Letter from M. Carey Thomas to Mary Elizabeth Garrett, December 10, 1893

Dearest Mary, No letter, no letter and post office sent to all in vain. I hope it means you were busy not too tired to write. Perhaps you were saving up for Sunday and will write me a long letter. After closing mine yesterday I read that extraordinary book and finished PrevostGÇÖs Lettresde Femmes which I mail you tomorrow. It is really very clever, very in a wholly un Maupassant vein thought not without improprieties of its own. Today I have fussed over furniture coverings and sorted letters and written a long letter to David Scull telling him how well things are going. At the Board Chas. Hartshorne when the minutes were read moved that only the fact that was elected be noted and that the 3 votes for H. Comf and 1 for Dr. Rh and 1 for James Wood be struck out of minutes. Which was very nice, I thought. They carried it of course no one disapproved as J.B. Garrett was out of room and my other 2 enemies were in bed. Well we are going to New York on Wed. aft or on Thursday morning if MamieGÇÖs 2nd day of being unwell is Wed. and shall prob. stay at Victoria so as to save cabs after theatres - will you please reserve us these seats at the Murray Hill Theatre Ticket Office - the very best they can get in orchestra and please if you can leave Julia take a seat for yourself for the Cav. Rust (you have not heard it have you? - too. We return to B.M. on Sunday aft. Do you leave JuliaGÇÖs on the 16th as you planned I wonder. You must get a little underway before we come on the 20th as I foresee many school meetings. G.W.C. gave me this article from editorial page of ledger which to my mortification I had not seen and said he was only waiting to get a chance to have an editorial written. Here is the sample of my flame colour. I have tried to get it for you several times but was always baffled by finding not a shred I could cut off. This time I totally cut a hole in the sleeve. There was nothing else to be done so long as you would have a sample. I do not believe in GayGÇÖs treachery - he looked too nice. He did not tell us he worked in TiffanyGÇÖs exhibit but that a workman he had brought with him to Chicago did which lessens his expenses as he did not have to support this man in Chicago. Please find out if you can whether America the ballet at the Metropolitan is good. I have seen nothing at all except one opera since we saw Willard in Chicago. Mr. Gay has sent plans that are moderately satisfactory but I have returned one sketch to him for correction and begged him to return it at once. Your suggestion of writing to Patty proved effective. Have you see the Cazins? I am so delighted they will still be there. I am still feeling very well but fear it is all due to that tonic. As to Xmas B.M.S. Party Helen comes in as a graduate. I think perhaps Margaret ought to be asked as having just resigned and Miss Potts donGÇÖt forget her and Miss Ida Wood, 2038 Spring Garden St Phila as a compliment and perhaps the one or two girls who received honorable mention at our close last year. Mary Carroll and the Kate child and Mabel Carter or was it Mabel Carter. I cannot remember. Who else could you ask except some friends of yours if you wished. Bertha, your aunts who else should you wish. I have been filling our Adirondack route into my journal - such golden days in spite of business letters and grumbling guides were they not, except that day at the little Lupper. So much to remember and so much to look forward to - is it not? I do not believe - to change the subject - that those Spanish plates or that Japanese chair are coming - do you ? And again to change the subj this time I am going to call on Julia de Forest on Sat. aft after you have left so as not to seem to call on you and thus clearly to do my duty. Now goodbye, I cannot write nice letters somehow because - there are so many business things to write about. Here is another - Father says he has seen Annie and Mary and Bessie repeatedly since and no one of them has mentioned the subject of my election. It is 5 P.M. and the sun light is flooding the hall through the new window which has a bar and temporary curtains. It reaches so far along it almost reaches the Madonna. The firelight and lamplight and sunlight make one cheerful in spite of oneself. Are you - I wonder - thinking of me this afternoon my dear one. If you were here it would be time for you to go - and I hate to have you go, so much I incline then - but then only - to wish you had never come. Goodbye no goodbyes can be as horrid as the Montebello ones on Sunday afternoons Yours