George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[505] yourself. Perhaps, under your present circumstances, you may imagine, you may persuade yourself, that no parents can feel more for their children than you feel for your parents, and your near friends and relations. I hope, my son, you will never have such sensations, such pangs for us as we have felt, and still feel, for you, exposed as you are to temptations, to sickness, and loss of life. We pray God to preserve your life, and return you to the arms and affections of your parents and friends. . . . .

April 24.—. . . . [As to the time of his return.] I have always meant, whenever I wrote you, to leave it altogether with you; but to extend it beyond four years from the time you left I did not feel willing. But I have consented, in several letters, to your remaining abroad long enough to qualify yourself for the two professorships, and to remain till you were satisfied that you had done your duty. We have consented to this deprivation altogether for your good, for your happiness, my son, and for that of the public, while, at the same time, no one so much desires to see, and embrace, and enjoy the society of their son as we do; but we feel we are called, at this time, to make sacrifices which we before had never thought of. Now, you see, my son, I am explicit enough to be perfectly understood, and that you do, as to the time, as you think best. Make yourself happy and comfortable. Shun everything that does not lead to improvement; keep yourself from temptation; be just and honest; love your father and mother, as you always have done; remember your friends, they certainly don't forget you.

January 17, 1819.—I wrote you on the first inst. by way of New York, my dearest, my best of sons, to give you the distressing intelligence of the death of your beloved mother; and no mother, I trust, was ever loved better by a son than she was by you, and no mother, I believe, ever loved a son better than she loved you. But she is gone, I trust, to a better world . . . . . I am now very anxious and very uneasy to hear from you, and I grow more and more so as the time of your absence draws nigher and nigher the close. Notwithstanding my feelings, I can't consent to your placing yourself upon the high seas for home till the best season for crossing the Atlantic arrives. Then, I pray you, my son, put yourself on board a sound ship, with a trusty and an intelligent captain, and come home in God's own time . . . . . Your sainted, your now glorified mother often spoke of the season of your return in the spring; and, especially in the latter part of her sickness,—when her strength was so gone as to her it appeared impossible she could ever recover,—she begged I