Letter from Horace Sumner Lyman on a trip to Ohio and a thunderstorm

Title

Letter from Horace Sumner Lyman on a trip to Ohio and a thunderstorm

Description

Letter from Horace Sumner Lyman to his family during his time at Oberlin Seminary. He discusses a trip to Ohio and a thunderstorm.

Creator

Lyman, Horace Sumner

Is Part Of

Lyman Family Papers

Language

English

Identifier

PUA_MS31_41_p

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/

Source

Pacific University Archives

Format

Letter

Type

Text

Other Media

Oberlin, March 28, ‘81

Pepl,

Your letter containing the information that thou, Mary hadst been suffering from a cold and other indisposition, having been received [?] read and making [?] and far [?][?], hereby are replied to. I did not write Sunday, for the good and sufficient, the substantial and satisfactory, reason that I was far away from these [scenes?], I was at Nelson, Ohio. I was bold enough to speak extempore in the evening, I had a better flow of ideas and language than I had anticipated and on the whole pleased myself better than I have ever done speaking entirely without anything to read. I had not a scrap of paper. So far as I observed I had the attention of all. One can easily feel when all are listening and following his thought. When I was at [?], the place where I got [?] of the [carr?] to ride to Nelson, there came up a magnificent shower. The thunder trumpeted off Hiram Ridge [guttered?] black in the West, blue-black, knotted, [?], metalic and solid, out of which lightning [dripped?]. Some low scud clouds, with their sides [?] from the height of the S. E. sky, drove rapidly in front of the storm mass; curdled, rolling over and over. The scud clouds soon shut off the light from the Eastern heavens, the thunder rattled overhead, frogs sang in the meadows. Some little cold drops of rain fell viciously. Then hail began to thump on the roofs; largest I ever saw, half as big as eggs, some of it; hail masses, diamond-shaped, frozen together, they fell slantingly directed by the wind, and bounded as they struck the ground. No great quantity fell. A sheet of rain torn to shreds by the wind, then wrapped all the cloudscape, while the thunder crashed along. Rain slacks, turns into a weak drizzle, storm drives on like before, amid the clanking of [?] wheels, the West lightens up, peace; the rain and the ice and [coals?] of [fire?] are past. There is blue in the N.W. The frogs sing again, and storm-stayed men hitch up and drive off.

I weigh 139. I went down to the [train?] the other day, I see it come and go, and watch the people and more, and thus pensively engaged, a form stood before me, one whom I had known of old: James T.

I always read your letters with an appetite. Father.