Letter from M. Carey Thomas to Mary Elizabeth Garrett, April 28, 1893

Dearest Mary, It is 2 P.M. I dictated letters for 2 hrs, came in at 10:45, met the Exec. Com. at 12. Only Howard Comfort who was so embarrassed he did not once catch my eye and Philip Garrett who was as bland as a May morning were there. The business took -+ hr and then I came away and left them to discuss the situation. After this I saw Dr. Thomson and made an appointment for you at 2:30 P.M. on Wed. next. My train gets to Broad St at 2:15. So remember in case I forget to mention on it again. We can look up your train later. First I will answer your letter. Miss Elder discovered nothing. Mamie saw her and told her, when she said she had heard you were with us, that just at present you had left and were either in N. York or Boston. JuliaGÇÖs letter is - just exactly like Gertrude. I hope you will not answer it. She can never had really loved you to pursue you so on no possible excuse. It seems to me dreadful although it is precisely like what I know her to be. I think as I said before if your life is to begin to be simple and happy you have no choice but to refuse all acquaintance with such a person. Her determination to force your hand seems to me almost too bad to be found in real life - after an intimacy like yours and hers. How can she do it after you have shown so clearly your wishes. All possible reasons of past love and past friendship ought to make it impossible but I suppose your money and what Julia was always talking about over balance all this. This she always seemed to me immensely to over estimate I mean the horrid part. I often used to wonder how a woman who had associated for so much of her life with wellbred people could be so vulgar as to take her [illegible] like point of view. It was the first thing that occurred to her in connection with you or people knowing you. I suppose in part in comes from her family characteristics and in part from the fact that on both sides no one belonging to her has intelligence or breeding or wealth or position or anything to furnish her with a standard. I always felt it and knew it and - when I did not know you, my dear - was so desperately afraid you sympathised with a point of view I did not see how you could fail to notice. It was one of the mountains I had to cross to reach my passionate land - JuliaGÇÖs attitude about such things. Dr. Jacobi was provoking but it does not matter. I hope you put it on your back. You surely have a right to treat a bruised back, have you not? Whatever you said it does not matter. No one has discovered you in Baltimore, I am sure, except perhaps Miss McDowell who has never sent you flowers but once to B.M. That is significant. I wish you could really understand about my letters. There is so much to do every moment of the time that I simply cannot get a moment and the moments I get I cannot use I am too tired. I have not read a newspaper since I saw you in New York and only the 2 books you sent me Cosmopolis I have only half read. I had a headache yest. aft., took phenacetin and 5 drops of digitalis as Gerhard told me, and nevertheless had a bad heart attack for a 15 min. the first since the one the day before I came to N.Y. My grad students dinner which I had planned thinking you might be there. Miss Gentry our Berlin Fellow, Miss France and Miss Madison both [illegible] grads and Miss Emery our last yearGÇÖs European Fellow went off well and in the evening lots of grad. students came over. It is like 2 parties a month my receptions to the students. But another Thursday is lived through. And next Wed. I shall see you. I wish you were better, but I think it is natural to feel weak on 1st going out. Your hair woman has said a just saying. How pleased I am. Of course you brush your hair too much. All my courage has come back and I am thankful for always in evidence as I am it would be very mortifying to look distressed or ill. I think it will come right but if not it is one of those things that simply cannot be helped. And everyone who knows will understand. Dr. Rh and I will together explain to the Faculty and Students and it is much pleasanter to have him more distressed than I am and taking the grand that I have no other course of action. I wish I had not promised to tell you all the details I am sure I ought not to write you, as it must trouble you. David Scull is now as worked up as Uncle James and Dr. Rh so the thick of combat thickens. James Wood may refuse to withdraw and as far as I see then the nominating committee will have to support him and it is just possible that the Trustees who appointed the nominating committee may feel bound to support their Committee. But it will I think only be by some accident of this kind, or in a grand row where the Board loses its temper that I shall lose my majority. It is the most unnecessary fight ever waged. I believe that every member of that Board except Francis Cope likes me in his heart and would prefer me as President, but it has all come about through the determined animosity of the most strong willed member of the Board. It would be comic if it were not so unutterable. Mob rule is horrid. Now the whole Board is trotting about and seeing each other. Chas Hartshorne and Dr Rh were talking downstairs while our Ex. Com. met upstairs and Howard Comfort and Philip Garrett went to work the moment I left, I am sure. Uncles James had I think gone to see Chas. Taylor. It is pleasant to feel that one is being discussed to shreds throughout an indefinite number of days. I hope you liked my letter. I made it personal on purpose. Nothing else will appeal to them. I want them to feel how unjustly I shall be treated. Now my dear one. Please forgive me for such letters all Presidency when they are letters at all. I send you many kisses and much love and wish I could be with you Sunday in our Cath. room. Yours