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Title: Letter to Angus McKay from William Kennedy:
Institution: Univesity Library, University of Saskatchewan
Description: Letter reading "April 5th 81 - My dearest old chum, As work is utterly out of the question for me to night I thought that I might profitably employ myself for the remainder of the night by writing to all my old friends whose old and treasured epistles I have just been perusing over and over again for the last hour or so - And finding that all of you without exception express in each of your letters the pleasure that you ever derive from receiving a letter from an old school mate. I thought that I could not possibly do better than write you all a few lines in turn although after having read through your old letter I feel that I justly deserve to be [?] by one and all of you for my neglect and laziness in not writing to all of you more frequently than I have done in the past and although I might plead a heavy pressure of work as my excuse for not writing you [?] I do not think such and excuse would exculpate me in the least bit. Now please do not be disgusted at this dry and hard style of writing old fellow. You remember we are told somewhere in scripture if I mistake not, that out of the fullness of the heart proceed the words of man, or something to that effect. Well just so it is with me All the old letters which I have been reading, coming as they do, from all parts of the world you may say - from yourself at Carlton, from Mowat at Edmonton, from Larry at Toronto, from Rorie in South Carolina, from San Francisco and from Machray at Cambridge, and all of them teeming as they do with warm and kindly sentiments as well as those from old "Scout" in British Columbia have made my manly though tender heart full ever to overflowing. When I had finished the perusal and the re-perusal of them all the first thing that I said to myself was "by jove, I'll write to dear old Angus". Well enough of this - call it by whatever name you please. I must be getting on to the real gist and substance of this epistle, or you will at length be saing "Aut insanit homs, aut versus facit" - Have you forgotten your Latin? And first of all I must tell you that in accordance with your instructions to your brother James, which be delivered to me, with respect to the collar for your dog of famous name and fame I racked thoroughly the poetical departments of my brain and by [?] perseverance, mingled at the same time with talent for poetical composition to acclaim degree, I managed to turn out some couplets which I thought to be extremely suitable for a Doz collar, and which I handed over to James for inspection and I desired him to select one of them but alas! His criticism proved too severe for my verses - they were all repudiated - and all deemed equally unsuitable for the Collar of so distinguished a day as "Suabs or Nibs". From that time the poetical and our within me has completely died out, it having been, I thin previously exhausted by my two [?] "to the moon" of which you may probably have heard. But while [?] on this subject I must thank you for the high compliment you paid me in selecting me to write the verses I would [?] I had been more worthy of the high honour paid me! Jimmie is see is your frequent correspondent and from him I suppose you get all the current news at this place, so I will refrain from wearying you with a rehash of the same old story. To a fellow who is staying all along at this place, there does not appear any change though perhaps to an old boy like you (pardon me you are a man now) a very great change might be visible, were you to revisit the scenes of your boyhood once more. There is always the same routine day after day without any intermission at which one is apt to repine, at any rate I often do I know; I sometimes long for change. I suppose I do not fully realize that a persons school-days are really the happiest days of this life, although even now I look back with [?] pleasure on the days when you and I were in the noble old 5th form together, the prestige of which we managed to keep up wonderfully well. We have a Debating Society formed, in which we all take a very great interest. We have one or two very good speakers especially one a Mr [?] whom you possibly may have seen last summer out there as he was coming in from the North - he takes rank as a speaker with Mr McKenzie who used to take a leading part with Debates of our old society...."
Call Number: 385 Corr - William Kennedy
dc.publisher

Title: Letter to Angus McKay from William Kennedy:
Institution: University Library, University of Saskatchewan
Description: Letter reading "May 23rd 1880, My dear old Angus, I suppose you have, bu this time [?] forgotten that there is any such person as N. T.B.K. in existence, and no wonder. I however have not yet forgotten that there is such a distinguished personage as Angus McKay Esq. still living to honor Carlton House with his presence as this letter proves. I have often wondered during the past year which of us was the worse. The year, commencing August 1st 1879, began with strong protestations on both sides, that a good and continued correspondence should ensue between myself and thee, most noble Angus. Time has shown how these good resolves have been kept. I write a letter and send off to you by mail a set of razors, about the middle of September 1879. I get the answer to my letter and receipt for the razors about the 2nd of January 1880. Then I write an answer to you immediately thereupon, but I leave it unfinished in my mothers desk which she sends away to you in its unfinished state: and at that point all correspondence drops. Don't you that this is a truthful statement of the facts of the case? Well then who do you think is the more at fault? We'll say that we are about six of one and half a dozen of the other, and then we quit. Will that satisfy you? I guess we both consider letter-writing a horrid nuisance, and that lies at the bottom of the whole affair. But at any rate you ought to let a fellow know how you are getting along once in a while at least. Perhaps it's because you think that you have no news to tell me of. That doesn't matter. You have a knack of inventing news as it were, and you always make your letters enjoyable to read owing to that ever-flowing fountain of whit and humor which you possess. So then you must write sometimes (indefinite) and I will do the same. Don't abstain from writing because you hate corresponding with religious persons. I am not a "parson" yet and till then, I give you open freedom of speech. Well old fellow I suppose you would very much like to know what I am doing with myself now-a-days: whether I am still the same indolent and stupid old Kennedy you knew in days of yore. Well I am not quite so lazy as I used to be - although certainly I don't rise till eight o'clock in the morning. I am working at Classics and Mathematics. I intend going up for Honors in both subjects. Don't you wish me joy and success? Next summer I am going up for the Final Exams for B.A. MacLennan or as we fondly style him Micawher - is going in for Classics your brother Jimmie and Alfred and Davie are going up for the Previous Exam in a weeks time I fully expect that Jimmie will be the Bronze Medalist of the University this year. I had a letter from "Scout" a few weeks ago, in which he says he should very much like to come back here again, enter the Univ. and study Mathematics, although he says he has forgotten nearly all the maths that he once knew. I'll bet you thought if Scout were to come back again, he would do credit to this old institution in the shape of maths. By jove I think you ought to write to him Angus. He is at Fraser's Lake, New Caledonia, B. Columbia. He is in charge of two posts in that district. He tells me that he lives alone at the post at Fraser's Lake in a large house with no other occupant but himself, and that there is no one there who can talk English to him. He says that he is lonely, but that the has any account of hunting to compensate for his loneliness. If you do write put the above address on the envelope and write via Quesuelle and send the letter down to Winnipeg. I say a few weeks ago I had a letter from your noble brother Gilbert, which he closes by telling me that "his wife joins him in kind regards" or something to that effect. Is he really married? and if so who is it to? He ends a letter to McLennan in something the same manner, and from that I infer that he is married. But he may be only joking. Your epistle of last winter made me at our time suspect that your worthy bro was my 2nd cousin-in-law and that you therefore were a little closer connected to us than by this tie of forty-fifth of fiftieth cousinship; but I afterward reflected upon your quizzical and jovial disposition, and I therefore reject the [?]. You will be surprised to hear that the Rev. [?] Pinkham is to be married on the 24th of next month, and also that Prof. Bourue M.A.; A.I.M.; C.E.; D.L.S; T.C.D. and the devil knows what else besides, has already dabbled in matrimony. And now I must close, as it is getting late. Be sure and write soon, like a good fellow as I am dying to hear from you. Give my love to Mr and Mrs Taylor and all her family, and Believe me Ever your faithful friend, Wm. T.B. Kennedy"
Call Number: 385 Corr - William Kennedy
dc.publisher: St. John's College