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.
LETTER TO CORINNE ROOSEVELT ACCOMPANYING “BIRCH BARK POEMS”