Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2953

Typed letter from Heath’s grandson Irvan Thomas O’Connell, Jr.,

at Harvard, acknowledging gift of a check

April 23 (year not given)

Dear Popdaddy,                    April 23, St. George’s Day,

Well I’ll be damned! Really, I’m overwhelmed. Thank you very much Popdaddy. I plan to spend some of it, at least, on Oxford Texts of the Classics which I have been wanting. I might even try to find some volumes of the Cambridge Ancient History. There’s no end of things that I might do with it. Indeed, the idea of buying things gives as much pleasure, almost, as the buying and possession itself; especially when there’s no limit to the things that one can imagine.

  As usual, I have been intending to write all term; I’m a little abashed that it takes this to get a letter out of me. Everything here is fine. Next week Mother and Daddy are coming up. This is the only time that they will see me here in my habitat so I will have a lot to show them.

  I have been reading a lot lately, especially of the history of the Roman Empire of the third and fourth centuries. It is interesting and profitable work. And I have been messing with a theory of history. You would like this one. It owes enough to you, and the big theories are the most fun to work with. Popdaddy, could you come up sometime on one of the weekends in May, and we could spend a night or two talking at each other. If you can, send me a note, and I’ll line things up.

                        Love and thanks,

                                Irvan