Princeton, Sept 10, 1909
To H. H. Alberts; in New York City:

MY DEAR ALBERTS, — I was in New York five days ago, and Webster
mentioned the Library. The memory struck me like the dull bells of
St. Paul's at Lauds; our evenings spent over pipe and page. It did
my heart a great deal of ease to reflect fondly on our common
time, but shocked me in the same moment with the realization of
the gap that time has eroded between us. I knew at once that I
must mend the condition and so set to paper at this earliest
opportunity.

It seems strange to me now to conjure up my image of you,
bolstered in stiff tweed, fresh as only spring linen can be. In my
minds eye you are still but two and twenty. How foolish time makes
us all seem, my friend. Do you still wear the penciled mustache?
I, for one, am no small matter changed from what you must surely
picture—though perhaps you saw the portrait done of me in the
Times last year. Still, with all that our venerability has brought
us, we cannot condemn the stray wrinkle or spot, can we?

Coincidence as it may seem, Webster's words were not the only
cause of my rumination. —Here's a secret. A most curious event
that occurred just a few weeks prior to my trip to the City. Read
these things, but don't mention them, I implore you.

Last fall, my old mother—then 72—took a notion to attend a
convention of old settlers of the rural town whence she lived all
these years gone by. My brother's wife was astonished; and
represented to her the hardships and fatigues of such a trip, and
said my mother might possibly not even survive them; and said
there could be no possible interest for her in such a meeting and
such a crowd. But my mother insisted, and persisted; and finally
gained her point. I, being still on summer holiday, was
volunteered to accompany the antediluvian woman. We started; and
all the way my mother was young again with excitement, interest,
eagerness, anticipation. We reached the town and the hotel without
incident. As I prepared to retire to my room, she burst forth with
a strange wellspring of energy such as I haven't seen in years. It
was her desire, as she put it, to venture forth right away. There
was no stopping the old broad, Alberts! Weary as I was, it is the
duty of every good and faithful christian to honor his parent,
especially in their aged state; and so with great aplomb I offered
my hand and did as she bid; went forth.

I shall not bore you with the many stoppings here and there which
ate up our afternoon, but instead press forward to the event at
the center of the incident. Upon the corner of two crossing
backstreets in my mother's home town there stands a general store.
It is one of those typical american centerpieces that is becoming
more and more sparse. It struck me as an utterly wholesome
building if buildings might be offered up such a morality: square
windows, wide door, whitewashed porch complete with a rocking
chair. It is, frankly, the very essence of America that is missing
from the soul of my academic home in Princeton. I digress—

Inside the store was a hodgepodge. Silk stockings, frock coats,
knickers suits— and O! the books. I was crazy as a bedbug in
those piles. Mother had wandered off doing— Search me— I was
too absorbed in what I'd found. There, in a pile of haphazard
novels and remedy books, was the Diary. At first I didn't
recognize it; after all, it has been almost thirty years. Thirty
years since the three of us sat down and started writing it as
what— a joke? I can't even recall anymore. It was like the joke
was being played on me in that store, Alberts. How could it
possibly be there, waiting for me like that. You remember what we
did, what we did with it.

To be honest, I was shaken deeply, but then mother was there again
twittering on about a shell necklace and marigolds. The moment had
passed. I won't lie to you. I took the diary with me in my coat
pocket. It didn't feel right to pay for something we started—
something I thought we finished. It's here with me now, in my
study. I still haven't worked up the courage to open it past the
first page.

Alberts, I am distraught. For all the world you are the only one I
can talk to now, and yet the years have crept between us. Have you
had any word from him since that night, since we burned the diary?

The school is once again in session and I must head to a lecture,
so I shall bid you well. A hundred students of history will stare
down at me in a few moments and I must compose myself before my
own history consumes me.

Truly Yours, J. L. Harrison
.