| Title: | W.K. Harshaw, Paterson NJ, to John Harshaw, Ringclare, Co Down |
|---|---|
| ID | 1342 |
| Collection | Irish Emigration Database |
| File | Harshaw, W. K/19 |
| Year | 1895 |
| Sender | Harshaw, W.K. |
| Sender Gender | male |
| Sender Occupation | unknown |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | Paterson, New Jersey, USA |
| Destination | Co. Down, N.Ireland |
| Recipient | Harshaw, John |
| Recipient Gender | male |
| Relationship | brothers |
| Source | T 1505/3: Copied by Permission of Ulster Folk Museum, Cultra Manor, County Down. #TYPE EMG W.K. Harshaw, Paterson, N.J. [New Jersey?], America, to John [Harshaw?], [Ringclare, County Down?], 24 Oct.[October?] 1895. |
| Archive | Public Record Office, Northern Ireland |
| Doc. No. | 9005215 |
| Date | 24/10/1895 |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | EMG |
| Log | 22:05:1990 JMR created 20:08:1991 SE input 21:08:1 |
| Word Count | 1415 |
| Genre | |
| Note | |
| Transcript | To: "Master John," [Ringclare, County Down?] From: W.K. Harshaw Paterson N.J. [New Jersey?] America’ Oct [October?] 24th 1895 Master John A letter from Robert last week gives an account of his visit to the north, from which he had just returned. He speaks of the appearance of the old Milltown house and surroundings, and of the many traces of decay which appear to be settling on everything thereabouts abouts. He also speaks of his visit to you and your household, and of the favorable impression he got of everyone connected therewith, some of whom he had never met before. But when he got to speak of yourself he did not report so favorably of your health. Heretofore when he has been saying anything about you it has always been "how strong and [v?]igorous you were - how many miles you had walked rather than be hampered with a conveyance; and what even spirits you maintained, whether at home or abroad - out for relaxation or at home with your friends!" So that now to hear of your being to, some extent, disabled and forced to lie by, is contrary to all our ideas about you. I cannot associate the idea of weakness or decrepitude with any recollection of you - you who were always so strong and robust and compact! It seems but a brief time since I saw you, and such as I saw you then is my idea of you now, and everything that mars this recollection of you and represents you as changed and weakening seems unnatural, and almost impossible to be realized by me. And besides, you occupy such a central position in regard to the rest of the family that we all seem to gravitate around you - to rest upon you with confidence, as on a sure foundation, and to look to you in every uncertainty and emergencies as "guide philosopher and friend." As my father stood a head and shoulders above all his children in all the attributes of conduct and character, so I include all of us, since my father's and mother's time, have regarded you in his place, the head and examplar [exemplar?] and director to all of us. And as we are aware, and no doubt have experienced, that it is the mother that chiefly keeps alive the home feeling, and is the centre to which the children specially gravitate, so since my mother's death, you have in great measure, constituted that home centre of mother feeling to which we all turned with a restful and confident dent home feeling. It would be a great calamity an unsettling of the ancient landmarks if any thing should occur to you to weaken this commanding and exclusive relation that you occupy towards all of us. It would be, indeed, dissolving ties that never could be renewed - it would be removing the last rays of light and glory reflected from the beautiful past that still linger about the Loughorne and Milltown and Ring-clare hill. Early days, early associations, early enjoyments - the places and faces that made all these ever memorable to us, all these are represented and personified to us specially in you, and if you should be taken away how much of the life of all of us would go with you; and how intensely all of us remaining would realize that a new world had opened to us that had little relation and but little resemblance to that beautiful world of memory to which you and I and others of Milltown nativity belong. "Sheep without a Shephard [Shepherd?]" would be the position of those near you and dependant on your guidance and advice, while to myself and to those away from Milltown home influences it would be the sense of a strong protector withdrawn, a reliable counsellor removed. In connection with the possible breaking down of your health, the thought comes over one as a cloud of how little I have been able - [shall I say, permitted] to do towards aiding you through some of the hard conditions of life that, I suppose have fallen to your lot. Looking back now from the standpoint of the present, and from an American standard, how little, it seems, would have been necessary to have smoothed some of the roughplaces, and ministered to your comfort and enjoyment, How intently I have wished, month after month, year after year, that God would have enabled me to be the agent of such ministration. But the decision of fate was otherwise, and the hopes of my heart, my thoughts and dreams and longings in this direction have all been destined to disappointment. Truly the ways of Providence are only to be seen as in a glass darkly! And however much our judgment and our reason may incline, we are forced to conclude that His ways are not as our ways or His thoughts as ours. It has been and is a favorite argument, and generally accepted as a conclusive, one in support of immortality - future existence - that God had emplanted [implanted?] in the human soul desires - longings for such a future state, and the argument is that God would not have emplanted [implanted?] such feelings in the human soul unless he had intended gratifying them. He would not have emplanted [implanted?] the faculty unless He had designed the state and conditions adapted to the exercise of the faculty. But how weak and inconclusive this argument seems in the face of many of our experiences. How particularly weak it appears in the presence of my own experience! Here I have been formed with most intense home-feelings - feelings that cluster around all home associations with a deep and yearning longing beyond conception; and that would have made the comfort, the advancement, the prosperity of those connected with the old Milltown home the greatest earthly enjoyment of my life. Yet here it is that this faculty of enjoyment emplanted [implanted?] in my nature, and developed under the most favorable conditions of development, is not allowed, seemingly, to have any scope or opportunity for its legitimate exercise. The faculty is here but circumstances are such that it is held back, and rigidly excluded from the indulgance [indulgence?] of its proper exercise. Is it Addison that says: "whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, this longing after immortality!" with equal reason I might say: "Ah, this pleasing hope, this fond desire, this longing after more intimate association with those of my father's house, and into more helpful relations towards them!" In my case the "longing" has been but imperfectly satisfied. are the intimations of the cravings of the human soul for a continued, or pensioned existence equally unreliable and inconclusive! How the years rush on us! Sixteen years ago I saw you and others about Donaghmore, strong and vigorous, with no symptoms of age upon you. Now the prospect is changed and you are all reported as growing old and growing feeble. I cannot think of you otherwise than as I saw you last. And even this recollection of you is blended with recollections of you as you were in the old Milltown days when all the days were golden, and a better race peopled the earth. How short the space seems in looking back to '79 [1879?] or even the earlier period referred to. Although I myself am approaching the three-score-and-ten limit, yet I cannot fully realise that the allotted period of a life time is behind me, and behind so many of you who started on the journey about the same times. Harder still is it to realise that a change, the change of advancing years will come to all of you no matter how fixed and vivid the pictures of you carried in our memories may be. You yourself are so identifed with the roads and fields about the Milltown, Loughorne, Ring-clare, Annabawn, Ardkeragh &c. that we cannot think of you not being able to walk those ways, and I know they would not be the same to me if I ever I should be priviledged [privileged?] to visit them again and not find you there. If the weakened state that Robert speaks of your having put on when he saw you has passed away I wish you would write to me. Nobody gives the local news as succinctly as you do But I will be more interested in hearing about yourself, and exultingly interested if you are able to report great improvement in your health and strength and spirits- Ever Sincerely. W. K. Harshaw |
