Transcribe Hornaday, W. T. Letter to Ward, Henry A. (1882-03-19)

& Now that the time has actually come for me to "pull up stakes' and move on from my cosy corner in the Large Museum, and leave all the boys and the shops I feel like a boy leaving home and starting out in the world to strike for him self. Here all my failings and weaknesses have been charitably "condoned" in one way or another, and I have lived in a kind of home-like security which can never be found elsewhere. I have come to look upon the estab- lishment as a part of myself, and it will seem very strange to cut loose from it entirely . I wish I could hold a mortgage upon my present interest in it that I might foreclose and take possession of ^it^ when I chose !

    I am </u very > sorry my book is not to come out while

I am here, but after all I can with more force and </u effect > dedicate it from Washington to the </u "Founder of Ward's Natural Science Establishment ". > I shall go right on with it by working nights and Sundays at it until it is done, and if I can do it without breaking down I will </s get > ^ yet^ get it out in time for the next holiday.

    I wish you were here that I might have at least

</u one > good long talk with you before I go, but I will </u hope > that you will need to go to Washington during the early summer. If you do you won't have any board to pay </u there > ! I want to have a talk with you about the future of taxidermy, but it will have to lie over at present. Now that I am going you </u surely > can let poor Tennent come can't you ? He will be devoted your interests I think if you only give him a chance, and as a cheap taxidermist he would