I have your three letters of 15th & 16th. All that you say about the works is satisfactory to me. I am in doubt if you understand the situation at Biltmore. I have not written or said anything on the subject of which you are not informed, or, as far as I recollect, except thro’ the office. I may have written something direct to Rick but I think not. But I don’t think that you are as well-informed as you shd be.

I was very much taken aback by your action upon the partnership matter and have not been able to see the justifying reason for it. I suppose that you find it however in what you call my “failure of memory.” I have not been able to see the occasion or the justification for your action in other important respects and that it should have been taken without communication with me has caused an irritation and excitement and action which I am sorry for. I cannot yet bring myself to think that it was justifiable but I regret my course and am taking the back track. I had no idea that I was supposed to be in the condition that you have assumed. If you had given me your opinion I should have taken some course to verify or overcome it. Probably I should have accepted the occasion for your action and assisted you. I am writing Mr Chandler by this mail countermanding orders given him a few days ago.

My will was drawn up some ten years ago at the suggestion and in some degree under the advice of Judge Monell of Newburg who visited us at the time in Brookline. You, John, are dealt with as my elder son, partner and designed successor. Rick’s professional education is provided for and it is presumed that he will be partner with you.

I am very sorry that you did not think best to advise me what you thought of my condition & of what you intended. I think that I should have yielded all you desired. I should, at least, have at once taken medical advice, [949]and had a competent professional opinion. As it is, your course has been far from soothing. I have lost a few nights’ sleep which I could ill-spare.

I hope it will not be thought necessary to send me to an institution. I hate institutions. But I don’t see how I can live at home and not be interested in your works or refrain from giving advice. In fact it will be almost a killing thing to me not to visit Biltmore. I fear that it will break my heart. But I shall pray for & try to pursue Christian resignation.

Let Eliot see this and then, as I suppose that I should be cautious about writing, let it be sent to Rick. There is nothing in the world that I am so anxious about as his welfare—spiritual and eternal as well as artistic & professional. I suppose that you will have him in the office soon. I hope before I go. But not a day sooner than you think best to make him useful to you. Let him have the best possible professional education; especially in “planting.” He has had opportunity for a much better elementary professional education than anyone else I know and I hope you will give him opportunity to continue it—as at the Arboretum &c.—and that eventually the firm may profit by it. The firm! No. The Art!

Exit, bowing, not ungratefully,

I am grateful for your letter of 23d which I have but now opened. I hardly need say that I have been passing the bitterest week of my life, resentment gradually giving way to a realization of the truth. In my flurry I have done some things which I would not do now and for which I am sorry. If I can be treated in the spirit suggested by your letter; if I can continue to live at home, and, especially, if I can, in any humble and limited way, be useful to you for a short time longer, it will be a great comfort to me. You cannot think how I have been dreading that it would be thought expedient that I should be sent to an “institution.” Anything but that. My father was a director of an Insane Retreat, and first and last, having been professionally employed and behind the scenes in several, my dread of such places is intense. Your letter indicates a view of my condition which I have hardly dared to anticipate. It seems to me not unreasonable; not unsound. I cannot say that I am fully prepared to accommodate myself to it. I cannot say that I do not hope that with cooler weather I shall be found to be better than I am now thought to be. But depend upon it (you and John and the family) that I shall try hard to justify the most favorable view that can be taken of my case. If I can be treated in the spirit of your note, gently, and with consideration for a gradual decay of my faculties, it seems, today, that I shall be able to reconcile myself to the facts of the situation. I shall need to be reasoned with patiently but I cannot believe that I am incapable of being reasoned with. It was perhaps right to deceive me as I was deceived when brought here, but further dealings with me in that spirit—with [951]any deception—will greatly aggravate my misfortune. Dealt with frankly and kindly I hope to be able to cultivate a spirit of Christian resignation. I shall be greatly helped to do so if I am consulted with and otherwise treated as a man of not wholly unsound mind.

Affectionately Yours