Daddy Long Legs

Affectionately,

Judy

14th December

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

I dreamed the funniest dream last night. I thought I went into a book

store and the clerk brought me a new book named The Life and Letters of

Judy Abbott. I could see it perfectly plainly--red cloth binding with

a picture of the John Grier Home on the cover, and my portrait for a

frontispiece with, 'Very truly yours, Judy Abbott,' written below. But

just as I was turning to the end to read the inscription on my

tombstone, I woke up. It was very annoying! I almost found out whom

I'm going to marry and when I'm going to die.

Don't you think it would be interesting if you really could read the

story of your life--written perfectly truthfully by an omniscient

author? And suppose you could only read it on this condition: that

you would never forget it, but would have to go through life knowing

ahead of time exactly how everything you did would turn out, and

foreseeing to the exact hour the time when you would die. How many

people do you suppose would have the courage to read it then? or how

many could suppress their curiosity sufficiently to escape from reading

it, even at the price of having to live without hope and without

surprises?

Life is monotonous enough at best; you have to eat and sleep about so

often. But imagine how DEADLY monotonous it would be if nothing

unexpected could happen between meals. Mercy! Daddy, there's a blot,

but I'm on the third page and I can't begin a new sheet.

I'm going on with biology again this year--very interesting subject;

we're studying the alimentary system at present. You should see how

sweet a cross-section of the duodenum of a cat is under the microscope.

Also we've arrived at philosophy--interesting but evanescent. I prefer

biology where you can pin the subject under discussion to a board.

There's another! And another! This pen is weeping copiously. Please

excuse its tears.

Do you believe in free will? I do--unreservedly. I don't agree at all

with the philosophers who think that every action is the absolutely

inevitable and automatic resultant of an aggregation of remote causes.

That's the most immoral doctrine I ever heard--nobody would be to blame

for anything. If a man believed in fatalism, he would naturally just

sit down and say, 'The Lord's will be done,' and continue to sit until

he fell over dead.

I believe absolutely in my own free will and my own power to

accomplish--and that is the belief that moves mountains. You watch me

become a great author! I have four chapters of my new book finished

and five more drafted.