You do not need that I should say that I am in full sympathy with you and am far from being disposed to reproach you. But simply with regard to the course now to be pursued, I must refer to the advice I have heretofore strenuously urged upon you, especially last Fall. This was to make sure, at any sacrifice of your personal prejudices and pre-dispositions, that for the enormous work essential to be accomplished in the two or three weeks that you could reckon upon for this Spring planting season, you should not only be free to give your attention exclusively to planting operations, having nothing else to think of, but that you would take great pains to have at least one man as thoroughly instructed as possible in all details of plans and methods that you were intending to pursue; so that in case of any accident or illness happening to you, the calamity to the whole Exposition scheme might be in some slight degree less disastrous than it was otherwise sure to be. I pressed the importance of precautions in this respect upon you all I could without danger of hurting your feelings, and the doubt whether you had been sufficiently impressed with its importance has all of last Winter given me more anxiety than all else of the Exposition business.

I say this now in order that, having come so near such a disaster as I have seen to be possible, I can be sure that you will excuse me if I try again [498]to force home upon you the unwisdom of allowing the accomplishment of extremely important matters to depend so highly as you are disposed to let them, upon your constant personal vigilance, activity and untiring industry. In whatever degree we may feel that we should trust to your discretion, you have no right to take chances. You have no right to trust yourself at all further than you are compelled to do. There is no expense that the people of the United States cannot afford, to guard against risks of the character of those that you are so much disposed to take. You cannot say, we cannot say, that there is nobody in the country who could temporarily assume your responsibilities and take and carry out for a time instructions from you, in some tolerable way as to the whole of your work. And we cannot be held blameless, under these circumstances, if we leave so much dependent upon your constant ability in all respects as you seem disposed to require of us.

I am compelled not only to urge this consideration upon you, and to insist that you shall be relieved of personal care on every point not absolutely essential to your special exclusive responsibility, but that with respect to this special responsibility you shall be able, upon a pinch, to depend more than you are prepared to do upon instructions given in advance to others, so that you may be more in the position than you like to be of a General standing in the rear of the line of battle and coming to the front only in emergencies. You should be the more ready to excuse me for pressing you on this point because I find it necessary myself to retire, temporarily, to a much greater distance from the field of activity, at the very juncture when I should otherwise feel it necessary to be by your side. I write in the midst of hurried preparations for sailing for Europe in the hope of relief from my own depression of health. The chief anxiety that I shall have while away lies in the fear that you will over-exert yourself in efforts to accomplish in the best possible way, by personal activity, what it would be much better to make sure of accomplishing in a way tolerable for the time being, by a larger use of your mental, administrative and delegating ability.

This is what I wish:

First, that no duty shall be put upon you that can, without great risk of serious permanent disaster, be entrusted to any one else. It would be an outrageous shame for you to have anything to do at this time with such matters as rough grading, road-making, or any provisional and temporary operations. These are not matters that require your special professional superintendence. You should be compelled to give attention at this time only to your special professional finishing operations.

Second, your work of the next few weeks after the Doctor is satisfied to have you out, should at first wholly, and afterwards mainly, be done while your body is reposing on a mattress in a boat, and while you are observing and giving directions as far as you can, under such circumstances, with the exclusive purpose of getting the mass of required planting done as early as possible, in a wholesale and comprehensive way; leaving the adjustment of details to be [499]afterwards attended to; mainly next Fall. A boat as convenient as possible for the business must be had, and it must be furnished and manned in a way that will allow you the greatest possible ease and comfort. Lying in a boat you can see all that it is desirable to see for this purpose and you will not be able to see just that which you should not be allowed, for the present, to interest yourself in. Lying in a boat your recovery may be hoped to advance. Going about in a wagon or on foot, your spine will be under constant physical irritation, and you will be liable at any moment to have a setback that will be utterly disabling and disastrous to the Exposition undertaking.

I have talked the business over with Mr. Codman, who will come to you in a day or two, prepared to insist on your confining yourself to the business which you alone are competent to direct, and upon your pursuing it with every possible aid and appliance that can be contrived.

Your ability to do your work with ease and comfort and without the exercise of personal energy and activity in the direct driving of it is, as matters stand now, the turning point in the success of our plans. You have had a sharp lesson as to your duty in this respect. I shall feel that it has been a fortunate occurrence if it has the effect upon you that it should, in teaching you to trust more to general instructions to your subordinates, and less to personal energy and activity in directing them and preventing their mistakes, and if it also compels the withdrawal from you of care for all operations of which you can reasonably be relieved.

Faithfully Yours