Letter from M. Carey Thomas to Mary Elizabeth Garrett, July 22, 1887

I have just received such a nice letter from Bessie that I feel like renewing the triple alliance by shaking hands with you in the Netherlands, especially as the white and rose of Mt. Blanc is in the distance reminds me of my one ill fated glacier excursion, and the many clean shaven English curates likewise recalls Mr. Carrington. I did you the injustice to fear that you might possibly, remotely, return his fancy. It seems to me more of an injustice now than it did then. That is what is so regrettable in Anne KingGÇÖs marriage. She is not very clever, but she is good and sweet and might have married someone who, in return for the loss of freedom and confinement that marriage brings, could have given her at least some wider interests, whereas Jim simply emphasizes the stupid old points of view. Did I send you the rather unedifying annecdote [sic] that has been going the rounds of the papers about Ned Hoffman - if that is his name. No, I remember I lost it: - it seems that his last engagement, as the paper said, had such an unlucky ending that he was passing into confirmed absentminded old bachelorhood when Miss McCall rescued him. He took his fiancee to call on his family, a betrothal call, and was missing when the time came to take her home after a long hunt - he was discovered undressed and asleep in bed for which forgetfulness she broke off her engagement. Is it possible I have seen something in the papers that you have missed? Mamie has got off an excellent bon mot (which is strictly confidential) on Bessie McCallGÇÖs engagement - she says Bessie treats him as if he were an illegitimate child. I suppose her attitude is partly explained by the fact that her own family are said to be so surprised; he is said to be exceedingly dull and Mary McMurtrie is so disgusted she has never mentioned the subject to Bessie McCall, or had not before we saild, although lunching with her every day. All of which gossip may interest you - it did me, because I have got to like Bessie McCall. As soon as I rid myself of the expectation of finding her clever I began to sympathize with her and I feel sure this engagement is more of less the result of a mood - of weariness of waiting for anyone of the things she likes so much so come along, of seeing other people get what she could not have and thinking that she might as well take one thing she thought good and escape from another she thought a privation. We never had time at Bryn Mawr to go beyond a business talk, but all this is how it seems to me. If she had waited I think something better would have come along - even if it came in the shape of a man - donGÇÖt you think so? Her view, and Tilly TraversGÇÖ, of marriage rather complicates the reform that will I think be the reform of the 20th century. But there are two explanations - both are children of very fast fathers, and after two or three years of marriage I believe their views will change. Tilly Travers came over to Paris to meet us, and was clever and incisive as usual. She knows a vast deal about the history of art and architecture and has apparently in the interval read almost every book Mamie and I mentioned to her at Bryn Mawr. Her comments are so naive and yet so correct on all intellectual aspects - Chivalry and heroism escape her, I think. I am inclined to think the comment on her of one of BessieGÇÖs friends at Aiken correct, GÇ£the coldest woman in New York.GÇ¥, but she is utterly without pretense and has lived so much among people whose one thought was to be fashionable that she has a viar seigneurGÇÖs contempt for that sort of thing; moreover she is thoroughly well bred. Her great fault - viewed as a possible friend of the second rank - is her total lack of understanding of what is generous, and of faith - of GÇ£heartGÇ¥ (to use a German sentimentalism); and her two edged sword of scathing criticism. Still in these comments I may be incorrect, and we both like her. She, agreeable as well as disagreeable, has more qualities than anyone I have seen lately. To finish up my personalities we crossed with the Rev. Morgan Dix, of the famous anti womenGÇÖs education lectures, and to my delight he was seated at table opposite a French demi mondaire, a most pronounced member of the only profession he thought thoroughly feminine. Champery July 23 I think I never enjoyed a picture exhibition as much as I enjoyed the Salon - after the two days of it while I was still struggling with the wilderness of pictures I most rashly told Mr. Liffany that I preferred the Academy and Grosvenor a hundred times - no - since the last salon in GÇÿ83 I think my eye for drawing and colour has grown, like a bulb in a dark cellar, for I was ravished by everything one misses in England all the dash and style and verve, the joy of doing a thing well. I am sorry you did not use a WolffGÇÖs salon - when one is a wretched exile of an Amiercan, it is a help to take a guide from the midst of the atmosphere into which one wishes sich ein zu leben and Wolff is a Parisian (and a friend of artists) to his fingertips, he is daring, far more daring than any English critic of pictures I know of, but a thoroughly spirited guide, and Mamie and I learned a great deal of newer schools, of currents beneath currents, that we should otherwise have missed. I had too my Athenaeum critic, but except for his comparisons of French artists with English he was inferior and showed the shadowy rule measure that English art applies to the solidarities of French workmanship. It is impossible to believe in oneGÇÖs own mortality, as I think I wrote you, when one returns to Paris after so long and finds the same painterGÇÖs names - the same young men, (notably Rochegrosse) who had just made their debut further along each in his own groove, the school of GÇ£plein airGÇ¥, which had begun in imitation of Lepage (oh, he is dead but he is on out of many) absolutely triumphing over the academic pearls and grays. The whole salon in full tilt for vivid blues and greens, and moreover I too am infected. I see blue shadows everywhere. I wonder if the plein air-ists have had the same influence on you, or are you wholly in sympathy with Ruysdael again. He was the first landscapist I cared for. The Americans I thought showed well - the St Genevieve was of course very successful in the raft, mute (brutalism almost) of the visionary expression but I canGÇÖt imagine PearceGÇÖs doing anything great after such a slavish copying of his masterGÇÖs [illegible]. Far more promising seemed to me HarrisonGÇÖs peasant going through the cornfield; the tulip garden too by a third American was good, and the two Dutch interiors of a 4th - all pronouncedly of the new school. Did you notice the charming distinction and almost Rembrandt likeness of tone in FantinGÇÖs two portraits on either side of the Salamis? The Dantan I thought far surpassed the example in the Luxembourg in tonality - and indeed in all qualities. BOth are beauties of the well trained Albert Moore school - only so much better as pieces of handicraft and so much less in sentiment. I wonder if the two are as difficult a combination as beauty and intellect. But I shall tired you out if I begin on my favorites. For the first time I did justice to Jules Lefeure his two chocolate children were beautiful, to Carolus Duran as you know for his academically faultless Andromeda and even to Borigereau for the drawing of his Amer. Jimenez was a new discovery, his Picardesque peasant women was, I thought, perfect on a small scale. About Jules breton I came to a conclusion - he has but one rather grandiose postured peasant woman which he repeats infinitely - he is is [sic] a fatally sentimental landscapist and I distinctly dislike him. He has gone back since the last salon, his daughter though lacking in intellect will be a better artist, I think. Paris was too exciting for work and the view from our sitting room balcony much too heady for such plodding as I have to do - apart from the heat, so we took the fast through express for Vevery and have been delighted with Rousseau Voltaire. Switzerland which was new to us in detail. We made an excursion to Geneva - a bibliographical one for the university libraryGÇÖs sake - and now are up at the top of the Val dGÇÖIllier, in the most delightful of high alpine valleys - our Swiss balcony, which we have all to ourselves, looks full against the snow peaks of the Dent du Midi. The valley is full of little chalets rented by French and English families, and there does not seem to be one of our fellow countrymen within the five Swiss leagues that separates us from the Rhone Valley, and all the banalities of Chamounix, Zermall and the Aeggrschorn. Do you remember my saying - as opposed to you and Mamie - that day we spent in Washington (which was so pleasant and might have been so much pleasanter, if the drug in my eyes had not made me so sick and cross) that I did not care for nature - I have changed. Swiss views are perfectly delightful to me and Mamie is happy over the change. Perhaps we shall be too happy here and in similar places to go over the Simplon to Castelfranco, Cadire, Venice and Monte Genevoso as we intended but at all events the Netherlands, or rather Holland, and the Manchester exhibition remain fixed for the last three weeks. We have been everywhere in a skip and jump fashion in the Netherlands and wish to go to but one or two places. You must have absorbed them by this time - how long will it be, six weeks? I am very glad you have not found it too hot. A book has just come out GÇ£Les Chefe dGÇÖOeurve du Musee Royal AmsterdamGÇ¥ by Bredius Part 1 (25 francs) - I wonder if it is good. The catalogue of the Manchester Exhibition looks splendid. If you go - will you not let me send you the three notices and pamphlets I have collected on its pictures, or do you as in Paris prefer an unfiltered judgment. I wonder if your drawing lessons have added to your appreciation of the Dutch masters - next to FolianGÇÖs Entombment, the Rembrandts were the pictures I was most re-struck by in the Louvre. There is one book I should so much like you to read - ZolaGÇÖs last, LGÇÖOeuvre Oeuvre (I think it is his last) there is ever so little nastiness and a great deal of the splendid rhythmical pathos that makes his earlier books so attractive and leaves all his would be imitators behind him in the mire. Moreover it is a book all about artists and the GÇ£plein airGÇ¥ school, their jealousies, catals and ambitions; it tells of six or seven young men who began in the bonds of friendship and ended in the clutches of the flesh and the devil. There were 4 pictures of Claude, the hero, in the Salon. It did me a great deal of good. Do read it, if not before, at least on the ship. I took of course a plunge into a few modern French books and found three charming essayists - to me before known only by reputation - and that young man Maupassant who, when we left Paris was just lottering with pen in hand developed into an inimitable teller of impossibly indecent stories - short stories of depravity with such an irresistible grin of humour in them that one laughs instead of throwing the book out of the window. The English reviews call him the best living teller of short stories but almost for the first time I recoiled before something literarily good and think it a pity it should have been written. Les Deux Soeurs Randoli (if I have the name right) is the title of one of the most infamous collections. I cannot tell you how I hope that your plan about Dr. Cushier will be carried out and will do you an infinite lot of good. It is such a delight the best there is I think, for people bring unhappiness as well as happiness, and work, even a scholarGÇÖs work, has something egotistical about it - to read, that I often think I should not be as patient as you are about being deprived of it. There is something I very much want you to try if you are not well after this summer - at least let Dr. Thomson examine your eyes; it would not take half an hour and the chance would be so glorious if it came from that. You know Bond is an example - Weir Mitchell and all the Baltimore doctors and a nervous specialist in New York said it was a clear case of nervous breakdown - for three years he tried all their remedies and now after going to Dr. Thomson he is a well man. Edith too was examined by two Boston oculists and for 4 years went from one to another, spent a year in the wilds of the South and until 3 months ago was unable to read or think for more than an hour or a half hour at a time without a feeling of confusion in her head and often a blinding headache (BondGÇÖs symptoms were exactly similar) and now after going to Dr Thomson she too is able to read 4 and 5 hours a day, has no headaches and is getting better every hour she says. Think of my own terrible headaches that have totally gone and yet as you know the leading oculist in North Germany examined me carefully and said no headaches could come from such perfect eyes. Please do try. I am sure Dr. Thomson could help you, and any chance is worth taking. I use my eyes often ten eleven and twelve hours a day without the least trouble. DonGÇÖt think me a great bore but do what I want - to get rid of my infortunity. This sentence recalls Socrates who we saw played and that, Reichembert and do you know she is the Mistress of Boulangere? The chief reason I wished to see you especially and therefore wrote you the card saying I should be at home in the morning - was a desire to apologize - to take back - what perhaps you did not notice but what has made me uncomfortable ever since. I canGÇÖt tell why I said it, it was not true if it sounded disloyal as I fear it did - that about going to the Adirondacks (?) with Bessie. I have not been able to forgive myself for expressing it so badly, so selfishly. I still think it would have been unwise, especially as Bessie has had another attack on her lung, (which you must not refer to unless she has written of it), but if I could have done anything that would have been of real use, I do not think it would have been possible for you or for me to hesitate. I feel sure you know that. Now having done what I wished to avoid - sputtered it out on paper I am relieved. Mamie who is gloating on the peaks against the sky sends love; we must not forget in the autumn of our life our trip to Anapolis [sic] and we will not take it when Dr. Thomson has put belladonna in your eyes. All the conditions shall be favourable. I canGÇÖt sign myself as Bessie has - yours GÇ£in life long friendshipGÇ¥ but in friendship of ten years, that count for much - not I trust as much as the next ten years for both of us. Part of mine have been wasted in acquirement of knowledge that counts for little in the long race and part of yours in illness but after your visit to Dr. Thomson we will see.