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No 202 W 23rd St. New York Superintendent. U. S. Coast Survey
My dear Captain Patterson, I have long been wanting to write and ask you whether those pictures of ours are still hanging up in the Coast Survey parlours where I left them, for I think they would do something toward making this room we are boarding —my sister and myself— more home-like. |
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I had a very blue letter from Mr. Peirce the other day. He says he has never yet understood from you whether his appropiation is on a gold or a currency basis and so he is all at sea with his accounts. I cannot but think there is some misconception on his part about it and write not to interfere of suggest, dear friend, in what is none of my affair, but merely to say that if you can write a few cheering words to poor Charley, I think they will do him good. In your official capacity toward
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my darling husband, as well as from your sincere and long friendship for him (I doubt not) as well as for his father —you have now, dear Sir, in your power to do him a great deal of good. I do not know how far you may have noticed it, but I have known for a long time that he has been going on in a way that could not but end in wretchedness if not in humiliation. His parents and brother are utterly incapable of seeing that anything is amiss in one of their children and so
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he has never had a word of advice or warning from any one but me, and to them wives, husbands, as you know —are proverbially dear. I at last took the extreme course of leaving him to himself in Europe and returning home without him, giving him to understand tha unless he changed I could not any longer live with him. This I think has at last brought him to his senses, and I think he feels now that to make duty one's first instead of one's last object is not only the only safe — it is the only happy
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course and principle of action. Charley has one trait which unfortunately has never been taken advantage of by any one in authority over him— and that is docility to what he recognizes as law. It has been peculiarly unfortunate for his temperament that his father's position on the Survey has always been so influential that he has not (at least so I have judged from my imperfect observation) been held as strictly to account as other officers in similar
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positions are. All his life from babyhood it seems as though everything has conspired to spoil him with indulgence —Now while I do not suggest or counsel a sudden tightening of reins that have perhaps been held too loosely I would hope that a grave and kindly and earnest letter from yourself enlarging upon his responsabilities to the Survey, , to family, to his own talents, to his Maker and strengthening him by expressions of confidence in his genius if only he will act prudently, cautioning and carefully in everything— instead of rushing thing through with
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recklessness and extravagance— would do him a great deal of good. He ought to see to things personally himself— not go off to the next station and leave subordinates who do not understand packing scientific instruments as well as he does— the task of sending them after him, etc. etc. Of course they arrive broken and then ensure trouble and expense and delay in getting them replaced.
Charley is now at a great crisis of his life and if the |
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good in him is encouraged, disciplined and called to the front, he will rise as a man to the level of his wonderful intellectual gifts and be a shining ornament in the practice to his country. I hope and trust, dear sir, that you will act a noble, wise and paternal part to this brilliant but erratic genius who is now, as it were, in your charge. To no one buy my sister have I said as much as I have here in strict confidence to yourself. I shall confide in you that not even the wife of your bosom, dearly as I love her, knows anything about my writing to you. Be
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good to my Charlye, dear Captain Patterson, and be above all judicious with him. Let us save him together... if we can. Please burn this immediately and believe me ever truly respectfully and for all previous kindness to him I am gratefully yours.
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Transcription by Joseph Brent, revised by Jaime Nubiola (2013)
Una de las ventajas de los textos en formato electrónico respecto de los textos impresos es que pueden corregirse con gran facilidad mediante la colaboración activa de los lectores que adviertan erratas, errores o simplemente mejores transcripciones. En este sentido agradeceríamos que se enviaran todas las sugerencias y correcciones a sbarrena@unav.es
Proyecto de investigación "Charles S. Peirce en Europa (1875-76): comunidad científica y correspondencia" (MCI: FFI2011-24340)
Fecha del documento: 9 de diciembre 2013
Última actualización: 20 de febrero 2015
