Letter from M. Carey Thomas to Mary Elizabeth Garrett, October 7, 1888

Dearest Mary, Will you take a very affectionate greeting in place of a letter and in place (in place as regards me not you, I mean) of the three times I meant to ask you to kiss me goodbye I left for the station that hurried Friday. That was my only excuse for delaying in that clearly inexcusable manner for we barely caught the train and unless my porter had recognized my trunks and had had the cheques ready for me either I or my luggage must have been left. I know I should have such a melancholy and exhausting experience before we met again as I was just telling you you seemed so wholly wretched that I should have liked to put my arms around you and embrace you as if we had both been Frenchmen in a railway station. I can think of no more offensive comparison. I intended to write to you at once but as you ought to know best of all men a wish is not a letter, The first Saturday I shat in my office from 8 a.m. till 12 midnight registering students and discussing admissions. In the hours interval for luncheon and dinner I had to give Mrs. Carroll something to eat. She brought Bessie on and to my surprise-- and pleasure-- for she did it very sweetly, she kissed me and said that she should never forget what we were doing for Bessie. I had never seen her before. We have reason to be satisfied with BessieGÇÖs record. She was one of six out of sixteen to pass the German examination i.e. she enters with Greek, latin, French, and German. She received GÇ£meritGÇ¥ on her Solid Geometry and Trigonometry, a paper on which the failures were overwhelming and she enters with all the advanced examinations and no conditions. Well after that week and that Saturday I was a wreck all Sunday. Monday I registered again. We have 106 students, that is we are full. Among them two students from Kentucky, one Virginian, and one from Louisiana apart from our five Maryland girls. I am so delighted to see the Southern students coming. All of these 106 are up to our own standard. Tuesday I went into my English lecture room to find it thronged-- students sitting in all the 4 window seats and I suppose I was not feeling well-- but for the first time since you were in my quiz two years ago except for the few quizzes after last November-- was overcome with embarrassment and could scarcely command my voice and even yet it is much more of an effort than it used to be. I have over 60 regular hearers and I suppose the number must make a difference. In my English Major I have 6 undergraduates and 4 graduates (me a college professor of English). It is a trial to have it so large this year of all others. I did not suppose there were so many people in the world as I have met since Sept 24th and the men of our Faculty seem many more than seventeen. It is getting to be very formidable to address the faculty. All our new men except one are GÇ£swellsGÇ¥ I am glad to say. You could not guess that they were professors. Last Saturday I had planned to write to you but Dr. Shorey came and it had been so long since I had spoken a word except on business and his first word was that the event of the summer for him had been Robert Ellesmere [sic]-- for both of which reasons I must have been more approachable than usual as he stayed till long past any writing hor. I wonder how you have been sleeping lately-- I slept for the first time in two weeks well at the seashore and since then I read myself to sleep every night with your Arabian Nights and it has been a great deal better. It is usually not later than one when the charmed spell of adventures forever ending in the union of severed lovers ceases to hold me and I sleep till morning i.e. till half past six, or seven oGÇÖclock. You will I know be glad to hear even though it proves me in the right that my backache is historical. It was only a strain and has righted itself . I did not wish to be unreasonable but only wait to see and my backache has certainly gone. I did not realise what it would be to be free from it/ I have seen dr. Broomall again about my surgical operation and she says it will be such a serious affair that I cannot think of having it done unless I can go to bed for sometime. She evidently thinks it quixotic to have it done but the next time I am in New York I will show the gland to Dr. Cushier and see what she thinks although I cannot let her perform the operation for I do not wish to be laid up at a New York hotel for two weeks at five dollars a day. I shall perhaps show it to her on Saturday for as Mrs. and Mr Gwinn leave then I am going to join Mamie and go to the Matinee and the evening performance of Coquelin. I know no one in New York and of course except for that I have no objection and every reason for going. All last winter in fact since the divine Sarah was here two years ago I have not been inside of a theatre. Later-- Thursday Evening--Mamie writes that she has seen you of course she did not say anything about my going as I had asked her to tell no one at all, not dreaming she would see you you-- how I wish she had asked you to join us. CanGÇÖt you, Mary-- it would be very nice to see you-- you could stay with is at the Clarendon and afterwards on Sunday morning early before we left we could settle one or two little matters above all that infamous letter of Mr. NewellGÇÖs I have just recGÇÖd. He is a screw and determined to sell us his time minute by minute. Please consider it. Mamie would I know be very glad and to see you again would be pleasant indeed. We could get a seat next to at a speculatorGÇÖs. One reason it has been hard to write perhaps has been my feeling of mortification at the way I quarreled with Mamie at the schoolhouse that day. We do it scarcely ever now and never in that way. I do not know what it was about I am only sure it was all my fault and I am also sure that it is foolish to mind a little matter so much. Still I suppose you understand, and Mamie and I understand. I have been inconceivably busy there has been no time to think any thought but morbid thoughts which seem indeed more impalpable than other thoughts. I have adopted a plan that works well on high pressure. I do not think one moment. I never have a book out of my hand. I read till the last moment before going to sleep and like the bottle that a baby finds popped into its mouth in the morning my hand usually open on a book in the morning when I awake. I read straight through my meals and whenever I walk. When I lift my head from the waters of Lethe I am sure that I shall be much more GÇ£wiseGÇ¥ as Shelley would say. Shelley is a perfectly charming subject for my classwork. Now it is so late that I must go upstairs and I have finished the last volume (the third) of your Arabian Nights so I shall have to seek further afield for an exciting romance to be my lullaby tonight. I wonder if you would not write me a few words to say how you are next Sunday if you are not in New York. Your telegram was very sweet and found me lying on my sofa with the first sense of loneliness at opening my college as my companion. Lovingly yours, Minnie C. Th.