I am glad you put the "C" in your name for if you had been fortunate enough to have seen and known your grandfather Cassel for whom it stands you would never fail to put it in. He was one of the best looking and most graceful men I ever saw, as straight as an arrow, with quick gait and quick speech, but few words, and liked by everybody and so correct in business that the cashiers in the banks would doubt themselves before doubting him. According to the laws of heredity you should inherit some of these qualities and I have thought sometimes I have already seen them in you, though it is hard to see the man in the boy, lest I had known him as a boy, which, of course, I did not. Of course, you are as likely to inherit the traits of my father whom also you were unfortunate not to know at an age when you would appreciate, but he also had none that you need fear the development of in yourself, nor had either of your grandmothers. I want you to read carefully the enclosed clipping on "Individuality," and mark the words underscored, for I think you can now understand the thoughts and ideas of our bright namesake. I think it is true, as he says, that heredity counts a great deal, perhaps not as much as surroundings and teachings, and I think, too, that he might have added that all three, heredity, surroundings, and teachings come mostly from the mother and there is where your great good fortune lies, if you improve it as you should and I think you will. I want you to mark well what he says about individuality. Don't be restrained from doing things that seem sensible just because a lot of machine made boys say it is not the thing, nor do things not sensible because they say so. I have often regretted that I did not let you sit up all night at Fort Grant for fear it may in all your after life repress your individuality in thoughts and actions, for almost everything that man does or refrains from doing is from an instinct or teaching, like the parent talks, and not from brave independent and noble impulse of thought and reason like Paul Revere or Franklin, Cushing, Jefferson, Lincoln, Jackson, and Edison, who did new things useful to man. I hear that Judge Maxey went hunting at Brownsville the other day and that the party killed three deer. We will look out for them when we get down there and tell you how it is. Kiss both Mamma and Sister for me and tell them I will write to them both soon, though it is a great labor now that I am without my typewriter. Your affectionate father, ANSON MILLS. The day before Anson's death, Nannie asked him what he wished she should say to me from him when I arrived, when he replied: