Letter from Mary Elizabeth Garrett to M. Carey Thomas, August 14, 1889

Dearest Minnie, This time you see I am not waiting for the due interval of two weeks to have gone by, but then I have arrears to make up, and you can if you choose regard this in the light of a post-script for the letter I wrote you the other day from the train. It really is so, for there were several things I ought to have written about then which I did not even mention. The most important omission was about the J.H.H. and my visit to your father. I was not well enough as you now know to drive into town for some time, but on the first day that I was able to manage it, I went to see him. After waiting a little while he came in and was very nice but evidently unwilling to say more, or indeed, as much as he had written to you. The question of the amount he would not meet at all, evading it by saying that Institutions always wanted as much as they could get, etc. etc., and as he was evidently unwilling to discuss it, I could not press the matter. He was very decidedly of the opinion however, he said, that it would not be worth while to attempt to do anything until the autumn or rather until you got back, as he thought little could be accomplished when everyone was scattered, and that an active campaign could then be organized, after Mr. Gilman had been spoken to. I argued that money was difficult to raise, and so on, but he thought that as it was of course too late to do anything about building for this year, that begining in the autumn would give ample time to have the building in readiness for the following year. He said finally that would write Mr. Gilman if I wished, but as I have heard nothing from him, I suppose he did not, as I said of course I did not wish him to unless he thought it well to do so. So things are precisely in status quo and I have nothing to say beyond the general opinion that it is going to take far longer and be far more difficult than he seemed to realize, but it was probably simply that he did not care to take [illegible] to me about it and preferred waiting for you to organize the campaign. This did not of course agree with what he said in the note: GÇ£it seems to me that if early in the autumn you could offer a sum of money sufficient to build, etc. and offer it to the Univ. provided that the courses are open to women, it might effect [sic] your purpose with a less sum than -- GÇ¥ He can hardly think that within a few weeks of your return it will be possible to make the offer. I fear you will be in for a good deal of hard work in connection with this matter, and hope for this and every other reason you are going to come back feeling very much stronger and better. Please do not go back to Paris and spend any more days among your old haunts and make yourself ill again. I remembered your hygienic advice about Paris with the result (at least I suppose it had something to do with it) that Alice and her boys are going to the Hotel dGÇÖAlbe and arrive there how very soon. Poor Tilly! How difficult GÇ£accommodationGÇ¥ (using it in the technical sense) must be in such a case. I saw Dr. Hall the day before I left home having failed to find her the day I went to your fatherGÇÖs. I thought she seemed a little depressed about her own arrangements partly perhaps because she was finding great difficulty in getting an office which she wants in the neighborhood of the monument. She spoke very warmly of Dr. Hurd, thought we were very fortunate in securing such a woman etc. etc. and said that to her personally her being in Baltimore would make a great deal of difference. Her [illegible] about her was really very nice and she has apparently given her a great deal of helpful advice and a good many letters of introduction. The little woman of course sails on the 21st. I was pleased to hear of NellieGÇÖs GÇ£high creditsGÇ¥ and also to hear that she was GÇ£curedGÇ¥. What in incubus Miss Andrews must have been; it was too bad, but still the experience will probably be valuable for Nellie. Thursday, 15th Here it was proposed that we should go on with our reading of GÇ£Vanity FairGÇ¥ and I read to them all the afternoon. I have not read it in 5 years and am enjoying it so. Each time it seems truer. I donGÇÖt believe you care for Thackeray as I do, or am I wrong in this? It was very tantalizing last night to have a big envelope with the Constantinople postmark arrive and then to see the GÇ£B.M.Sc.GÇ¥ in the corner - after having my hopes roused, for at first I did not see the cabalistic signs. What an enchanting time you must be having there. I wonder whether you haunt the bazaars at all and whether you have discovered all the charm that Gautier did in them. The cottage I fancy will have many bits of Eastern color next year. But I must not go on much longer, as I have a great many letters that ought to be written today and as usual will probably be interrupted before many are done. This is my 6th day here and until yesterday the weather was perfect and a very large part of the day I spent in the rocks as the sea is only a stoneGÇÖs throw from the house which overlooks a little rock bound cove with a very bold mass of rock projecting into it which is the most delightful place to watch every change of sea and sky from. I intended to write you from my perch there on Sunday and again and Monday and Tuesday, but I could not write there. I simply had to give myself up to it, and then of course they are all down there a good deal with me. Yesterday however it was pouring when we waked and it poured all day and today is foggy with a drizzling rain, so that the rocks are not tempting. I envy Miss Bowler this place, for it is so far away from Bar Harbor (2 miles nearly) that you do not realize that you are near a town and of course one need not haunt the fashionable drives. I wish you would come and see the Island someday, but I donGÇÖt suppose you ever will, as nothing but necessity could make you spend a summer on this side of the ocean. I am already feeling a great deal better, and hope to be quite set up by my visit. I have been thinking of you both on these glorious moonlight nights as on the Acropolis and of your days as fulfilled with all the wonder and beauty of Greece and her art. How I hope that there has been nothing to mar it! Lovingly yours, Mary E.G.