April 25, 1951
Dear Charlie,
I feel really bad about what happened. I am sorry. Truly. I was still mad about that grade on my Coleridge paper—I deserved better, it was a good paper, well thought-out and perfectly executed. Zeus forbid if you don’t constrict yourself to the Exeter mold. I put a lot of effort into that paper and tried to write like that old opium eater and it was fifty times more interesting than your run of the mill term paper with its tired thesis statements and conclusions. I did something different and now I am rolling the rock back up the hill. And then I got your letter and I thought maybe it was a joke. It was all bad timing. You were just trying to make me feel better. I know that now. And it was late and I was tired and when you came into my room and said those things and maybe you were starting to come down with whatever you have now and that would explain a lot but I lost my temper and I am sorry. I over-reacted. I should not have hit you and said the things I said. That was wrong. I was just so bloody upset about that paper. I am the best student in English class. Everyone knows that. Mr. Halley has it in for me, if that’s not obvious. And you were just trying to make me feel better and you were tired and sick and I was tired and frustrated. How are you feeling now? Are you coming back to school soon? I certainly deserved my suspension and was lucky I didn’t get expelled. You said what you said only meaning the nicest thing in the world. We are the oldest friends after all. I should have never gone as far as I did and called you the things I called you. You are nothing like that, Charlie. You’re a good man, an even gooder friend (that’s a joke, Mr. Halley). You were exhausted and feverish. I should have been more understanding but I had to write that damned paper all over again, make it boring just to satisfy the way it’s done. So forgive me, Charlie. I hope you feel better and come back to school soon. You are, as Coleridge might say, a companionable form. Unlike Mr. Halley, bells his only music.
Your friend forever,
Andrew