Letter from Asahel Hart Woodruff, 22 July 1838
Terre Haute .
Sunday A. M.
Ever dear brother.
I have now before me three unanswered letters from you having
dates, "Vinal Haven March 10th" "Scarborough May 2thnd" and Farmington
June 26th 1838. From one so prone to complain of the neglect of correspondents as
I am, such delinquency as this comes with a bad grace, and I would offer an
apology for an excuse, but then I hate excuses, and so will substitute an expl-
anation. I have not been inattentive to your letters nor have I lacked a feeling of
deep interest in them, but I have so weighed them. And have so felt the importance
of the subject which has generally and mainly employed your pen that I have des-
ired to return appropriate answers. And hence have delayed from day to day and
from week to week for time to do justice to your favors untill so much matter
has accumulated upon which I should be pleased to communicate my reflections
that I fear my pen recoils as I now attempt to direct it. I have been so
kindly disposed towards you as to pass the "firm resolve" to answer your every letter, and
to give you line for line and thought for thought nay morey—I have laid other
plans for your entertainment and perhaps amusement. I have designed giving you such
details of "the way the world has gone with me" since I parted with you at Richland,
that you would be enabled to see before you as "large as life" your little brother,
and comprehend the object of his existence but I have deferred the matter untill
I should have "a more convenient season" and so time which waiteth for no
man has imperceptibly glided away while I have not discharged ^even^ the immediate
duties of brother to brother much less have I accomplished thou high designs
which I had conceived for your gratification as the unaffected offerings
of friend to friend. And this is but the history of my whole concern
fromFrom my earliest life I have been continually laying plans for future
("greatness", shall I say?) nay whatever may have been my frailties and foibles
I have not had ^added^ the folly of aspiring to greatness., my plans have been
of future goodness and usefulness. In early life I became enamoured of the
charms of virtue, and the aspirations of my heart were after goodness and truth
my ambition led me to aspirey—high indeed—but after humility and meekness
and it was in the lowliness of my mind that at a very tender age I well remem-
ber feeling the kindlings of a virtuous pride in anticipations of future goodness
and usefulness. But ah! how sadly have my well formed but ill timed plans
been frustrated The accursed spirit of procrastination has been the canker
worm of my degradation, What has been to me the duty of to day has been
made the business of to morrow. And to morrow has not come!!
I am aware that it is common place confession to speak of one's misimproved time,
And to acknowledge the sin and folly of procrastination is but a modest way
of intimating that we are not righteous over much but brother it is the history
of scenes of no common folly and neglect that I here divulge and if you could
perceive as I feel the sickly barrenness of my mind and the polluted sinfulness
of my heart and could be persuaded as I am that it is all the result of
putting off untill to morrow the business of to day you would indeed [groan]
at my calamity. It is a fact that in relation to the acquisition of knowledge
from books and from observation, to the cultivation of my mind by the
proper exercise of my intellect, to the encouragement of virtuous disposition
in my heart and the inclination to become good and win, as well
as in relation to the management of pecuniary matters and all things
appertaining to my life and the various relations I have procrastinated
every thing but my folly.
