Well, here I sit smoking my faithful briar pipe, indulging in the
fragrance of my tobacco as I look out on the campus from my many-paned
window, and things are different with me from the way they were way
back in Freshman year. I can see now how boyish in many ways I was
then. I believe what has changed me as much as anything was my visit
home at the time I met you. So I sit here with my faithful briar and
dream the old dreams over as it were, dreaming of the waltzes we
waltzed together and of that last night before we parted, and you told
me the good news you were going to live there, and I would find my
friend waiting for me, when I get home next summer.
I will be glad my friend will be waiting for me. I am not capable of
friendship except for the very few, and, looking back over my life, I
remember there were times when I doubted if I could feel a great
friendship for anybody--especially girls. I do not take a great
interest in many people, as you know, for I find most of them shallow.
Here in the old place I do not believe in being hail-fellow-well-met
with every Tom, Dick, and Harry just because he happens to be a
classmate, any more than I do at home, where I have always been
careful who I was seen with, largely on account of the family, but
also because my disposition ever since my boyhood has been to
encourage real intimacy from but the few.
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