Woodrow Wilson to Richard Heath Dabney

Only a reason of the gravest character, I am conscious, can be reckoned sufficient to justify my apparent neglect of your letter: but, alas, I have such a reason. I have been so mastered by work and sorrow that it has not been possible for me to show in any way, to my dearest friends even, that I recognized any claims upon me but the not-to-be-shunned claims of the daily task. On the 15th of last month my dear mother suddenly died—my first news of her condition was news of her death. Your letter came while I was away with my poor bereaved father in Tennessee (I stayed as long as imperative duties here at all permitted); and since I returned I have had work enough to deaden the pain of my loss,—work enough (for it included some of the most difficult portions of my Baltimore lectures) to have almost overwhelmed me under other circumstances. As it was I welcomed it—and I still rejoice in it—for the pull is still intense. My mother was a mother to me in the fullest, sweetest sense of the word, and her loss has left me with a sad, oppressive sense of having somehow suddenly lost my youth. I feel old and responsibility-ridden. I suppose that feeling will in time wear off, however, and that I shall ultimately get my balance again. In the meantime I crave your sympathy, old fellow—I need all you can give. And yet the worst of it is not my own bereavement, but my father's, whose daughters are both married, and who, with my college-boy brother, is left practically without a home. My own happy little home seems to reprove me on his account, in my morbid moments.I have just received and read with thorough agreement your contribution to the 'University Bulletin' on Methods of Historical Instruction. I feelingly endorse what you have to say concerning the undergraduate seminar idea—indeed I endorse all that you say.

Heath, my dear fellow, it will be possible—won't it?—for you to stop over with us for at least a little while this summer on your way between Richmond and New York, in one direction or the other. My work will not end with the college term, but the strain of it will—and it will be the best sort of recreation for me to have you with me for a while. We have set our hearts on it—don't refuse.

With regards from Mrs. W.,