of truth; or else indicate a cloud; When he say 'There is the mountain!' you may be sure that it is not a dusty hill, nor a vaporous cloud, but the real peak. The only value of books, anyhow, is to lead us to use our own [?]. A [?], read, helps us to [?] our own bodies. So of all the scientific [?]. They [?], of course, a great many facts gleaned from [?] in position to above, but unless we an take those frets and make use of them just as if we had gathered them ourselves, they are of now use. This is more especially true of his [?] [?] and religious books. Unless we take the golden rule and steep in in our own soul's sincerity, to see if it corresponds to the kind of [?] that our hearts are boiled down from, it will be no good to us.

All the ground is white with snow
But it drips and thaws betimes.
I hear the trickling water flow
As the small drops, oozing, go
Spilling off the First Church's eaves.

I must say that I am rather dry today. Your [?] [?] a caution. I have observed in the [?]. that you had instructed the students in your lectures on '?]. Good. Our vacation is over next Tuesday. I shall have Greek, [?], H[?] likes, and Ch. Hist, next term, [?] German. In the latter we read Schiller's Wm Tell. I plan to make thorough work of Ch. Hist. writing at least one lecture a week on some [?] [?] therewith. I hope to write such lectures well enough so that they may be fit to deliver some time, though that is not my purpose in writing them. I wish to get a substantial compulsive view of the subject, and I can do it better in this way than in any other. I have here the opportunities that I may not have elsewhere.

I think I said a while ago that I had got that money order of $20. I sent a time since a careful estimate of M's expenses, if she comes here. I will leave you to double, etc. had yet I [?] [?] your want to double for. People here dess quite plain, quite inexpensively, though in good taste. You might have deeds enough on hand to last you over, though a travelling [?] might be necessary. Your [?] here, I presume, taking not account that you would have more time to make them would be about 40% less than at home.

I wish, Sarah, to propose several grave questions for your consideration 1. what is the best strawberry for your climate? 2. How are the [?] at the east end of the house growing? 3. How many hands high is Vermis 4. How would it pay to raise pumpkins and beets, at home, as fodder for cows? 5. What is the best time to prune trees? 6. Would chickens be a paying crop? 7. How much do you weigh? 8. What time do you get up? 9. Do you think it would pay to set out some evergreen black berries, black-cap raspberries, cherry currents, and [?] cherry and plum trees at home?

I would like to have you investigate these questions personally, and answer soon. You had better go into the [?] cultural business. If you cannot do much [?] work yourself, on account of house work, you can take on interest in the garden and [?], so as to [?] practically all about fruit and vegetables. You will be interest in botany, no doubt, this year, as I did, I shall, if I can, collect [?] [?] here and send to you. It will not be so very long before I am at home again and then we shall make things spin. I am going to take a great interest in things than family. One when guess about without interest in things, in a [?]. I hope to be interested in things. That is one reason only I should think of marrying. A married man has ten motives to virtuous activity where a single man has one. But oh the [?] state of the man who cannot fall in love! I should think it an insult to say to any [?] 'I want to get married. I don't adore you. You are not the chief woman [?] all I know. It want to marry you chiefly on my own account, not because I have any special interest in you. I have selected you because on several accounts I think you would be a good wife. - industrious - well-educated, pious, of good family etc etc. If you really won't have me, I have in mind several others that would do just as well, or well enough. If you [?] me, my chief [?] will be a [?] of chagrin. My heart will not be broken. My feeling for you does not reach my heart at all!' Yet that is all I could say to any one. I certainly could not tell a [?] [?] in such grave business I could not pour out a flood of affectionate words. I might say 'I upset you. I [?] you. I am glad when you are around (though I do not miss you when you are gone) if you would love and honor me, think of me to be the finest, [?], grounded, most desirable man in the world. I might come to think the same of you' But I could say that to a dozen girls. If I could pretend to be in love with some one, until she were in love with me, I might wort of work up to it. But I might not, even [?] I think that I should be moved more [?] by [?] one typing to now [?]; but I would despise the woman that tired to do it! I might mention there as the signs of true love.

1. Constant dwelling upon the offer of your regard so that she [?] to be with you at all times. You find yourself building in [?] any conversations with her. You look up suddenly, and think you see her. When away from her you accumulate so much to say to her that when you [?] you seem to have no lack of talking matter on hand. You dream of her, night after night, and if she be gone for some days, you count the night the best part of your life, for then you seem to enjoy her [?].

2. The whole effect of her influence upon you is to stimulate you to great exertion, but without any [?] of meanings. As the [?] is to the grieving till, so is she to you.

3. You feel yourself utterly [?] and little compared with her, and think [?] any notice of you from her, would be a monstrous abun[?], but you so crave some regard from her, that you do all things in your power to [?] her to [?] you. You would think it your highest privilege to die for her, and involuntarily imagine [?] in which you [?] her from death or danger, perhaps to your own mental hurt.

4. Her presence makes you tremble, and you talk to her, as much as anything for the opportunity you then get to look at her.

5. The thought that she cares more for another than for you, makes you feel as if you were dying. You may think her very sensible; you may [?] no animosity toward the other, and may ever think that if it is for her happening that she prefers the other, you are, in a feeble way-wishing you were more so - really glad of it, but life is to you henceforth as when the [?]has set, and the cold dew begins to fall. There are many stars, but only one sun.

Would it be right to have a woman for your wife, toward whom you did not have such feelings? If one could love a lady so, and she loved him so, for them to live together would be paradise. It might not be, if this feeling did not exist. And yet here have come to the [?] man and [?], 'Better marry anyhow. Two [?] are burning with devotion for each other, gradually gain it.' And yet, how is a man to begin? It is the proposing business think gets a body. I wouldn't want a woman that did not love me, and a woman would not have me [?] I vowed that I loved her. I am probably [?] now capable of falling in love in good [?], and if I should [?] [?] not one chance in a hundred that I could win.

So [?] of heaven's walls
I fill a doomed soul
My heart for love and beauty calls, -
But cold [?] conserving [?],
Oh it is a dreadful thing
To long for happy love -
When (But) like a bird that will not sing
Your own heart-chords refine to move!

I mention this, not from any sentimental reasons, but as an interesting phase of my experience. I might forget it if I shouldn't. I enjoy people more, I enjoy [?] more; there is some thing very attentive about a young woman who good and [?]. When I think of all the plans, of all the growing feelings, longings, [?], thoughts, hopes, delicate, beautiful, [?]; of all in short that makes a young woman's life valuable [?] and fragrant to others; and see that all this is behind that pair of eyes, glowing through Those feature, and manifested in the movement of her body, of course I feel myself [?] by a pretty profound feeling. But that is all very general; exceedingly general.

There is a Miss Houston at our hall, a new comer. She reminds me of Georgia Brown B.; about the same size, her hair and complexion almost [?] the same, her eyes deep gray; her demeanor quit and collected, but [?]; with that about her which comes to say 'To think,' [?] predominance in her make-up; not become her other parts are deficient, but become her intellect is unusually large. She has a fine tells voice, very sweet and clear, with enough [?] and modesty in it when she says to make it open the gates of our attention, and enough [?] and feeling in it, to be sympathetic. One could listen to it a long time, and then sigh to think she must finally [?]. Usually when a common signs [?], it is its song we think of. In her case, it is the singer. Her voice is a good deal like yours, Mary.

Your [?] I am in a somewhat meditative state of mind, tonight. I am not sure that I have anything more to say, but I will add a word. The etymology of 'window', W. is 'wind hole' as role [?] I think you disputed it. I guess I mentioned it [?], lately. I have read [?] [?] [?] and Invisible Empire since reading Bricks [?] Shaw. Did you know that [?] was author of [?]? He is the author of a [?]; nothing the [?]. He is to lecture here in a week or more. So I [?] have a pretty good dare of the near, [?] [?] is a much more powerful look than Bricks. It is more strictly fact, [?] a story, and [?] a curtain tough [?] none about it, indication of more prepare. It was [?] first effort to move the notion and be part all his strength in it. While as much as you can. Put in your [?], as I do,. My letters are merely a [?] when I think with you, for a while. It is so with you, is not it, Mary? More or less so with all. You S. write your [?]. Excellent brother - viper! I say I am going to unite [?], but I do write more. When I am writing may histories next term. I should have to [?] my letters.

Good Bye. H. S. L.