William H. Amerland an Ernst Haeckel, St. Louis, 26. Mai 1910
A. LESCHEN & SONS ROPE CO.
SOLE MANUFACTURS OF PATENT FLATTENED STRAND
ST. LOUIS, MO. May 26th-1910.
Prof. Ernst Heinrich Haeckel,
Jena, Germay.
Dear Sir: - -
Some time ago through the circumstance of death, I came into the possession of an Album of the Autographs of noted Authors and distinguished characters of a generation ago, and the book has been neglected for over twenty-five years until it came into my possession and I have now undertaken to add the autographs of those of the present generation for the interest of future generations, in an historical way; the book ultimately to go into the possession of a Washington Historical Society and I beg of you, as the first representative of Philosophy now living to favor me with your Autograph and any inscription that you might be pleased to make on the enclosed leaves. I do this, as it would be of special interest to a great many of our people who will visit the rooms of the Society and are to a certain extent, || familiar with your works, to have the opportunity to see the Autograph Signature of a man so renowned as a deep and original Thinker. These leaves are to be bound into the Album as soon as I have names sufficiently collected to warrant it.
The names originally in the Album are as follows:
Queen Victoria.Wilkie Collins.
W. M. Thackeray.E. A. Poe.
Louisa Alcott.John Ruskin.
Chas. Dickens.Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Alfred Tennyson.Bayard Taylor.
Henry W. Longfellow.John G. Holland.
John Howard Payne.John G. Saxe.
W. H. Prescott.Chas. Reade.
J. P. Trowbridge.Washington Irving.
J. G. Whittier.Victor Hugo.
R. W. Emerson.George Bancroft.
Abraham Lincoln.John W. Motley
Wm. Cullen Bryant.Rutherford B. Hayes.
Wm. Wordsworth.Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
Among those received during the last few months, are the following:
Wm. H. Taft.Booth Tarkington.
James Whitcomb Riley.Thomas Edison.
Rear Admiral Schley.Admiral Dewey.
Sir Arthur W. Pinero.Israel Zangwell.
David R. Francis.Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Rudyard Kipling.Viscount Milner.
Earl Roberts.W. J. Bryan.
A. J. Balfour.John Burroughs.
Henry Cabot Lodge.James J. Hill.
As I have only started to enlarge this collection very recently, I feel delighted to hope that I will make this an interesting collection and expect to keep up the list to the standard given.
I only say in reference to myself that I hope the position of Cashier for the Company on whose letter-head this is written and have been in that capacity for the last nineteen years. I will be pleased to show the book to anyone here in St. Louis that you might designate to verify my statement.
Thanking you kindly for any courtesy you may extend, I beg to remain,
Faithfully yours.
W. H. Amerland.