Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-01-13


Now. it happened that. several years be-
fore. 1 had had little experience with the
practice of making friends by letter When
j went east to college 1 carried a note to
some people in Boston. / presented it, and
j am confident that no explorer of the
Arctic regions ever encountered a lower
temper allure than that which enveloped my
welcome. Now, as 1 understand a letter of
Introduction, ii is a sort of a sight-draft,
friendship being the consideration, drawn
by your friend on the stranger. which you
are empowered to colect-if you can. Your
success depends upon several things; your
friends credit with the stranger for one:
the strangers general solvency-that is.
his capacity for friendship-for another
and his opinion of you collector, for a
third The whole transaction seems 70 me
loose and Irregular, and the risk falls en-
ureiy on the unfortunate bearer of the
letter, who usually takes the thing on its
face value.
A, first. I tried by various evasions to
get out of accepting these letters But it
would not WCVK. People seemed to think
that they were coEferring some enormous
favor on me, wien, with the natural mod
esty OF you-h l was seeking to decline.
the more 1 -lelI of the greater was their
zeal IN my behalf, and in several in
stances, L am confident, il resulted in nv
naSinS letters foree1 upon me which would
Otherwise nave been forgotten What could
do? Nobody ever heard OF such a thing
as declining a letter of introduction-it
wculd be equivalent 10 saying: Il don't
want 10 meet your friend: he may be good
enough for you, but / nave no use for
MN 50 L accepted all that were offered
and concealed my true sentiments under
AL expansive MASK of gratitude
Inc number OF these epistles increased
with surprising rapIdity. For not only did
al my trends aHd relatives write them
a
ABOUT asking rG-,3!e, TO whom L was an
utter strlnser, -,T letters which should
MAKE me XII a - their friends in Calf
fornia- Then *. were some letters which
came Spont;~ = Iusly rom the most unex-
pected quar- Fer eX >ruule a friend
Would meet H,e All say:
You don't know Col. Jim Fairfax. do
your o'
NO: / DON'T
Well he tod lie the other day he had a
friend out oa III. coast that he would like
you 10 meet-hs had heard somewhere of
your Cantornia trip. SO he gave me a. let-
Ter OF introductioIi-here il u.s. It's to the
ZION PATRICK Casey-a member OF the leyis-
1AtuFe- L th-.TN-1 him, knowing that Won
would feel graf tdl for the attention
Certainly" L answered, but as / never
he S AZ"
oh. that was all right He just wrote
see?'' i''eno Ok MS.
opened the letter and saw. II was cal.
culated 10 deceive the Hon Patrick into tb,
%a 'haI Colonel Jim ana / were like
OaHoh ana Pythlas. L ShudderinsIy added
the letter 10 the heap, and L mention in
now only as a sample Of its class
Al last, when 1 was ready to start. the
puhdie OF letters had grown so large thar
1t positively frightened me- Indeed ar tinnes
l was half resolved to abandon the trim
soieiy on account of the premonition of evil
tnat swept over me whenever 1 contem-
plated that awful heap. But / had now
gone too FAR to back out, and depositinS,
the letters in one corner of NV trunk 1
TOOK my departure. There was a crowd at
xne station to see me off, and the last thing
cry Of. d
BE sure and present nv letter To-"
,Ot course the request was superfuous-
IKE most thing said at partings-for the
reason that had already solemnly prom
Aseu each one that / would deliver his letter
In the quiet solitude of the first DAYS
ride, had nothing to do but think and the
bundle of letters provided me with s,,biect
matter They constituted a problem whose
vexatous conditions drove me half dis
tracted. ~
II failed to deliver thern--or N mai. =.
least an honest effort in behalf of each~I
should break my promise to a number ~
people whose good opinion I held I'm high
esteem. IL would never do for me deliber-
ateiy TO admit. on my return that I had
scorned to make acquaintance with their
friends, or that i had been liz sensible 70
their Kindness in giving me the letters. On
L
manufacture excuses delicate enough 10 90
around Having been trained to truth from,
my boyhood. lacked the imaginative now
er which Is needed for artistic mer5acitv
In fact. was likely to find myself In the
same embarrassing situa ton that Is satd to
nave overcome the Father of his Count y,.
could not tell a lie-that would get me cut
OF the scrane.
So finally settled II in nv own mind
that 1 must present all the letters
Then the other born of the dirornu, he
gan to gore me-. Here were a lot of raor,a
who knew nothing Of me. nor 7 OF then,
was expected to hunt them ID at n yraat
EXPENSE ~ time and trouble and deliver 10
them letter apiece all around after tba
fashion OF a conscientious and irupar +faI
mailman. But that was not all These LET
tiers practically involved demand on nv
part. for attentions. based on a ie-ue-sais
ouoi relationship between the sender and the
recipient. Being a very young man 7 was
somewhat sensitive the score of snubs
ana ] saw them looming up in unlimited
numbers throughout the whole situation
The Boston experience was liable to be re-
PEI ted on 2 rnp gnffCeut scale
The second day out I became acquainted
with several Of my fellow-pa ssengers One
OF them, bright. young New Yorker, BY