RICHARD RUSSELL

"December 10, 19--.

"MY DEAR BARBARA:--

"You have often asked me to write you something of myself, my youth, but
where shall I begin?

"I sometimes think that I must have been born facing backward, and a
fatality has kept me walking in that direction ever since, so wide a
space there seems to be to-day between myself and those whose age shows
them to be my contemporaries.

"My father, being a man of solid position both in commerce and society,
and having a far greater admiration for men of art and letters than would
have been tolerated by his wholly commercial Knickerbocker forbears, I,
his youngest child and only son, grew up to man's estate among the set of
contemporaries that formed his world, men of literary and social parts,
whose like I may safely say, for none will contradict, are unknown to the
rising generation of New Yorkers; for not only have types changed, but
also the circumstances and appreciations under which the development of
those types was possible.

"In my nineteenth year events occurred that altered the entire course of
my life, for not only did the almost fatal accident and illness that laid
me low bar my study of a profession, but it rendered me at the same time,
though I did not then realize it, that most unfortunate of beings, the
semi-dependent son of parents whose overzeal to preserve a boy's life
that is precious, causes them to deprive him of the untrammelled manhood
that alone makes the life worth living.

"I always had a bent for research, a passion for following the history of
my country and city to its fountain heads. I devoured old books,
journals, and the precious documents to which my father had ready access,
that passed from the attic treasure chests of the old houses in decline
to the keeping of the Historical Society. As a lad I besought every gray
head at my father's table to tell me a story, so what more natural, under
the circumstances, than that my father should make me free of his
library, and say: 'I do not expect or desire you to earn your living; I
can provide for you. Here are companions, follow your inclinations, live
your own life, and do not be troubled by outside affairs.' At first I
was too broken in health and disappointed in ambition to rebel, then
inertia became a habit.

"As my health unexpectedly improved and energy moved me to reassert
myself and step out, a soft hand was laid on mine--the hand of my mother,
invalided at my birth,