“Because it is his nature to,
He finds his idyl in the dirt,
And if you do not sympathize
But find yours in some saucy flirt,
Why that is your affair you know,
It’s like the choosing a (?) golosh,
You doat upon a pretty face,
He takes to carrots and hogwash.”
Perhaps this sample of early verse may have led him later into other paths than poetry!
FACSIMILE OF VERSES BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT FOR A FAVORITE GAME
We did not always indulge in anything as light and humorous as the above example of poetic fervor. I have in my possession all kinds of competitive essays—on William Wordsworth, Washington Irving, and Plutarch’s “Lives,” written by various members of the happy group of young people at Oyster Bay; but when not indulging in these literary efforts “Teedie” was always studying his beloved natural history. At that time in his life he became more and more determined to take up this study as an actual career. My father had many serious talks with him on the subject. He impressed the boy with the feeling that, if he should thus decide upon a career which of necessity could not be lucrative, it would mean the sacrifice of many of the pleasures of which our parents’ environment had enabled us to partake. My father, however, also told the earnest young naturalist that he would provide a small income for him, enabling him to live simply, should he decide to give himself up to scientific research work as the object of his life. During all those summers at Oyster Bay and the winters in New York City, before going to college, “Teedie” worked along the line of his chief interest with a very definite determination to devote himself permanently to that type of study. Our parents realized fully the unusual quality of their son, they recognized the strength and power of his character, the focussed and reasoning superiority of his mentality, but I do not think they fully realized the extraordinary quality of leadership which, hitherto somewhat hampered by his ill health, was later to prove so great a factor, not only in the circle of his immediate family and friends but in the broader field of the whole country. He was growing stronger day by day; already he had learned from those fine lumbermen, “Will Dow” and “Bill Sewall,” who were his guides on long hunting trips in the Maine woods, how to endure hardship and how to use his rifle as an adept and his paddle as an expert.
His body, answering to the insistence of his character, was growing stronger day by day, and was soon to be an instrument of iron to use in the future years.
Mr. Arthur Cutler was engaged by my parents to be at Oyster Bay during these summers to superintend the studies of the two boys, and with his able assistance my brother was well prepared for Harvard College, which he entered in September, 1876. It seems almost incredible that the puny, delicate child, so suffering even three years before, could have started his college life the peer, from a physical standpoint, of any of his classmates. A light-weight boxer, a swift runner, and in every way fitted to take his place, physically as well as mentally, in the arena of college life, he entered Harvard College.
Theodore Roosevelt, Oyster Bay, September 21, 1875.
