"To my mind the whole catalogue of fashionable friendships and polite intimacies are not worth one honest tear of sympathy or one heartfelt emotion of true friendship. Unless I can enter the inner chambers of the soul and read the inscriptions there upon those ever-during tablets, and thus become acquainted with the inner life and know the inner man, I care not for intercourse, for nothing else is true friendship.... I have no very intimate associates here, and hence, if it please you, I will be social with my pen and be often cheered by a letter from you. Let us in all the varied fortunes of human life look forward to that lamp which will enlighten the darkness of earth, the valley of death, and then become the bright and morning star in the heaven of heavens. Give my love to your father and mother for they seem like mine also, and you know you have the love of your brother, JAMES." The following shows how keenly sensitive Garfield was, even as a boy, and how early in life he determined to make a name for himself,-- "WILLIAMSTOWN, Jan. 28, 1854. "MY DEAR CORYDON: I wish you were here to-night; I feel like waking up the ghosts of the dead past, and holding communion with spirits of former days. In this calm "night that broodeth thoughts" the shadows of by-gone days flit past, and I review each scene. That long strange story of my boyhood, the taunts, jeers, and cold, averted looks of the rich and the proud, chill me again for a moment, as did the real ones of former days. Then comes the burning heart, the high resolve, the settled determination, and the days and nights of struggling toil, those dreary days when the heavens seemed to frown and the icy heart of the cold world seemed not to give one throb in unison with mine.... With regards, I remain, as ever, your friend and classmate, "JAMES A. GARFIELD." "NIAGARA, Nov 5, 1853. "CORYDON, MY BROTHER: I am now leaning against the trunk of an evergreen tree on a beautiful island in the midst of Niagara's foaming waters. I am alone. No breath of wind disturbs the leaves of evergreen, which hang mute and motionless around me. Animated nature is silent, for the voice of God, like the "sound of many waters," is lifted up from the swathing clouds of hoary foam that rest upon the dark abyss below. 'Oh, fearful stream. How do thy terrors tear me from myself And fill my soul with wonder.'