CLARA BARTON GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE Harbour, J.L. & family Nov. 1901-Oct. 1911 and undated4 I have not the ability nor the force of character to do practical work for humanity but I sometimes count myself as a small public benefactor because of the merriment I have been able to put into this world. Do tell me that you think that the ability to make people giggle is of real value for I really want to feel that I am of some use in this world. "Blessed be humor!" I feel confident that your own sense of humor has sustained you in many a trying situation. Referring again to my father, I may say that if you ever meet a Randolph Harbour [*J.L.Harbour*] [*33 Harbour*] [*&c early picture*] 3 Bowdoin Avenue. Dorchester, Mass. Nov. 12- 1901. My dear Miss Barton: I shall long remember my delightful Sunday evening with you, and with the remembrance will come an overpowering curiosity regarding your meeting with my father, Randolph Harbour. I got the impression that you had really met him, and if you are ever inclined to tell me more about the matter I shall be2 eagerly interested in the information. I feel inclined to offer some sort of an apology for my boisterousness when telling some of my stories on Sunday evening. My overpowering love of fun often leads me into unseemly conduct and I go almost to the extreme lengths of my merry friend, Miss Sanborn of whom I told you. I have not yet been down to Mrs. Read's for my autograph book. 3 I shall be so glad to have your autograph in it and if you will sometime let me have your photograph to add to the autograph I shall be very much your debtor. But a great part of the world is your debtor because of all that you have done for suffering humanity. I went yesterday afternoon to a meeting commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Dr. Samuel Howe whose life was also lived for unfortunate humanity. It is the best life to live.5 born from Oskalaoosa, Iowa, you certainly met my father for there were no Harbours in Oskaloosa but my own family. Perhaps I imagine it, but it seems to me that far back in my boyhood I have heard my father speak of you. I have a vague impression of that kind, and when I met you at Mrs. Reed's it was as if I had met some one whom I had always known. I certainly me some one whom I shall always remember with great pleasure, and whom I hope to meet again. Cordially yours, J.D. Harbour. I am taking the liberty of sending you my latest story. Glen Echo, Maryland. February 5, 102. Mr. L.D. Harbour, 3 Bowdoin Ave., Dorchester, Mass. My dear Mr. Harbour: You have long concluded that, like the rest of the feminine world, I was false and fickle and had forgotten you. If that is really the case, I hope you have not taken it too much at heart and will be able to learn, with cheerfulness, that your apprehensions were entirely groundless, and I question if you have, among friends of so recent date, many in whose thoughts you enter more often or with a warmer welcome than in my own. I must tell you a characteristic of mine which is troublesome both to myself and my friends. It is like this : Of all the friendly letters which I receive those that bring the most real joy to me are the ones always delayed, always made to wait for the moment in which I can say to the writer what I want to say, those I denominate the "hard letters". Those that I care less for and are of no particular importance, are answered immediately and forgotten, but the ones that I prize most lie and lie upon my table where my hand can touch them, where my eye rests on them day by day and I wait and wait for the better moment that, in some instances, it grieves my heart to tell you, never came until the icy hand closed the door, which shall not be so with this, but if it had been an ordinary interview that we had, I should have written you long ago. If my dear friend, it had been you who sought the interview, then it would probably have been treated like the others, but it was not you at all, you were sent to me and before we separated that night I knew it, as I know it now. When I asked of you your father's name, I knew what you, would tell me; I knew who you were, and, if you remember, I told you that I did, and I knew why you came to me; I knew why there was no space in all that room for anyone but you and me that evening. You say you gathered the impression that I had really met your father. Your impression is correct, I really met Randolph Harbour, and in doing so I met one of nature's noblemen, and when, in reply to your query as to the personal appearance of the Mr. Harbour I had met, I told you he was of ordinary sizeL.D.H. 2. and manner, I did it to mislead and to draw you out, for no one ever saw him who did not remember the tall, manly figure that betokened the soul within it. I know where your love of fun comes from; I know who gave birth to the merriment that charms your whole circle of friends; I know how you came by the humor that you cannot withhold; it is as irresistable to you as to others, an honest inheritance, more valuable than gold. Some day, I trust we shall meet and I shall tell you what I know and have known of the honored father whose memory we cherish. In all probability, the capacity for and the comprehension of humor in its highest sense, was one strong point between your father and me. I could appreciate it, and you are right in the belief that it has carried me through the dark paths of life which have been given me to walk; with a nature almost too sensitive to bear the common vicissitudes of life, it has enabled me to meet the most uncommon. I shall send you the photograph which is most fit for you, not the one that the regular photograph gatherer clamors for as the latest, the latest, Oh no! I shall send you the one that would come the nearest to fitting the eye of him who sent you for it, the one that he would come nearest to recognizing, and you will accept it for what it is, not as yours, but his. You say you sent me your latest story, I do not think I have received it, I know I have not, but I have been much away from home and things get lost in the shuffle of life. Anything you will send me will always be more than welcome, and I hope you will not forget to do so. I am just now, and have been, burdened with requests from societies, social, literary, ambitious and otherwise, for "a sketch", "an address", "a few words", something to help out what they have undertaken, until I sometimes feel that they leave no life of my own to me. I cannot get the time, aside from these little social and society affairs, to write even an article for some publications that would be worthy of writing for. I remember painfully the fact of which I spoke to you, that I have been unable to find a moment for sone pleasant words for The Youths' Companion. I take courage from the fact that you sent a story to me to send one of my little ones to you. It was written offhand for a local society here in Washington of which I am a member, and it never would have seen printer's ink only for the fact that, in their so-called Bazaar, they issued a few numbers of articles which they had desired to have written on various subjects, and mine is included among the rest as the recollection of a happy moment. I wondered, after I saw that they printed it, if it perhaps would have been acceptable to The Youths' Companion as a simple, child-like bit of history. If so, I would have been glad for them to have it, and the fact of its having been run through a printing press here, entirely local, never reaching out of Washington, would scarcely do it any harm for a wider circulation. If I can lay my hand on a copy of it, I will send it to you, in the hope that it will draw something of yours for me. Glen Echo, Maryland. February 7, 1902. Mr. L. D. Harbour, 3 Bowdoin Ave., Dorchester, Mass. My dear Mr. Harbour: In mailing my letter of yesterday to you, I quite forgot to enclose the little "story" which I was to send to you as a feeler for yours to me. It was only a little thought drawn from me by necessity, with not a particle of merit save its truthfulness. You have by this time received my volume of yesterday and are naturally tired if you have gone through with it, therefore I mercifully let you rest. When recovered, perhaps you will feel strength to let me hear from you. Very sincerely yours, Clara Barton Enclosure.L.D.H. 3. It is possible that this long drawn out letter may make you repent of my promise to write you at all, but your buoyant spirit will bear it and bear with me and one day I shall get a line back from you. Remember that I am glad of every joyous and jolly moment that you have ever had, it is helpful to the world, and I am going to trust that you will be helpful to me. In this confidence, permit me to remain, The friend of the old days and the new Clara Barton [*ansd March 9. 1902*] [*Fairfax Hotel - *] [*re lecture*] 3 Bowdoin Avenue. Dorchester, Mass. Feby 9- 1902. Dear Miss Barton: Your letter gave me a great deal of pleasure combined with some disappointment because of the things it did not contain about my good father. I do not feel that it would be right for me to urge you to gratify my eager curiosity when you evidently have some good reason for notwishing to do so just now. I shall simply await your good pleasure in regard to the matter feeling confident that in the remote and contingent "sometime" you will tell me all. It is good of you to take so much time out of your busy life to write me such a long and sweet letter. I shall always keep it and no one but myself and my own dear wife shall see it. I am glad that your association with my father was such that you remember him so kindly and even so tenderly after the lapse of so many years. He was a warm-hearted man and was capable of very strong and enduring friendship. I have some sort of a vague, indefinite impression that I have heard him speak your name and I think that I wrote you in my other letter that he named his first little girl Clara. I am sure that in your own good time you will tell me all about your acquaintance with my father to whom I owe much for bequeathing to me his own happy, sanguine temperament. I have just been down to Mrs. Reid's and she has given me the photogravureand the copy of your report you were so good as to send me, I shall wait with great interest & eagerness the coming of the picture you are to send me for my father's sake. You cannot know how I shall prize it. I believe with you that our meeting at Mrs. Reid's was not any chance affair. I had planned something else for that Sunday evening, but I simply felt impelled to go & see you, and I had my father in mind more that day than for many months. I was thinking of him when I rang 2 3 BOWDOIN AVENUE. DORCHESTER, MASS the bell at Mrs. Reid's door and I had him in mind in a peculiarly impressive way while I was waiting for you to come down stairs. And when you came into the room I had none of the feeling one has on meeting a stranger. Indeed, I felt quit as if I had always known you and our meeting was simply a re-union after a long separation. Indeed I told my wife the next day that I felt as if I had known you all of my life. I shall get Handson's Psy[i]clical Phenomenaand see if he can explain it all to me. I am glad that you are well and enjoying the happiness that comes from being as constantly employed in things that help others and add to the growing good of the world. If mere industry could produce happiness I ought to be most happy, for I am sometimes at my desk at five in the morning, and the going down of the sun finds me there still. I must confess, however, that such extreme industry is more a matter of necessity than of inclination for I have a good deal of the somewhat sluggish blend of my southern ancestors in my veins, and I am really fond of pure idleness. I [can] achieve a great moral victory every time I work from morning until night for I really do not want to do it. But when a man has a delicate little wife and four children to his portion and nothing but his feeble pen guided by a feeble brain between them & the poor house this necessity of unceasing labor on his part must be apparent to you. My pen must scratchaway by night & day until it has put three boys and a dear little girl through college. I have need of my father's sanguine temperament with which to face a task like that, but I am facing it very cheerfully with gratitude for the abundant health and strength that a man must have to do all the work I do. Now I feel that it is every man's duty to do something for the general good of humanity and I am mixed up with all sorts of hospital, church and Sunday-school work. Three nights last week I burned the midnight oil getting wearisome annual reports out and three 3 hours of to-day were spent on a hospital report. I think that I average then committee meetings a month and how bothersome they are! I am about to venture forth in a new field, for on the 17th inst. in the town of Yarmouth, Maine, I make my first appearance as a lecturer. Do pray that my "sinews may not wax instant old," but that they "may bear me stiffly up" when I face my first audience. My little talk is called "Blessed be Humor" and there are all sorts of funny things in it. Do you think that I can make a "go" of it? I am impelled to undertakeit by reason of the fact that for sixteen years I have sat within the four wall of my little study and written "out of my head" until my brain was almost reeled. I feel that I am getting into a rut and that it is imperative that I should get out into the world. Babies and a short purse have left me [at the] from going beyond the limits of Boston, but my children are no longer babies, and, although my purse is still short & will never be long, I must manage to get out into the world more and a little lecturing will bring about that result. Then there is need of all of the merriment one can put into the world, and my talk has a 4 great deal of good-natured fun in it. I give it at Colby Academy on the 18th and probably in Portland on the 19th then I give it on the 12th of March at Mt. Holyoke College and by another season I hope to be a full fledged lecturer. I am so eager to get away from my desk more and with one boy entering Harvard in the fall and another one to enter next year I must turn all of my talents to account. I have three beautiful boys who have never given me a single disrespectful word or done a thing to grieve me. The two older boys were remarkable 5 I am hoping for another delightful letter from you in time, but I am not unreasonable enough to expect frequent letters from such a busy woman. I never count letters with people I like and the spirit may move me to write to you again before I have had a reply to this. Whether I do so or not, you my be sure that I am Ever your friend J.L. Harbour.[*Harbour*] Fairfax Hotel (Willard's), Washington, D.C. March 11, 1902. My dear Mr. Harbour: It isn't inclination that holds my pen still, but too much to do, and you are no stranger to that condition of things. I am twice your grateful debtor, I cannot tell you how grateful for the confidence that makes me know something of your own life, and its family cares, what occupies and impels you, for isn't that what makes up the lives of us "mortals here below"? I think I wrote you previous to my becoming a denizen of the city, for when I came to realize that all the world of women were coming to Washington for the month of February, I felt it incumbent on me to come too and accordingly took quarters at this hotel and joined in the busy throng. I am not going to give you even a resume of that wonderful month of women's work and women's progress. It was interesting to me to live over the old days when the boy reporter used to sit down with his fresh nibbed pen to watch his chance for ridicule, whenever a "woman's meeting" was announced to be held in some little hall or out of the way place, and the gusto with which he made up his article and walked out triumphantly in the certainty of amusing his readers and gratifying his employer. Now he sits down beside a girl or woman who reports alongside of him and all the little good grammar he ever knew is called into play to escape criticism and a reprimand from the speakers who refuse to be ungrammatically quoted, and request ye editor [*33*] [*J.L. Harbour*] Peterboro, New Hampshire, July 11, 1902 My dear Miss Barton: I am wondering when I am to have another one of your good letters, and I am hoping that its arrival will not be much longer delayed. I know that you are a busy woman and that you have journeyed far since last you wrote, and I do not know if you are again in your native land or not, but if you are and you have time and opportunity I shall hope to hear from you ere long. I am up here on the beautiful old New Hampshire hills for the summer and I hope that you are in an equallyto send better scholarship, at least, if he cannot supply better talent. I took my part, and spoke my piece with the rest from time to time, as the occasion demanded, and this brings me to your new vocation. I thank you for telling me so familiarly all about your proposed lecturing plan. You are now in the midst of your first venture, have faced your first audience (if indeed they are your first, which I suppose were very well prefaced by many an after dinner talk) and you have found if it suits you, if your lecture suits you, or if you want to change or to vary it, (you will constantly add to it) you will have learned what suits your audiences best and where the applause comes in, if it tires or strains your nerves, and if the prospect is that it "will pay". All this you will have learned since you last wrote me, and important epoch in your life, and how earnestly I hope it is all favorable. - I will tell you sometime about my first audience, it was not at all disastrous, nor even funny to any one but me, as I was the only one in the secret, but I laugh even now when I think of the mock gravity of the occasion. How rich you are in that family of children, children that give you only pleasure, and how soon the first years will pass and the first Harvard lad will be a man, winning his laurels and bringing you as much pride as he has ever done pleasure. You have, indeed, much to work for and much to be grateful for. Some lovely numbers of the Youths' Companion have come to me - one wants a whole day instead of a few minutes to spend with them - It is a wonderful publication, a wonderful success and power for good. I wish I could get the time, or had the talent, to write something worthy of its pages. delightful[ly] spot somewhere on the face of the earth. I cannot tell you how glad I was to escape from the stress and strain of city life, from church, hospital and committee work and the keeping of record books and to come to this lovely old farm on which I am spending my eighth summer. I came here all "frazzled out," but I am already feeling as if I had been "born again." I shall need to store up a deal of vitality for that lecturing venture of mine as you will think when I tell you that I already have sixty-nine engagements with the prospect of a hundred by the time the lecturing season opens. I shall tour Iowa from the second of November to the eighth of December when I must jump from Omaha, Nebraska, to Prividence, Rhode, Island. December and January will be given to the New England states and I am booked for nearly every night in February in Pennsylvania. I am hoping during that time to get so near Washington that I can spend a Sunday there. If this comes to pass I shall be sure to find my way out to Glen Echo which I am more anxious than ever to see now that I have read such an interesting account of it in the latest issue of The Delineator. I must hasten to add that I care more to see the good mistress of Glen Echo than the house itself, for I have such happy memories of our meeting in Boston and I am sure that you have much of interest to tell me about my father when the right time comes. It will be a great pleasure to me if that time comes in your own home. I could also tell you much about my father that would be of interest to you if you knew him as well as I think that you knew him. It would interest me very much to know something about your last journey across the seas, and I do not think that it would be in the least difficult for you to write me a delightful letter. I am sure that I am going to like my lecturing experience very much, and the fact that it promises to be very profitable is a fact of I have been going over some historical data of late, as I could catch a few moments, and I have been trying to date my first knowledge of your father and his family and home in the great new West, as he told me of it. Will you please tell me what and how and who it all was in 1858-'59 and 1860? What family he had then and tell me something of his own life after that, for I lost trace of him in the war, and never found him again. These little points will aid me in my research, for I am away from all my old records and correspondence. Is your mother living? What sisters have or had you? Tell me of our sister Clara, I do not think I knew of her. Perhaps you will observe that I may be an inquirer as well as yourself. One suggestion in your letter interests me very much, viz: That you may come to Washington this spring. I surely hope so, Cannot Mrs. Harbour come with you, see what is worth seeing in Washington, and hide away, when tired, in solitary, unkempt, country Glen Echo for a few days? The violets will begin to peep out of the warm wooded grass and dry leaves in a few weeks. My favorite woodpecker is already inspecting the condition of the old nest, they tell me, and the jays are like flashes of blue lightning. Thanks for the trouble of returning the little simple story. I never thought of it again. Another thing I want to thank you for, That you "don't count letters" of friendship, that is such a poor thing to do. If you like a friend and want to say something to them, why, for Heaven's sake, say it at any time. If, for any cause you cannot, or do not, pray that it be not stored up and set down against you. As well be offended at a person for not speaking when there is nothing to say, or no time to say it. I line, if only a line, will always come in like a gleam of sunshine, and with all the rain and sleet and gusts that drive in through the no little moment to a man with four children to [educat] educate. My oldest boy enters Harvard in the fall. He graduated from the Boston Latin School with very high honors winning no less than three prizes, one of them being for the best essay written by a member of the graduating class in which there were sixty boys. Then he won the Benjamin Franklin medal, and no boys in the school had a better record for deportment. He is not in the least like his father as you may suspect Now I must get to work on a Christmas tale. I do most of my Christmas work while I am up here iu this peaceful atmosphere where there are no interruptions of any sort. I shall be here until the first of September and it will add a good deal to the pleasure of my outing if I may have a long letter from the good friend to whom I am writing this. Faithfully yours, J. L. Harbour. cracks there are none too many of these. Apropos - "Meetings and reports" - "Tiresome", say you? From all evil and mischief, from sin, from the crafts and assaults of the Devil, Good Lord deliver us! From all blindness of heart, from pride, vanity, vain glory and hypocrisy, from envy, hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness, Good Lord deliver us! So endeth the chapter. Write sometimes, please. Yours in faith and trust, I am still looking for the photograph for my autograph book. J. L. H.[334 Boylston St.] [*answered August 18. 1902 J.L.Harbour*] New Hampshire Aug. 16-1902. Dear Miss Barton: I have just read in a "People of Prominence" item that you are again in your native land, and this is but a word of greeting to you. Your letter from Germany gave me a great deal of pleasure, and whenyou find time in your busy life to write again you may be sure that your letter will be most welcome. But I shall not count letters with you, and you will hear from me again ere long. Always and cordially yours, J.L.Harbour [*ansd. Sept 1. 1902 from Meriden = sent cross - J.L.Harbour. 33*] Editorial Rooms of the Youth's Companion, Boston, Massachusetts. Aug. 26 - 1902. Dear Miss Barton: Your letter came yesterday and it was good to hear from you again even though your message was so brief. But it was good of you to write at all in the midst of the many things you must have had to "see to" when you reached home. Mrs. Harbour is so pleased with the little cross and is still more pleased because of thethoughtful kindness that prompted you to send it. If the cross were a little smaller I would be tempted to dispossess Mrs. Harbour of it and put it on my watch chain. But a move of that sort on my part would create violence on the part of Mrs. Harbour and although she is but four feet ten in size I always suffer defeat when I try to do things she does not wish me to do, so the pretty little cross will remain in her possession. I have not as yet any engagement in Washington but I am daily expecting a "command" to appear at the White House with my "Blessed Be humor" and when the "command" comes and I graciously respond to it I'll have you go along with me, or I won't go at all. I must leave these beautiful and peaceful hills for the ugliness and the distractions of the city on the 6th of September, but as it has been my joyful privilege to be here ever since the 28thof June I ought not to repine about anything and indeed I am not one of the repining kind. I would be most inconsistent for a disciple of humor to fall into repining ways. Now I am going black berrying. Faithfully yours J.L. Harbour Did I tell you that I was to be in Pennsylvania in February and that I plan to face your way sometime that month? J.L.H. I send with this a little magazine containing some of my stories. [*Mrs. Harbour, requirs no reply. sent a X to M.H.*] [*33*] 3 Bowdoin Avenue. Dorchester, Mass. Nay Farm Aug. 26, 1902. Dear Miss Barton, I thank you most heartily for the beautiful little Russian Red Cross that you sent to me. You are very kind to remember us, when your life must be so full of thoughts and plans for those in trouble. Even if Mr Harbour becomes the famous lecturer you predict, he can never become as famous, the worldover as Miss Clara Barton If I could envy any one, I should envy you, because of the exceeding great amount of good you have been able to do. I hope that we may have the great pleasure of seeing you in our home, when you next visit Boston. Sincerely yours, Alice Harbour. [*Harbour -- Oct -- 1902*] [*33*] Editorial Rooms of the Youth's Companion, Boston, Massachusetts. Peterboro, N.H. Sept. 5 - 1902 My dear Miss Barton: I am so glad to have the little corss which came to me to-day. I shall have it securely fastened to my watch chain when I go to Boston this afternoon. My beautiful summer on the hills has come to an end & I must go back to the hateful brick walls and the rest of the hateful conditionsof city life. I cannot understand how any sane man or woman can really prefer the city to the country. My mind is made up in regard to spending my later years in the country. It is the only place in which to live rationally. I always go home ten days in advance of the family and have the house cleaning all done before the little Madam and the children come home. I feel that this is part atones for many of my short comings as a husband and father. You may imagine me next Monday beginning operations at the top of the house and never stopping until the most remote closets in the cellar have been invaded by my broom. I shall be arrayed in an old linen duster and a most disreputable pair of trousers, and I shall not look in the least as I look on my lecture circular. I am going to spend Saturday afternoon and the greater part of Sunday with my merry friend, Kate Sanborn, at her farm which is the "abandoned farm" of which you may have heard.I fear me that we shall conduct ourselves in an abandoned manner for neither of us has any regard for the proprieties of life. I shall be sure to come away with some thing new and uproariously funny for my lecture. Now I must finish my packing and within four hours I shall be within the walls of Boston where it is not good to be when the hills are so beautiful. Thank you so much for the cross. I shall always keep it while I live and hand it down by will to any descendants. Faithfully yours, J.L. Harbour. [*Answered Oct 21st by own hand -*] [*Harbour 33*] 3 Bowdoin Dorchester, Mass. Octo. 19- 1902. Dear Miss Barton: I am off for Soma and other parts of the west on the 27th inst, to fill a long series of engagements lasting until December 6th when I return to New England and my work will be wholly in the New England states until Jany 27th when I go to New Yorkand Pennsylvania for five weeks. I hope to find my way to Glen Echo some time in Feby for I shall probably be having engagements not very far from Washington while I am in Pennsylvania. The success of "Blessed Be Humor" has been so phenomenal that it seems to me I must wake up some morning and find myself dreaming. Major Pond is after me with a two year's contract and the Redpaths are offering to buy all of my time for two years so it is certain that I shall not "fizzle out" the first year. How glad I am to get away from my desk. Two weeks from to-day I shall be with my mother whom I have not seen for fourteen years. I give my talk three times this week and am so rushed getting ready to go away that I have time for but this brief not to one who is, I feel sure,genuinely interested in my success. The pretty little cross dangles from my watch chain, and I am very proud of it. You know that I am always glad to hear from you. Most cordially yours J.L. Harbour [*33*] Burrs' Hotel. T.J.&A.N. Burr, Proprietors Cedar Falls, Iowa Nov. 9 1902 Dear Miss Barton: All has gone well with me thus far. Have had splendid audiences and the newspapers have been wonderfully good to me. I had an audience of 1400 in Toledo, Ohio, and this small town of 7000 people gave me an audience of more than 1000 Friday night. But it is wearisome work dragging along over these branch railroad lines on trains composed of one vilely dirty passenger car and six freight cars. I saw my mother last Tuesday for the first time in fourteen years. She says that it was in 1857 that my father was in Washington. I shall be so glad if I am able to make you a little visit in February. I think that I am going to like some things about my new work very much but there are some "outs" about it. However, one may say that about every thing. If I can get my boys through college with my tongue and pen I shall be ready to retire to a farm in New Hampshire. With many good wishes I am Faithfully yours, J.L. Harbour. [*ansd. Jan. 12. 1903. from N.Y.*] [*33 Harbour*] Gibbs & Wheeler, Proprietors Junction House good Livery Connected White River Junction, Vt Jany 9 1903 Dear Miss Barton: Here I am a regular bird of passage if a man of my size and age can be likened to a bird of any kind. I have been steadily on the wing since the 24th of October and I cannot roost longer than a day in one place until the first of April. I am giving my good moral show six times a week and am standing it very well. This is my 59th appearance since October and I feel as fresh as a lark. But then I never lacked "freshness." 2 I was in Portsmouth, N.H. last night, am here in Vermont to-night and to-morrow I appear in Somerville, Mass. I invade Pennsylvania and New York state the 28th of this month and stay there until the first of March. It is during that time that I hope to get to Washington for a Sunday but I may be disappointed. If I am not you will see me at Glen Echo. I like the work very much barring the waiting for trains at all hours of the night. I must board a train at 3.30 in the morning in order to make my next appointment and I have sometimes had to ride twenty miles in a buggy in the night to keep my appointments. Gibbs & Wheeler, Proprietors Junction House good Livery Connected White River Junction, Vt ________190 3 I hope you are well and happy, and if goes without saying that you are busy. You will be that all your life for therein lies your highest happiness. I shall be busy from necessity rather than from inclination for I confess that I have my "lazy spells" when any kind of work is irksome; but there will be few such "spells" in my life for years to come with four children to educate and only my tongue and pen to provide the funds for this purpose. I fall back on the pious reflection that "Satan finds work for idle hands to do," and Gibbs & Wheeler, Proprietors Junction House good Livery Connected White River Junction, Vt ________190 4 if the stern decrees of fate did not compel me to work, I daresay I would be up to mischief of some sort. Now I must go and "rig up" for the platform so I can have just this passing word with you. Many good wishes for the New Year. Faithfully yours, J.L. Harbour. The pretty little Russian Red Cross dangles from my watch chain, and I think a great deal of it. J.L.H.Ansd May 23, 1903 3 Bowdoin Avenue. Dorchestor, Mass. May 23, 1903. My dear Miss Barton: I wonder if your ears burned last night. If they did it was no doubt because your good friend Mrs. Reed and I had a great deal to say about you as we rode home together after we had spoken from the same platform before a chapter of the Daughters of the Revolution. We did not say a word "behind your back" that we would not have said to your face. You have a strong and loyal champion in Mrs. Reed, and she knows what she is talking about. We are both so sorry that all this annoyance and trouble should come to you at a time when the reward for your splendid labors for humanity should come to you in the way of quiet and restful years. And it is such a foolish and unnecessary piece of business. I am convinced, after all that Mrs. Reed has told me, that there is nothing but some personal envy and a hope of personal gain on the part of those who have made at the trouble at the bottom of all this tempest in a teapot. You have my warmest sympathy and the sympathy and affection of a great army of friends. I need hardly tell you that I have had a very very busy winter. I gave my talk last night for the one hundred[th] and thirty- fifth time since October and I have traveled many thousands of miles. It has been pleasant work in many ways but there has been 2 a good deal of weariness and worry in connection with it and I am looking eagerly forward to next month when I shall fare toward the beautiful hills of New Hampshire for at least twelve weeks. The older I grow the more beautiful and desirable the country seems to me and I hope to live there permanently after my children are educated, but that is a good ways in the future as my youngest is but ten years of age. I shall have two boys in Harvard next year, and that will require still more hustling on the part of their father. I shall need to make all the use I can of both tongue and pen. Requests for dates for next year are coming in in a very gratifying way. I am to be in New York again in December and also in February and I shall hope to see you then if not sooner. What are your own plans for the summer? I hope that you will put everything that is fretful and annoying out of your thought and have a quiet and peaceful summer for I am sure that you need it. I was so interested in all that you told me of my father when I saw you in New York. I can understand what congenial spirits you and he must have been and I am glad that he knew you. He always made friends wherever he went because he was a man of such a warm and generous spirit and he felt kindly toward every one. My wife and little girl and I are going to the country to stay over Sunday and it is time I was getting ready for the journey. Now that I am through with the platform for this season I shall have more time for my friends and I will write to you again before very long. Whether I do or not I am Always and faithfully yours, J. L. Harbour [*Isn't this lovely?*] Melrose, Mass., March 15, 1903. Dear Mr. Harbour, What a unique and delightful entertainment you gave us Thursday afternoon! I have not enjoyed a humorous lecture as much since the days of Artemus Ward, and his "Babes in the Wood." You could not fail to see how completely you carried your audience, which will be twice as large when you come again. Their convulsions of laughter have not yet subsided. You have a capital way of telling funny stories. You are dramatic and simple, but perfectly natural. And your facial expressions, gestures, poses of body, and modulations of voice are as provocative of mirth as the wit of your speech. Let me thank you, not only for a very merry afternoon, but for another thing. There was not an objectionable selection in your whole repertoire, nor one suggestive of evil, or ill-nature. From beginning to end, the entertainment was witty, wholesome and refined. Yrs. truly, Mary A. Livermore. Mary 25th, 1903. Mr. J.L. Harbour, 3 Bowdoin, Avenue, Dorchester, Mass. My dear Mr. Harbour; No, my ears did not burn last night that I can recall, but it might have been of so much cooling off as they have had in the last few months; but if anything could warm them up again I am ready to admit that it would be a conversation between my good friends Mrs. Reid and Mr. Harbour. I know I have a loyal champion in Mrs Reed and all the good and worthy people of the world have a brave and true friend in her. She is one of those rare persons, so fitted to her niche in life that all about her are benefited by her presence. Referring to the subject which you discussed, it is indeed a "foolish and unnecessary piece of business". It is entirely personal - made up of ambition, envy and ignorance taking its rise in the disappointed, ambitious scheme of a couple of enterprising women, it has spread its way through false representation to the men officially connected with them and one or two other women more prominent and pronounced than themselves - allMRS. HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. I think that there can be no one in the world who tells an amusing story so well as Mr. Harbour. The pleasant memory of his humor takes all hearts, and life seems very bright and gay while listening to him. His humor is as original as it is kindly and wholesome. If there is any truth in the old distich which says "Care in our coffins drives the nails, not doubt, But Mirth, with merry fingers, plucks them out" then Mr. Harbour is one of the forces working for longevity. PRESIDENT CHARLES L. WHITE. Colby College. The visit of Mr. J.L. Harbour to Waterville gave the greatest pleasure to a large and representative company of people. The occasion of this visit was his fascinating lecture "Blessed Be Humor" which was delivered under the auspices of the Woman's Club. His words were listened to by both young and old with equal interest. Mr. Harbour is a delightful reader and the new stories and bright things which he said made the title of his lecture most happy. His return would be welcomed with enthusiasm. ANNIE G. MURRY. President New England Woman's Press Club. I have always enjoyed your humorous stories and each time I have heard them at the Press Club they have given me a new pleasure. Your appearance on the occasion of our annual gentlemens night will not soon be forgotten because of the merriment you brought to us. The audiences who hear your "Blessed Be Humor" are sure of many a good laugh, and I congratulate them now on their good fortune in listening to the stories with which you illustrate your lecture. MRS. MAY ALDEN WARD. I have enjoyed very much your talk on "Blessed Be Humor" and I feel sure that it will give pleasure to the audiences who are fortunate enough to hear you. You have a genuine appreciation of humor and you have also in an unusual degree the story-teller's gift--a combination which is sure to bring success. MR. HAMILTON WRIGHT MARIE. Mr. Harbours' stories and sketches, as they have passed through my hands, have always impressed me as possessing a very delightful quality of naturalness, the gift of invention, and agreeable and engaging style. As a story-teller he cannot fail to put into his work real humor, variety of episode, and a very pleasant kind of effectiveness. MISS MARY E. WOOLEY. It give me great pleasure to write that your lecture at Mount Holyoke College on "Blessed Be Humor" was a delight in every respect, and that I consider it a public benefaction to make us forget for a season the over-strenuous side of life and find real rest in a good laugh. I feel sure that your lecture will meet with the success it so well deserves. MR. G.W. MEHAFFEY. Secretary Boston Y.M.C.A. The lecture on "Blessed Be Humor" given in the spring course of the Boston Y.M.C.A. by Mr. J.L. Harbour, the author of so many delightful stories, was greatly enjoyed by the large audience present. The subject afforded ample opportunity for Mr. Harbour to display his keen sense of humor, and his treatment of it was most excellent. MISS GERTRUDE MCQUESTEN. Teacher of elocution New England Conservatory of Music. I am so glad that you are to give "Blessed Be Humor" to the public. It is much too good to be kept only for your intimate friends. Those familiar with your charming stories will be sure to want to hear the lecture, for you are as delightful to hear as to read. Your presentation of the topic and your telling of the stories are so perfectly natural and unstudied that your audiences cannot fail to enjoy all that you have to say. MR. J.T. TROWBRIDGE. I am much interested to know that you are about to enlarge the sphere of your public appearances. when I heard you at Medford I was especially struck by the perfect naturalness of your manner and the delightful humor of your situations, qualities your hearers were quick to appreciate and which your future audiences are certain to find wholesome and delightful. CAREY W CHAMBERLIN. Pastor Ashland Ave. Baptist Church, Toledo, Ohio. Fully 1400 people crowded every available place in the auditorium of the Ashland Ave. Baptist Church, Toledo, Tuesday evening, to hear Mr. J. L. Harbour's lecture "Blessed Be Humor." Nor was the large audience disappointed. The lecturer gave an hour and a half of wholesome, clean entertainment that kept every one happily interested to the end. Not one person left the room until the last word had been spoken. HOMER H. SEERLEY. President State Normal School, Cedar Falls, Iowa, Mr. J.L. Harbour's talk on "Blessed Be Humor" was one of the very best entertainments we have had in five years and we have had specially strong courses. He is the equal of any in a general sense as an entertaining speaker and presents his subject in a very acceptable manner. He deserves the largest audiences and he will please all who attend as the most fastidious will commend while the most difficult to entertain will be completely absorbed by his winning manner. I am very thankful to you for calling my attention to his visit to his native state as it has been a great pleasure to me to renew his acquaintance and enjoy his lecture. Our audience was delighted. Season 1903--'04 A New Talk "GOOD CHEER." he in his usual deliberate way flew off like a disturbed partridge with a great Whirr! - stirring up the whole country. If he were an ordinary kind of a bird one would naturally expect him, as things settle down, to go back to his nest, but being a partridge we can hardly hope for that. The ex-parte action which he took would not have been expected in even an ordinary man, but for a President of the United States, the chief Ruler and final Judge of a Nation, it was certainly most remarkable. Knowing all parties as well as I do, I suppose I can come nearer comprehending it than almost anyone else. It sometimes looks as if the President himself, would comprehend the results more clearly, as time goes on. However, they have pretty well worn themselves out - They have never found an antagonist in me and very little of opposition in the Red Cross itself. You may have noticed by the press of the last week that we have instituted a new Department of the Red Cross, which is commencing to occupy us so entirely that we shall have little time to attend to this petty warfare. The work of the "First Aid" has been too long delayed in this country; I have seen it in other countries for years but until within the last four months have found no way of bringing it in to America. Almost marvelously it came. Just when the ground was plowed and harrowed with discord we have dropped into the furrows this useful seed, and publicly pray the people everywhere to recognize and cultivate it for their own good. This will be better occupation -3- for them than watching a petty fight, and the press can emply itself better than in manufacturing smart sayings. I am sorry to have occupied so much space with this needless matter but understanding it, once for all, I think you and I are done with it. I am glad your season of rest has come; and equally glad that the season of work was so prosperous - what a record you have made for a first year's lecturing. How well you have earned your rest. I do not see twelve weeks of quiet rest in the country ahead of me, neither will it be quite all rest for you, for in spite of yourself the subject and material for next seasons lecture will haunt many an hour of so called Summer rest. I am glad of our few minutes chat of your father; it is astonishing how many pleasant recollections of him my acquaintance with you has revived. I seem to have lived them all over again and I still feel that in some how or in some way he had something to do with that acquaintance. The thought does no harm - let us cherish it. Give dear love to Mrs. Harbour, and believe me always, Your faithful friend, you a letter "as is a letter." Faithfully yours, J.L. Harbour. Miss Clara Barton New York City. N.Y. [*ansd June. 6. 1903 = sent 4 pictures*] 3 Bowdoin Avenue. Dorchester, Mass. May 31 - 1903. Dear Miss Barton: It was extremely good of you to send a long and immediate reply to my letter. I was very much interested in every word of it. And now I am writing for a continuance of your favor. I want to write a letter sketch about you and your work for a young people's paper in the west and I want one of your photographs for it. Indeed, I would like to have two of your photographs for I want one for that autograph book of mine. And can you send me or can you tell me where I can get a photograph of your Glen Echo home? I want one "the worst way." May I have a line from you about this bothersome matter very soon, and then I'll write [*Ansd July 13, 1903*] Peterboro, New Hampshire July 7, 1903. My dear Miss Barton: I hardly know whether to thank you or not for the "First Aid to the Injured" that found its way to the hill do New Hampshire yesterday. Mrs. Harbour's medicine chest has been a source of discomfort and almost of terror to me for years, and I think she is concocting designs whereby your valuable gift may be put to immediate use. The dog chewed up a bird to-day and I suggested a trial of the virtues of your box but my wife did not take kindly to the suggestion. She is really very proud of it and is going to write and tell you so. But it does smell to heaven and I hope it may be long ere we shall have any use for it. I am a born physical coward and it makes me feel "creepy" to even look at the box. We are having such a good time up here on the hills where you ought to be with nothing to do but to lie in a hammock or make rick-rack all summer. But I can tell you that I am doing more than that. We have been here two weeks and in that time I have written ten of the fifteen chapters of a short serial for a children's magazine, beside more than fifteen thousand words for other periodicals. But work does not seem like work up here. I take my typewriter out under the trees and I enjoy working here as I enjoy it nowhere else. I plan two or three weeks of real vacation before the summer is over, but I shall have two boys in Harvard this year2 and my head and fingers must supply the wherewithal to keep them there for four years although the youngest, who is but seventeen, walked off with a one-year scholarship in Harvard when he graduated from the Boston Latin School last month. He also won a prize in classics and the first one of the Benjamin Franklin silver medals. My third boy goes to the High School and my little girl is in the grammar school. It keeps me busy providing for them, but thank God I am able and willing to do it and I do not know of any better way of spending my earnings, do you? It is perfectly beautiful up here on the hills. We are almost at the feet of Mount Monadnock in a typical New England farmhouse fully one hundred and fifty years old. It is our ninth summer here and I really think that this is to be the happiest summer of all. You see I have my good gather's happy and hopeful disposition which is a rich inheritance. With it and his abounding good humor and good health I ought not to envy a Rockfeller with a stomach all out of whack and a haunting fear of the ghosts of men I have frozen out of their small possessions to haunt me. But I do not like to think of you drudging away there in New York in June. Your days of drudgery in any place should all be past. I propose that mine shall be at your time of life, but we shall see. I wish you would wander up here to New Hampshire and rest for at least a few days with us. Now why couldn't you? If you just thought so it would all be settled. Now try to think so and tell me when I shall meet you at the station. If you say "impossible" to that you cannot say that in regard to writing me a nice long letter and telling me anything that you like. I shall enjoy it for I enjoy my letters so much here where I have leisure and quiet in which to read them. I am so pleased with the photographs you sent a few weeks ago. Now for one more chapter of that story, and then I shall play the rest of the day. Faithfully yours, J.L. Harbour [*Mrs Harbou - is in itself an answer*] [3 Bowdoin Avenue.] [Dorchester, Mass.] Peterboro, N.H. July 9", 1903. My dear Miss Barton, I thank you most heartily for the Emergency Case, which reached us this week. It is a relief to have it in the house, as I have often wondered what I should do in case of a serious accident while we are on the farm. I felt some reluctance in writing to you of the non-appearance of the promisedcase, as I did not wish to trouble you. I believe that Mr. Harbour has told you how delightfully situated we are on this large farm among the hills. I hope to see you in Boston this winter. Very gratefully yours, Alice E. Harbour. [*Harbour*] [*ansd Dec 20/ 03*] [*sent little cross.*] 3 Bowdoin Avenue. Dorchester, Mass. December 4, 1903. Dear Miss Barton: I am quite heart broken over losing my pretty little Russian Red Cross yesterday. You don't happen to have another lying around "handy," do you? I thought so much of the little cross and wore it on my watch chain. Mrs. Harbour and I will be in Washington on the 12th of February for a stay of some day and I may be there for a day or into about the middle of January. I am trying to inveigle some club or society to let me give my "Blessed Be Humor" before them, but they have all been too wary to be caught thus far. I am to give it three times in Philadelphia and I am out somewhere with it nearly every afternoon or evening. I am to give it in my New England state this winter. All goes well with me and mine. We are all well and busy two conditions that should make any one happy. I sent on my proxy vote for the Red Cross meeting and I hope it served some good purpose. I must invade central New York with my talk next week and am not very greatly enchanted over it. Central New York is a "far piece" from Boston and I have come to loathe railway cars with an unspeakable loathing. I have anoffer of a six weeks trip in Calafornia next season and I would like to close with the offer if Calafornia were not so far away. I shall be sure to come and see you in Jan'y or Feb'y and we will talk things over. Faithfully yours, J.L. Harbour. To Miss Barton. [*Harbour*] [*ansd. Feb. 6. 1904*] 3 Bowdoin Avenue, Dorchester, Mass., January 28, 1904. My dear Miss Barton: Just a few lines this time to tell you that I am back in my own cosey little study but I am not to tarry there long. I go to Clinton to-day and am to speak at a "gentlemen's night" affair this evening and then stand in the receiving line "with the other ladies." I have spoken in five places since I saw you and I must trail away off into New Hampshire next week. I go to Philadelphia again week after next and may run down to Washington for two or three days. If I do I shall be very likely to come out to Glen Echo for another giggling symphony. We did have such a good time at your house. I am sure that our memory of it will be fresh and delightful long after we have forgotten most of the other event of our trip to Washington. We shall not be likely to forget many kindnesses we received from others and I have come home firmer than ever in my conviction 2 that there is still an abundance of the milk of human kindness in the world and that the cream on it is mighty thick at your house. And we got the cream. The world is not "dee-terating" in the quality and quantity of its kindness. I spend an hour with Isabella Beecheer Hooker in Hartford. She is very alert and I found her to be extremely interesting. She remembered you and I daresay you remember her. She gave me her photograph with this written on it: "The world is my country. To do good is my religion." You see that she is just the same kind of a "well-disposed heathen" that you are. But I think that both of you will somehow or other manage to sneak in with the elect in the world to come. Some of my good Baptist brethren would think this a very loose and even pernicious creed and it they have anything to do with it St. Peter will keep you out of the Gloryland. I had two rollicking hours with my good friend Miss Sanborn in New York. We told stories and stuffed ourselves on candy and cake and misbehaved in other ways. 3 My vanity has suffered a dreadful shook since I came home. A minister has written me several letters in regard to my appearance in his church. He said he wanted a "high class entertainment" of some kind, and I told him I was just what he was looking for. We exchanged several letters and I thought I had got the "job", Imagine my disgust when I found a letter on my desk informing me that his church had voted to have a clam supper instead of my lecture!!!!! I felt like writing to him and saying "Jist for thot now I'll niver speak for yeez!" I am really very tired of all this trailing about over the country. It is wearisome business and tends toward immorality for one does get so desperately tired and these horrid little country hotels and towns are so depressing. As I have really been very decent all of my life I think I shall leave the lecture platform before I go to the bad. Nothing but the clamoring demands of a rather large family could induce me to keep it up any longer. I can do about as well sitting in my cosey little study writing4 and that is what I prefer to do. When I have educated my children I intend getting hold of just such a quiet and retired place as you have and ending my days "far from the madding crowd." Now I must set off in a driving snow storm for my next appointment and be "light and trifling," as usual. Remember me to all of your household and be sure that I am Always and faithfully yours, J.L. Harbour. It is well that the Harbours have strong "stummicks". But there is a limit to the endurance of even a Harbour stomach and I shall be glad when all this banqueting is done. I shall be sending you a real letter soon, and I am always and Faithfully yours J.L. Harbour. [*Harbour*] [*Recd Feb 10/04*] 3 Bowdoin Avenue. Dorchester, Mass. Feb'y 8-1904 Dear Miss Barton: The Harbours enjoyed your good letter immensely, and I am going to write at least a brief reply before setting forth on another trip with my "Blessed Be Humor" mission. How I would like to be at Glen Echo on the 15th with "The other ladies". But I am to give my goodmoral show in Massachusetts that night. I speak at a banquet -- not a clam affair -- in Philadelphia on Thursday night of this work, and I had thought to go on to Washington for a day or two, but I find now that I cannot very well do so. I do plan to see Glen Echo in her springtime beauty along about the first of May. You are right in supposing that I use a Hammond typewriter and I like it very much. It does excellent manifolding. But of course its work falls short of my own ladylike handwriting. You see I have already recovered from the shock my vanity sustained by that church choosing a clam supper instead of me. I shall never again eat a clam with any relish. Now I must "rig up" for a banquet at which I am to speak. I have three affairs of that kind this week.[*Ansd by Post card July 16 1904 33 Harbour*] Peterboro , N.H. July 4-1904 Dear Miss Barton: I have been promising myself the pleasure of a lit- tle talk with you for these many weeks and now that I have a little breathing spell up here on the beautiful New Hampshire Hills you can no longer escape me Had I more leisure I would be forever pestering my friends with letters for I love nothing better than letter-writing but most of the time my pen must be engaged in the more practical pursuit of earning my bread and butter We came here for the summer last week and I am going to be rather idle this month and rest 2 up after the constant activity of the past winter + spring I have worked like a galley slave this year but I have the satisfaction of knowing that my work has been successful and when one has this compensation work is satisfactory and even a delight And you? I daresay you have been up and at it early and late and are still working harder than you should I am glad you no longer have the burden of the presidency of the Red Cross organization Surely you have earned the right to shift it to other and younger shoulders and to rest from your labors in that direction I cannot express anything like the full degree of my sympathy for you now of my regret3 that such long years of fidelity to duty and to helping humanity should meet in the end with so much ingratitude I am convinced that vaulting ambition on the part of some and jealousy and rancor on the part of others are at the bottom of it all. You still have the confidence, the profound respect & the affection of the American people and of the great world I wish you might find time to write me one of your good long letters I value them above any letter I receive and I save them to hand down to my children Do tell me if you plan to be in Boston at the time of the coming G.A.R. encampment in August I think I shall go to to Boston for a day or two then and 4 I shall want to see you How glad [y] we would be if you could come up here for a visit with us I read in a Boston paper that you were expected in Boston during the encampment and I hope you are coming I hoped to go to Washington in May but could not bring it to pass But I shall certainly be there during the coming fall or winter and the best part of it all will be another visit to Glen Echo All goes well with us My children are out of school with all sorts of honors and they are very happy over the prospect of their long and delightful summer up here on the hills We have been over into5 an old pasture this morning firing off torpedos & giant crackers. Mrs. Harbour carried with her the Red Cross emergency box you were so good as to send her but we had little use for it. How lovely Glen Echo must be now! I wish I might be there to see it with my own "livin' eyes." We will be here until about the middle of September when we will regretfully fare Bostonward. I cannot understand how any same person can choose to live in a city if it is possible to live in the country. Good-bye to the city for good and all when my children are educated. Do let me hear from you and remember me to all of your household. Faithfully your J.L. Harbour The two Alices return much love to you. Cordially yours, Alice E. Harbour. Peterboro Jul 22 530AM 1904 N.H. The Space Above Is Reserved for Postmark. Postal Card. The Space Below is for the Address Only. United States Of America. Postage One Cent 1843 - McKinley - 1901. Washington Jul 23 130AM 1904 Transit Miss Clara Barton. Glen Echo, Maryland. [*ansd July 23. 1904*] [*Harbour*] [*1904*] 3 Bowdoin Avenue. Dorchester, Mass. Dear Miss Barton, Your letter to the "Harbours" was much enjoyed by all of the Harbours, large and small. The very best part of our happy week in Washington, was the part we spent with you at Glen Echo. We did have "such a good time". I have wished to write to you since our return, but have thought of the "piles" of letters coming to you every mail, and have hesitated about adding to the number. 7[*33 Harbour*] Peterboro. N.H. July 19- 1904 Dear Miss Barton: Yes, if you are to be in Boston during the G.A.R. encampment I shall be there to see you. Be sure and mail me a card if you decide to go to Boston. But I fear that so many will be claiming your time that I shall see little of you. I wish you would come up here with us for a few days. Why not? J.L. Harbour You write of "some one away back of you" who would be glad of his grandson's honors "if he could know." I believe he does know (don't you?) and that our loved ones who have entered eternal life, do know of al of our successes. A few years ago, I heard our friend, Mary Livermore give an address to the pupils of the Conservatory. She spoke of her belief that our departed friends were with us and helped us. She told of being saved from injury in a railroad accident, and her belief that one of her loved ones in the eternal life had saved her from harm. It may be that our boys' grandfather helps them earn these honors. I am not a spiritualist, but "a Baptist born and Baptist bred", as the negroes sang. I am glad that you like my cousin. She is one of the dearest and best of women. She has a large number of very warm friends in Washington. When you come to Boston, we must have you visit us, for your friend - our father - would wish it. And it will give us much pleasure. Chamberlain Hall Leland University. New Orleans, LA. New Orleans, Louisiana, March 3, 1911 Dear Miss Barton: I have wandered away down here with my lecture and have given it three times in New Orleans and am to make my "positively last appearance" here with it to-night. I leave for Cincinnati and and Washington on Saturday and will be in Washington from Monday until Friday evening of next week. If you are well enough to see me I will run out any day you care to see me. My Washington address is 1343 Clifton Street, Suite 52. I beg of you not to try to see me unless it is entirely convenient for you to do so and you have recovered from your recent illness sufficiently to stand the strain of all the new stories I shall have to tell you. If I get a line from you bidding me come I will be glad to do so, and if I do not I shall feel sure that you are my good friend just the same, and I shall always be Faithfully yours, J.J. Harbour [*33*] holds much of happiness for you. If it is in every way convenient to comply with my bothersome request I shall be happy to have you do so. If not -- don't bother and let my letter be as if it had never been written. I know a lot that is lovely to tell the young people (even if I get no more data from you. With no end of good wishes I am Cordially yours, J.L. Harbour Peterboro, N.H. October 31 - 1911 Dear Miss Barton: I am asked to speak about you before an organization of young people In Peterboro on Sunday evening November 12th and am writing to ask if you happen to have any printed data by you that you could let me have to look over. I have a good deal of such datain Boston but none here. I would return anything you care to have returned. If you feel equal to writing some little message, however brief, for the young people before whom I am to speak I am sure it would add much to the interest of this occasion. But do not give a second thought to this if it would give you any trouble to send the message. I am still here on the beautiful New Hampshire hills where I would joyfully spend the rest of my days. I have had all I want of city life and am wildly eager to get to the country to live. I envy you the restful quiet of Glen Echo. I must hie me back to Boston about the 20th of November & it will almost break my heart to do so. I hope you are fast gaining your strength and that life stilllast week. She is very bright and a worman of the highest character. Remember me to all of your family. Faithfully yours, J.L. Harbour I hate muddy ink and a poor pen and I have had to deal with both this time. [*Harbour*] [*Ansd. Apr. 5th MAH*] Dorchester, Mass., Mch. 25, Dear Miss Barton" Just a word or two of spring greeting to let you know that my thought go back to Glen Echo and to the good friends I am glad to know I have there. I still hope to go to Washington again in May and if I do I shall be ringing yourdoorbell and we'll have another giggling symphony. All goes well with me and mine. I am so busy but more with my pen than my tongue at this time of the year. But I still have some engagements to fill and I have already made some for next January. I hope that all goes well at Glen Echo and that you will soon be finding time to write and tell me so. My little girl wants every one who comes here to see the pretty pin you gave her. I met a lady one day recently who attended the reception at your home on the 10th of last month and she reported a lovely time for everybody. But I knew that before she told me so. Wish I had been there to stand in line "with the other ladies", But we had you all to ourselves. The pretty cousin who visited you with us spent a day at our house"Let a man send a loud ha! ha! through the universe, and be reverently grateful for the privilege" MR. J. L. HARBOUR "Blessed Be Humor" (Redpath Lyceum Bureau) BOSTON :: CHICAGOMr. J.L. Harbour Is a native of Oskaloosa, Iowa, but has lived in Boston for the past seventeen years during which time he has been associated with the editorial department of the Youth's Companion. Mr. Harbour is the author of nearly seven hundred stories published in the Youth's Companion, St. Nicholas, Harper's Bazar and many of the household and domestic magazines. His stories and sketches have long been popular with platform readers, and a number of them have been translated into other languages. Mr. Harbour has been very successful reading his stories at author's readings and at other entertainments. Several years of experience as a teacher and newspaper reporter in the mining camps of the west combined with his editorial and other experiences have given Mr. Harbour a great variety of amusing material for his lecture, "BLESSED BE HUMOR," which has been received with great favor by the fun loving public. TESTIMONIALS MRS. MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN. I am delighted to hear that you have entered the lecture field. You have written so many such good stories to such good purpose that I am sure you can tell me them too as good and better. I am glad too that you have chosen such a subject, for our over-strenuous and over-hurried American audiences need humor as they need food. The man who can make the people laugh honestly and innocently is a public benefactor and I know that you can do this. We have all been deeply indebted to you for yours stories as contributions to American literature; we shall be deeply indebted for this new benefit. I congratulate you in advance upon your certain success. HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH. Mr. J.L. Harbour has the genius of humor both as a popular story writer and as a speaker. His humorous stories have long been favorites with public readers and we are glad that he has given his personality to the needed work of such delightful entertainers. He who creates honest laughter is a benefactor in this over-worked and over-burdened age, and Mr. Harbour has this gift in a native and preeminent way. His humor is not only a charm in itself, but is such as gives one better and kindlier views of life and makes the heart more charitable and human. His stories are household words and his readers everywhere will welcome him to the platform. Such entertainment is a public need. MISS KATE SANBORN. Mr. J.L. Harbour, the author of so many delightful stories in the Youth's Companion and other high class periodicals, is to be the coming success as a lecturer on humorous themes. And why? Because he possesses just the qualities needed to make him a favorite with the fun loving public. His own humor is spontaneous, genuine and unfailing, but ever subservient to an earnest life. Nothing of the ever trying to be funny or the professional brag. In his best moods no one I have ever met has been more genuinely droll and entertaining than Mr. Harbour. I want to most cordially recommend him and his "Blessed Be Humor" to any club or society wanting the real and the best in the way of genuine and delightful humor. HELEN M. WINSLOW. In The Clubwoman. "A merry heart doeth good like medicine," said Solomon, and club women who have the pleasant duty of making up their next year's programs would do well to add at least one lecture that will furnish fun for their audience. Mr. J.L. Harbour, the popular writer, has a delightful talk, "Blessed Be Humor," that is brimful of sparkling wit and funny reminiscences; and although he has but recently entered the lecture field this talk has caught the public fancy. Everybody loves to laugh and nobody who sits under Mr. Harbour's talk can help laughing. MRS. HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. I think that there can be no one in the world who tells an amusing story so well as Mr. Harbour. The pleasant memory of his humor takes all hearts, and life seems very bright and gay while listening to him. His humor is as original as it is kindly and wholesome. If there is any truth in the old distich which says "Care to our coffins adds a nail, no doubt, But every bit of laughter drives one out" then Mr. Harbour is one of the forces working for longevity. PRESIDENT CHARLES L. WHITE. Colby College. The visit of Mr. J.L. Harbour to Waterville gave the greatest pleasure to a large and representative company of people. The occasion of this visit was his fascinating lecture "Blessed Be Humor" which was delivered under the auspices of the Woman's Club. His words were listened to by both young and old with equal interest. Mr. Harbour is a delightful reader and the new stories and bright things which he said made the title of his lecture most happy. His return would be welcomed with enthusiasm. ANNIE G. MURRAY. President New England Woman's Press Club. I have always enjoyed your humorous stories and each time I have heard them at the Press Club they have given me a new pleasure. Your appearance on the occasion of our annual gentlemens' night will not soon be forgotten because of the merriment you brought to us. The audiences who hear your "Blessed Be Humor" are sure of many a good laugh, and I congratulate them now on their good fortune in listening to the stories with which you illustrate your lecture. MRS. MAY ALDEN WARD. I have enjoyed very much your talk on "Blessed Be Humor" and I feel sure that it will give pleasure to the audiences who are fortunate enough to hear you. You have a genuine appreciation of humor and you have also in an unusual degree the story-teller's gift--a combination which is sure to bring success. MR. HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE. Mr. Harbours' stories and sketches, as they have passed through my hands, have always impressed me as possessing a very delightful quality of naturalness, the gift of invention, and agreeable and engaging style. As a story-teller he cannot fail to put into his work real humor, variety of episode, and a very pleasant kind of effectiveness. MISS MARY E. WOOLEY. It give me great pleasure to write that your lecture at Mount Holyoke College on "Blessed Be Humor" was a delight in every respect, and that I consider it a public benefaction to make us forget for a season the over-strenuous side of life and find real rest in a good laugh. I feel sure that your lecture will meet with the success it so well deserves. MR. G. W. MAHAFFEY. Secretary Boston Y.M.C.A. The lecture on "Blessed Be Humor" given in the spring course of the Boston Y.M.C.A. by Mr. J.L. Harbour, the author of so many delightful stories, was greatly enjoyed by the large audience present. The subject afforded ample opportunity for Mr. Harbour to display his keen sense of humor, and his treatment of it was most excellent. MISS GERTRUDE MCQUESTEN. Teacher of elocution New England Conservatory of Music. I am so glad that you are to give "Blessed Be Humor" to the public. It is much too good to be kept only for your intimate friends. Those familiar with your charming stories will be sure to want to hear the lecture, for you are as delightful to hear as to read. Your presentation of the topic and your telling of the stories are so perfectly natural and unstudied that your audiences cannot fail to enjoy all that you have to say. MR. J.T. TROWBRIDGE. I am much interested to know that you are about to enlarge the sphere of your public appearances. when I heard you at Medford I was especially struck by the perfect naturalness of your manner and the delightful humor of your situations, qualities your hearers were quick to appreciate and which your future audiences are certain to find wholesome and delightful. FROM THE BOSTON HERALD. All sorts of congratulatory things were said to Mr. J.L. Harbour after his talk on "Blessed Be Humor" before the College Club in the Grundmann studios Monday afternoon. It was full of such genuine wit and humor in story, anecdote, and reminiscence and it kept the audience in ripples of continuous laughter. Mr. Harbour, who as is well known as a member of the Youth's Companion editorial staff, is an exceedingly clever writer and speaker. He is blessed with a fine sense of humor and his lecture is immensely entertaining. FROM THE DETROIT FREE PRESS. Mr. J.L. Harbour has recently entered the lecture field. He has prepared a very merry melange entitled "Blessed Be Humor" and it is not a matter of surprise to those who know him best to know that this story telling talk of his has at once become popular. It has been given in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and other of the New England states. and it is certain to become one of the platform successes of another year. Mr. Harbour is one of the best known and most popular men in Boston, and his hundreds of friends in the literary world feel confident that he will add much to the growing good as well as to the merriment of the world as a speaker on a topic so sure to appeal to his audiences.From The Boston Transcript. Mr. J. L. Harbour on "Blessed Be Humor." Hardly a vacant seat could be found at Association Hall last night at the lecture, or talk, as he prefers to call it, of Mr. J. L. Harbour, who for an hour and a half interested his audience on "Blessed Be Humor." Mr. Harbour is best known as a story writer for the Youth's Companion, but has lately varied his field of work by taking to the platform, and his appearance last night was the first opportunity that has been afforded to hear him publicly in Boston. He does not profess to be either humorist or "funny man," and as far as facial expression goes would be judged one of the most serious of men, but nevertheless he has the faculty of keeping his hearers in a nearly continuous laugh by his anecdotes. The value of humor as an adjunct to the strenuous life of this busy world was strongly emphasized, and the happy frame of mind of the audience as a result of the many humorous incidents related was the best evidence of what good, wholesome humor can do. An unlimited supply of materials is at Mr. Harbour's command; being the result of many years' experience as an author, school teacher, prospector in the Rockies, and reader of manuscript, each of which furnished its quota. Clippings from country papers, offerings of would-be poets, blunders resulting from the carelessness of proofreaders and typographers, were all set forth as specimens of humor capable of driving away the blues, and unconscious humor, in particular, was demonstrated as furnishing the most mirth. Wedding accounts, as reported in papers from rural districts, were perhaps the most entertaining of the many quotations given, although Irish humor and a sample of the letters some Western editors get from correspondents received equal applause. An article from Mr. Harbour's pen as an example of the humor of children brought the evening's entertainment to a close, and showed the author's ability to select from the dull routine of ordinary life incidents that will brighten and cheer the heart. As a public speaker his platform achievement will most assuredly keep pace with his literary work.