Following are a number of extracts from letters addressed to Mr. Corydon E. Fuller:—
"Warrensville, Jan. 16, 1852.
"My Dear Corydon: Well, I quit writing that evening to attend the Warrensville Literary Club, of which I am a member. We had a very good time considering the 'timber.' We have resolved ourselves into a senate, each member representing some State in the Union. I am not only President, but also a representative from South Carolina, to watch the interests of my nullifying constituents. The bill before our senate for our next evening is, 'That we will assist financially the Hungarian exiles, Kossuth and his compatriots, from our national Treasury.' We shall undoubtedly have a warm time. By the way, what do you think of the effect of the excitement in reference to Kossuth upon our Nation and popular liberty? How far may our Government safely interfere in the Hungarian struggle? But I am certainly rhapsodical this time. You must write to me and trim me up. I am seated in my school-house, a room about 18 by 20, with a stove in the centre and in school, the scholars being all around me—forty on the list. With these facts before me I am led to exclaim,—
"Of all the trades by men pursued
There's none that's more perplexing
Than is the country's pedagogue's—
It's every way most vexing.
Cooped in a little narrow cell,
As hot as black Tartarus,
As well in Pandemonium dwell,
As in this little schoolhouse.
"Your friend and classmate,
"James A. Garfield."
The following is taken from a letter dated Feb. 2, 1852, written near the close of the village school at Warrensville, Ohio,—
"Oh, that I possessed the power to scatter the firebrands of ambition among the youth of the rising generation, and let them see the greatness of the age in which they live and the destiny to which mankind are rushing, together with the part which they are destined to act in the great drama of human existence. But, if I cannot inspire them with that spirit, I intend to keep it predominant in my own breast, and let it spur me forward to action. But let us remember that knowledge is only an increase of power, and is only good when directed to good ends. Though a man may have all knowledge, and have not the love of God in his heart, he will fall far short of true excellence."
Here is an extract from a letter written in April, 1853,—
"To my mind the whole catalogue of fashionable friendships and polite intimacies are not worth one honest tear of sympathy or one heartfelt emotion of true friendship. Unless I can enter the inner chambers of the soul and read the inscriptions there upon those ever-during tablets, and thus become acquainted with the inner life and know the inner man, I care not for intercourse, for nothing else is true friendship.... I have no very intimate associates here, and hence, if it please you, I will be social with my pen and be often cheered by a letter from you. Let us in all the varied fortunes of human life look forward to that lamp which will enlighten the darkness of earth, the valley of death, and then become the bright and morning star in the heaven of heavens. Give my love to your father and mother for they seem like mine also, and you know you have the love of your brother,