Princeton, Sept 23, 1909
To H. H. Alberts; in New York City:
DEAR HENDRIK, — I am aghast. In all honesty, this business of
Charles' death has shaken me greatly. You know I am not faint of
heart or prone to overstimulation. Indeed have I endeavored always
to state the facts of my life with brutal realism and
perspicacity. You can testify to my own account of those days in
Cuba, wherein I spoke eloquently and at length of the sores of
being in the saddle again after so many years in a lecture hall.
Be honest in your assessment, Hendrik; I never overstated what we
did for our country or spoke of the deaths of men with anything
but disgust. No, this matter is a wholly different beast. I have
known loss—known it intimately—but Charles!
Please do send my apologies to Gail that I did not attend the
service. Had I known—
That day I spent in New York seems to have brought back our past
insgesamt. There were moments as I wrote you my first letter where
I allowed myself the pleasure of a gentle reverie, lost amidst the
images of days gone by. For all my musings, I never thought it
would be the horrors of our past that would find us. Why, after
all these years, would such folly return? My only bit of solace in
this whole affair is that Eliza is nowhere to be found. I think if
she returned I might truly lose myself.
Listen to me, an old man now, still daydreaming over a girl from
my youth, and one who has proven herself time and again to be of a
reproachful demeanor. Yet you and I were the same in that at a
time. What we did to Charles is least amongst our reprehensible
conduct as youths. Still, while we may have grown into some small
manner of virtue, I cannot begin to envision an elderly Eliza who
would be comfortable going to see a Christmas show, or playing
whist. Her tastes cannot have devolved from such—
No, I cannot blame her abhorrent nature for my own actions. A
friend, a dear friend, has passed from this world, and no matter
how I turn the object, my name is written upon it. Our names, dear
Alberts. We three chose to take on the challenge Eliza presented
us even after she disappeared. It stopped being a game and we
chose to continue boldly. Perhaps it is that guilt that has
plagued my dreams these past nights.
Allow me to share with you one such night-time apparition that
stands above the others. It was, as one might expect, of Charles.
He stood apart from me a short distance with eyes that looked
beyond me into shadow. His face! Such fright as would wake any
child with terrors. A hand reached toward me, belonging to
Charles, I believe, though I could not see where it met his body.
And there, on the palm of his hand was a symbol burning in a fire
of a miraculous colour—a colour I cannot describe to you for
there has never been in Heaven or Earth a colour quite of that
nature, quite of that vibrance and intensity. It, above all,
torments my nights. Of the symbol itself, I can say only this. You
would recognize it plainly as the mark we made together on the old
leather spine of the Diary. The same symbol she taught us a year
before. The same one she left in her note.
Finally, while my eyes can see only The Colour—so entitled due
to the awe it must inspire—my mind heard Charles voice once
more. It was the voice of his youth, from a time when his words
carried more astonishment than trepidation. It said, again and
again, "Wake up!"
O Alberts, Death is so kind, so benignant, to whom he loves; but
he goes by us others and will not look our way. How Death, with
gentleness and majesty, makes the human grand-folk around him seem
so little and trivial and silly!
Tell me, Alberts—I struggle with the memory—do you recall when
Charles told us he burned the Diary. It is clear that he did so in
my mind, but the memory of it eludes me. He must have spoken the
words, I'm sure, but I cannot recall when or where. How could
something so important slip the mind like that? Is it age that
does this to me, or something more sinister?
Now my letter has become what you must have feared in your own. I
have spent all this time strangling my pen into a scrawl of worry
and agitation without a care for your state. Your family must be
feeling the effects of Charles' passing as well and I have been
remiss to not acknowledge them. Please give my best wishes to Anne
and Reginald. I do so hope he takes to the life of the Banker.
You've done well to keep him away from this infernal business. You
have always had the strongest convictions and the greatest
character of us all.
I almost forgot to mention it with the weight of everything that
has occurred. The Hudson-Fulton Celebration is featuring the young
Wilbur Wright next Wednesday. I will most likely be in lecture and
miss the event, but I do so hope you can witness it yourself.
Perhaps it would make a fine outing for the family to help recover
from the melancholia that surrounds us.
I wonder what Eliza would think of that. She had such visions of
the future. I wonder if she suspected man would one day soar among
the clouds.
