Your long and exceedingly interesting letter is just to hand The President has not been heard from and will not be until the close of the session. Gov Swain has general Holme's promise that the students will not be disturbed until an answer has been received from the president to the letter written by him in pursuance of the resolutions adopted at the meeting of the board of trustees. You may rest easy then for the present as I will not be taken at least until the expiration of the session. I see the papers are beginning to agitate the question and as they have laid hold on it there is no telling where the controversy will end I am sorry to hear that the Rowan artillery has its full complement of men as I had intended to make application for admission into it. All things work for the best. Had I been taken a week ago I would probably have been hurried off to some company to every member of which I would have been a total stranger And as it is even if I were summoned now I dont know where I would go. There is a slight chance of president Davis listening to Gov Swains touching appeal; for it was a very creditable letter the contents of which he read to the Senior class. I am perfectly indifferent what the answer may be in fact I believe I prefer it would be an unfavourable one. The time which I would have to spend at the university could at best be short and fleeting. Look how rapidly the present session has flown by. A few months would make but little difference with me. If I am able to endure the privations of camp life I would enter on the Spring campaign a seasoned soldier. My health I believe is good. I have had no more of those debilitating night sweats. I think I have had no more than two altogether; yet I am aware that I am by no means strong and vigourous. I desire to believe that the hardships and privations through which I would have to pass if I entered the army would have a very beneficial effect. I have a slate for Richard a very good one too but I fear I shall not be able to procure the arithmetic. Is it indispensably necessary that he should have an Emerson? However I will look out for one and will not fail to purchase it if an opportunity is afforded I am glad to hear that Richard is making such rapid progress in his studies. I hope he will be made to study and to relish all studies equally alike, before his mind becomes biased in favour of a particular branch or branches. You have not given up the idea of having a private teacher? Dr Wrights daughter from Norfolk now residing in this place is a very intelligent handsome and refined young lady. She intends to go as a teacher into a private family next year but whether her services have already been secured I have not thought it worth my while to enquire. I called upon her once and found her attractive and pleasant. She is a member of the Episcopal church If you desire it I dont think I would have any difficulty in gaining all the requisite information. If you should succeed in obtaining her as a teacher you might I think congratulate yourself on your good success. I mean to see her several times before the close of the session, which is not far distant. I think if nothing happens I will reach home next Tuesday two weeks. I told Father at the commencement of the session that I thought fifteen hundred dollars would defray all my expenses and I now find that my estimate was not far from being correct. I arrived here with seven hundred dollars ($700) in the old issue; eight hundred and fifty dollars ($850) I think only $800 perhaps $850. It seems to me that my ist case was for $25. If so I received but $807. I am uncertain about this however has been sent me (in new issue) and I will require one hundred and fifty dollars ($150) more which Father may send me at his convenience Col. W.L. Saunders returned to his regiment nearly a month ago. I wish you not to relax your efforts in my behalf on account of the equivocal situation in which I am placed I was writing with borrowed ink which the owner has just taken away. It is as natural for me now to visit the ladies as it formerly seemed awkward and unnatural. Scarcely a night passes without my calling upon some one There is a certain class which I go to see regularly eight or nine in number and it takes me something more than a week to go the rounds. There are others whom I know I should visit; but I have not the nerve to call. The Mallets whose relationship to me I have never been able to trace I have never yet honoured with my presence; that is though I can not be said not to know them as I have had an introduction still I have never been able to summon resolution enough to pay them a visit nor do I know that I ever shall. They dont talk enough for me and of all the people in this world deliver me from a woman destitute of the gift of speech. Knowledge is elicited best and I may say only by the collission of mind with mind. "The lone thinkers thoughts come slight and slow" says the Homeric bard. "Unus homo, nullus homo" is an old and truthful adage. "By a master we are more excited than by a book; but an antagonist whether from his pertinacity or his wisdom is to me a double master." (J.C. Scaliger)