Clarence Darrow to Ruby Darrow. March 20, 1903.
Note: Date from postmark on back of envelope. Both the note and the letter were found in the same envelope. The first part of the letter is missing.
Click on the image to download as a PDF. A transcription of the letter is on the right.
Leland Hotel
Springfield, Ill.,____________190___
Yes I washed my head. Now I begin to see what I was getting into.
The Law Offices of
ADDISON BLAKELY
1202 Ashland Block
Chicago
try to read some of the books that I told you I would send & that I will when I get back which will be on Sunday the 10th. I am sure you will always find that they will do you good. I shall get back on Sunday morning & shall go to my office & look over my mail on my big black desk & I want to find a nice long letter from my Ruben which I can read first. The mountains are as lovely and grand & fine as ever & I am simply a wild savage once more when I get into them. How I hope you will love them as I do & that we can spend a summer cooped up in them where no one can come. Dear — would it hurt for me to spend a day with you? If we just got a St. Car & rode out as far as we could & then walked
beyond the houses where xxx we could find a [___?] & I could hold your hand it would doxxx so much good, & then I could come back at night — but if you can not I will wait. You may have a feeling that I do xxx somehow tire of you when you come & that it is best to wait. I have thought this all over & think I understand it. In the way I live it gets complicated & hard after a week or two, from the very nature of things, so much piles up on me & there are so many things that I can not explain that I feel impatient after that time when both of us will not consent to part — but if I knew just how long & then we stopped & I went back to my daily haunts it would be different — But in all this I must not urge you away from away any line you think best or still more from any course that your family makes necessary. At least darling I love you & long for you & want you —
Ever devotedly —
Visual Description: Front of envelope with Springfield, IL stamp.
From:
Leland Hotel
Springfield, Ill.
To:
Miss Ruby Hammerstrom
3949 Washington Ave
St Louis Mo
Visual Description: Back of envelope with St. Louis, MO postmark dated Mar 20, 1903.