198 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



the very first condition of health, and I did not dream of 

 your touching the Botany except when you felt like it, and 

 would rather, from intrinsic pleasure, work at it than not. 

 It would, no doubt, be very well, but I care little for it — 

 nothing, absolutely nothing, for it in comparison with your 

 comfort. I think there is a great deal in Spencer's sug- 

 gestion, that if you make a business of amusement you can 

 get interested in it ; and to get thus interested in something 

 would be your salvation. So pray take it up systematically, 

 cost what it will ; that is nothing, literally less than nothing, 

 in the scale of benefits. I shall get seventy-five dollars a 

 night this winter, and sometimes one hundred dollars. Am 

 beginning to realize the fruition of long labour and long 

 weary waiting, in all of which you have shared, and in all of 

 which you must continue to share. Take Jay and go to 

 the theatre every night, to the minstrels, the wax figures, 

 the workhouse, and I think that last will be an excellent 

 place to go to for change. Be assiduous in taking it easy. 

 1 have thought latterly that the Botany was perhaps a mis- 

 take ; you had got deeper in and further on with the Psy- 

 chology — that would have worked itself. Say to Jay to go 

 in for nervous system and brains. If Huxley does as he has 

 a mind to in treating subjects, so may his partner. 'Brains 

 are the things, and are coming up. I have got some brains 

 in Dynamics of Life, and they tell. Say further to Jay to 

 have as good a time as he can get and while he can get 

 it. . . . Our folks have come out Universalists. They say 

 they don't believe in any literal hell of real genuine fire, 

 and never did ! — which is the tallest kind of an orthodox fib. 



Shortly after his return from England Youmans 

 received a letter from his friend, the Rev. Dr. Bellows, 

 of New York, urging him to accept a non-resident pro- 

 fessorship at the college founded by Horace Mann, at 

 Antioch, Ohio. His duties were limited to giving a 



