Letter from M. Carey Thomas to Mary Elizabeth Garrett, June 13, 1891

Dearest Mary, Your cable of June 11th arrived on June 11th and on June 10th at Ithaca I had received your letter which should have been May 24th but although you closed on May 27th you must have missed the midweek mail for it did not sail still Saturday. Now I suppose your cable means that you did not write the next Sunday or the next (which was June 7th), and I hesitated very much whether to write today. You see bargain is a bargain but on the other hand we can be very good friends without writing regularly so I will write till I have time to hear from you, say until July 26th, and after that if you like I will drop the habit. My demand is humble - a few words every Sunday from you but unless you care to take the trouble to write these few words I will not write to you. You see you must be willing to make a little effort and if you are really too tired to do more than say you are tired my love will fill the gaps, but I am unwilling for it to make the gaps and fill them both. And I think often I have spoiled you by pouring out every thing at your feet, all my coin of words and thoughts. If you understand that if after six weeks from this time you do not write every week I shall say no more about it but stop writing and I shall not be the least cross and on the whole it may be best, although single handed I could perhaps not have had the heart to propose it, for I have been so struck this winter in reading KeatsGÇÖs and Shellys [sic] and Lord HougtonGÇÖs letters with the possibility of such a colossal waste of time. The second rateness of the opinions and the shadowy satisfaction of the affection. Letters amount to nothing after the moment, less than talking for talking has at least the pleasure of the moment. Now to return first to your letters; then to my own diary - I am so glad, so very glad, you did so much in London. Do not forget to tell me what you did after May 27th and remember to add judgments. Why did you not say how you liked Holman Hunt in his new departure and how Miss Leas, Weir MitchellGÇÖs sons fiance, impressed you. His whole circle was in ashes on account of the engagement and how Heder Gablur [?] acted. I can scarcely form an idea of its effect on one when played. Father was on the floor of the house during that Country Councilor debate. And I fear you missed the annual meeting of the Women Liberals at which Mariecher was defeated. Is not Miss Cobden [?] empty headed. She impressed me as flighty in the extreme and is not thought to have much sense I fancy. And be sure to tell me exactly how Frammitten and Proserfina and all the rest of them looked. She is a woman I should much like to see. I am so glad you are off to Norway. Have the nicest time in the world. Your enclosures came and in esp the extract from Kate McLaneGÇÖs letter. Please tell me whether you wrote to her as I asked you to. You owe it to me and to yourself to do so - to state distinctly to her muddle headed intellect that in your letter to the Trustees you expressed exactly what those of us who originated the movement and exactly what the Trustees had always understood, but that neither in your letter nor in the vote of the Trustees were hospital appointments included except in so far as they were freely open to competition for medical students in the Hopkins School. This was what I stated to Kate, to her father, and in the meeting, and what every woman in the meeting (except Kate) saw at once was true. As I had a dreadful time fighting your battles with her. I wish you to state this. It is quite a new experience to me to have to do with a mind like KateGÇÖs, incapable of dealing with the slightest chain of reasoning - although I suppose there must be many such women. Married to such a woman I should, were I a man, commit suicide if I had to continue talking to her. Bessie is hopeless too but differently; she is - This is unkind and I have erased. My absolute refusal to talk things over has almost finished our attempts at reconciliation and I should much rather not try - I am very different from you in that, I think - except as a past holds possibilities of a future I like, to cut loose from it. My love seems to stop with my admiration and respect and sympathy. Well I wrote you a scrap from Cornell you know. My fete continued. My luncheon at Pres. and Mrs. WhiteGÇÖs went off well and my reception afterwards I saw there all the new profs I wanted to meet. Poor Helen McGill his second wife is manifestly inadequate to her post and she looks so grave and subdued and listless. He is preoccupied and not very cordial in his manner to her. What a foolish girl to give up her liberty for that. She had a miscarriage in March. Although I have disliked all I have heard of her I really sympathised with that poor caged fellow student given over [illegible] to calls and luncheons and entertaining for which she shows absolutely no talent. Then that evening I dined with ten other people at Mr. H. W. SageGÇÖs - the Sage of Sage Hall and the gen. benefactor of the Univ. within a short time he has given it a half a million and in 6 years $5,000,000 have been given it outright. He is really intelligent and his eyes filled with tears when I told him how much I owed him as having made it possible for me to go to Cornell. He said he had watched every step of my career with pride etc. I think the old fellow really cares about womenGÇÖs education - I am quite sure that what I thought of was true, but I could not conceive of such a life and I think they saw it. I had an opportunity of talking to all the men and of understanding the organisation of the department - I believe that in almost every part we are better organised and are doing better work at B.M. For example at Cornell there are 110 in the Greek department and they have only 2 -+ men teaching it. We have 30 students and have 2 -+ men teaching. They have an income for the library of $15,000 we have $3,000 yet their Greek department has $200 annually to expend, ours $200. In all the books I examined - Eng. French German etc our equipment is better, that is in books one uses. And yet against so many millions it is hard to compete by mere intelligence of organisation. We have lost both Wilson and Lee to Columbia. They bid so high we could not compete, so that means a great deal of work as we have three appointments in biology to make as well as all the things we had before. I hope we can put in Howell who is now full prof at Ann Arbor and who is, I think the best physiologist in the country, not excepting Martin. I expect to work hard here going on to B.M. every few days until July 1st. Then if I can stand it at all read and study till Aug 1st. It is very well things happened so for I could scarcely have got off this summer even if Father had been at home. The heat is simply awful I have taken the coolest room in the house the 2nd story back for my study but I have to read in my nightgown (one of the immodest ones) and the Peabody is out of the question. It is impossible to venture on the streets. Mrs Gwinn has rented Coombe Edge from the family of the man Father rented it to who died suddenly but I canGÇÖt even go up there because I must be ready to go on to B.M. at an hourGÇÖs notice. The Kings move up on Tuesday. Mr. Gilman is working against us tooth and nail. Think of his not mentioning the WomenGÇÖs Fund in his address. It was his one chance of bringing the matter to public attention before Feb. 1st. Moreover he has managed to put in Chas. Stewart as Pres. pro tem and whom do you suppose he is trying to have made permanent Pres. Jas. McLane and for no other reason it is thought than Mrs. McLaneGÇÖs open ridicule of the women in the med. sch. And then did you ever hear any thing to equal Dr. Alice HallGÇÖs behavior. I have not time to go into detail but she applied to Dr. Hurd for an internship in KellyGÇÖs department. Kelly sent her to Mr. King. Bessie talked to her. Kelly was asked if he wanted her and said yes - Dr. Osler was enlisted. Everything was in train and she would surely have been appointed and Dr. Sherwood also as they thought it pleasanter for 2 together, when after arguing it as much as possible Dr. Hall without saying one word to our Dr. Hurd who saw her every day or to Bessie who was urging the appointment or to Dr. Hurd (he) who had her formal application, literally ran off to her home in Amherst married in 2 days, flung herself and her husband on board an ocean steamer and even then sent no notice to anyone except to our Dr. Hurd to whom she apologised and said GÇ£she hoped very much to get the internshipGÇ¥. Bessie went to bed with nervous prostration after she heard it. Her father and all the hospital doctors are outraged; they say it was dishonourable in the last degree and feel as if she had played a joke on them of the worst possible taste. Of course the whole thing is lost and if I were Bessie I should cut Dr. Hall dead next winter. The only thing to do is to keep the matter as quiet as possible so do not mention it in writing unless it is mentioned to you. It is to be hoped few people knew of the application. Sherman is FranklinGÇÖs assistant, Chaplin is his name, I think. So what do you think of that? Does Dr. Hall think interns are to be permitted to have babies in the hospital? If she had even apologised and withdrawn respectably it would have been better. It is absurdly funny, is it not? Now about the school. It closed charmingly. The children were in wild spirits and looked so sweet. Mrs. Cobrin in excellent trim; is not going to open her boarding house till year after next in any case. Be sure to let me know what you have done about plans for the yard for I think I have some very nice ideas. Cement is the proper thing for tennis - brick is wretched which proves Hartwell wrong again. You know that you were to send me plans for the yard - you said you would - and you see there must be time for us to consult about it. I shall write to Mr. Lee soon to ask what you said to him about it. Then too those lists of bills for casts so that the list could be made out you never sent. I have heard from Miss Baker about the photographs and will have it copied as it stands so long as it is your arrangement as she says. Dr. Hurd has set her heart on these Zander Machines. She says she can do so much more satisfactory work with our own children if she has them. I encloses her list. There is room for them in the gymnasium and I almost think it would be nice for her to have them if they are not too expensive. Now I am totally tired out and must close - Another time I trust I shall not be flooded with details but I thought you ought to hear them. Try to answer my letters a little. Refer to something in them so I may know what letter you have received. Goodbye and may you find Scandinavia as nice as I found it last summer. Yours lovingly Minnie C Th This letter which I have glanced over is almost too wretched to send. Your plan is better - not to write at all - Still for its information I send it. Thanks for the love in your cable and in spite of your behaviors I return it. [enclosed are newspaper clippings, a marriage announcement, and an exam from Bryn Mawr College]