The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1925-07-09
HSsFXH
EXCURSIONS IN
CORRESPONDENCE
By THOMAS ARKLE CLARK
Dean of Men, University of Illinois.
Timely and Unexpected
Letters

Letters
THERE are notices in the daily pa
L per this morning of Donald
Mounts marriage, of John Gaston's
election to a very important public Of
fee, and of the death of Gerald Jones
mother. 1 have known these young
fellows well in past years, but they
have lately drifted away from my i'm
mediate acquaintance. 1 owe them no
particular obligations; we are not in
any sense close friends, and yet these
announcements of marriage and death
and political preferment give me a
chance, If | wish, to do q gracious and
q courteous thing.
I know it would please Mount If I
should write him a letter Of congratu-
lation and it would encourage Jones',
who has been working hard for some
time for public favor, and it would
comfort CASTOR to get from me a letter
of sympathy, for / knew his mother
very well and can realize what her
loss will mean to him.
But If | do these things l must not
delay. One cannot with propriety
write a Christmas letter in July or a
birthday congratulation when the year
Is half gone. Unless such a letter is
written on time it were better usually
not to write it at all.
| should have acknowledged the
book that was emf me by Lois Simp-
sons publishers, for I knew very well
at the time that it was by her direc-
ton that it was done, but l did not,
and now that the time is past and she
herself, perhaps, forgotten the whole
incident, l may better forget 1t myself.
Mrs. Kfrkpatrick's solo in church
this morning was beautifully sung; 1
can say so to her or not as I choose,
but If | write her at all it must be to-
day. 1t would seem a joke to do it q
week or a month later.
l had a letter from Charles Boyd
last week-a most unexpected letter.
[ haven't seen him or heard from him
since we were boys, more than thirty
years ago. We went to school to-
gether; we paid attention to the same
girls, and took them to dances and
singing school and revival meetings.
We were inseparable- for a time, and
then | went one way and he another,
and the girls married neither of us.
He's a thousand miles away now
and more, but he had seen my picture
or something about me in a metropoli-
tan paper that came to his hand, and
ne had decided to write me.
1t was like going back to my youth
again to get his message. He recount
ed many of the escapades Of which we
had been a part; he asked questions
about the old friends with whom we
used to scour the prairies, and he told
me briefly about his family and what
he had been doing during the years
that had interviewed since we we're to-
1t was a gracious thing for him to
do to write me-the more so because
writing letters is rather out of his line
Of business-and 1 appreciated 1T very
much. 1t gives me pleasure still to re-
read his letter and to live over again
IN doing so the events of long ago.
AT Christmas time Nancy and I get
4 bushel basket full of letters and
cards from people we know and have
znown. They come to us from all Over
world where the young men and
he young women whom we have
Known are making a name and a home
or themselves. We like them all and
'ead their messages with interest and
Most of them we could an
icipate, for the writer's have been
us pleasant messages for
1t is the unexpected ones that
'lease us most, those which come from
who, we had supposed, had for
often us years ago or who had no OBJ
to write us at all.
/ was thinking about Williams q few
weeks ago. I do not know why he
into my Enthusiastically pos
IDLY might explain it. I knew he was
in an unknown part of the world
him engaged in a new business. I'd
cen in just such a position myself
nirty years ago, and 1 could recall
lst how discouraged / used to get
nd how much l felt like throwing up
he sponge and going home. Perhaps
e was discouraged, too, at this time;
e is young and inexperienced.
l hunted up his address and wrote
I'm a cheerful, newsy letter. / told
i'm a little of my own experience
ears before and metaphorically
appel him on the back and told him
go ahead and win out as I was sure
2 would. He wrote me later that he
as just on the point Of quitting when
Y letter came, but it was just the i'm
etus that he needed to stir him on. -
e was going at it, he said, and he r
as sure he would make a go Of it.
vas the timely and the unexpected
tfar fhof hoA @ ounH hin,