Letter from M. Carey Thomas to Mary Elizabeth Garrett, November 11, 1887

Dearest Mary, It is hard to believe that this is the second Saturday evening since you left-- three weeks all today-- and my first week I did not write because my surroundings were too uncongenial, the 5th cook had not arrived, my range was torn out, the furnace had to be rebricked, the pump had burst, flooding the cellar, everything wrong had happened and I did not wish to show you what a bad temper I was in. Last week Bessie wrote that she had been ordered South on the 11th and I went home to find her not at all well. A talk of one hour and a half over the Salon pictures (I had brought) down FigaroGÇÖs large illustrations) gave her a headache that lasted half the night. Anne Harrison came in while I was there. She says she cannot afford a separate studio; that she disturbs Mr. Morse by working in his, that it matters less as she has not been well enough to paint for more than a year. I had seen her last in Philadelphia in her studio, very eager and enthusiastic; so I left mournful over my tro invalided artists and returned home very much discouraged. Bessie is very sweet but not very cheerful and it seemed scarcely worth while to begin what would so soon be broken off in the way of conversation, so we snipped off only rough edges and did not plunge scissors into the whole cloth. This unsatisfactorily is my three weeks accounted for. In between has been study and lecturing and some quiet hours of work. I get up now at six, work an hour before a half past seven breakfast, and then on till eleven (4 hrs), write business letters or dictate them for an hour, or a half hour more, in the afternoon; and get two and a half hoursGÇÖs more work on the evening-- all on my lectures and graduate graduate students and fellow-- but after this year-- there are but five full months left-- I shall, I think, have time for my own study; the year after next, it will be only the time of lecturing I hope and all the rest my own time. Then I think I shall be perfectly happy and even now the work this year is far nicer than last because it is so much more advanced, that is, so much more of it is graduate work, and much of it new work to me, because my fellow is philological and I enjoy being philological with her; I discuss roots and Indo-European changes and ur Teutonic forms just as seriously as if I cared two pins one way or the other. It is a good mental drill and intellectually interesting -- that is all; but after all that is a great deal; and I enjoy it. Do you know I have changed about my study so you would scarcely know it I have the Meryons all by themselves over the sofa (and by the way those two autotypes that I thought so good are unendurable beside the real merryons on the wall. I am half glad and half sorry for one would like to have desirable things easily obtainable. Then when I bought the pleureuse for you Mamie insisted on buying one too, but accepted my condition of not putting it in her study for three years. The time being up she has let me have it in the alcove. It has a double charm for me and I hope yours will not have less for you because the same forgive sympathies with my despondencies. My room is very melancholy now the Meryons are black with despair, the Narcissus like a sweet fantastically moody flower stalk, MichelangeloGÇÖs stare like all of his things makes one feel as if one might as well give up before beginning, the Mona Lisa is not gay, and the new cast of the Olympian Victory that I have over the fireplace like all really Greek poetry ot sculpture comes laden with an GÇ£I am different-- and much nicer than you can ever beGÇ¥ that always seems to me like a yellow London fog. I see it now pouring out of my Victory-- it comes I suppose by a trick of association that is very strong with me from the day that I think I told you of when I was prowling up and down before the Elgin marbles feeling just a little shut out in the cold, so far away in my wet feet and starved American soul from the unrevealedness, when though the yellow fog that enfolded us both mean them -- came a thrill of union, and like a Jewish prophet saw a vision, so even since then any really splendid Greek cast or original seems to be seen through a fog, and even my victory is a little yellower than an oiled cast ought to be, and it too is not gay. Then comes the pleureuse and sums up all the notes of melancholy in a Medieval fashion. I have a bookcase in the alcove, another bookcase at the other end and my table in front of the long porch window. II like it much better, Bessie McCall lunched here yesterday. She seemed embarrassed and was not very natural. I canGÇÖt tell why. So it was not very enjoyable. I enclose you her note about the spoons; it is pleasant to have a two years business relationship end so pleasantly and there were several hard strains, I thought. Of course Bessie McCall canGÇÖt mean what I mean by GÇ£friendGÇ¥ but there are many different senses I suppose. I send you the note because I always regarded her librarianship as your appointment. I wish you would make some more-- we have so many places to fill next year, and I know of no one to fill them with. Since I saw you Miss Clems wrote such a religious letter that I was disgusted with her either for the college or the school-- for the letter we are going to struggle on for the present, and in Merion Hall we have appointed Bessie Lore, an old Howland graduate. Dr. rhoads wished her and I knew of no one better. She is here and it has interested me to see again as a woman a girl whom I thought the most attractive girl at Howland. She dined here this evening but after after at 8:30 as I had told her I had something I must do-- write to you, only I did not mention the pressing duty. She is still attractive and she solved for me or rather confirmed my opinion of me of the most curious dramas I was ever an intimate spectator of. Let me tell it to you over again, if it is over again, for at 30 it is a comfort to have oneGÇÖs conclusions of 15 proved right. Of course as you know when Bessie and I reached Howland devotions were so rife-- Bessie was made love to by Harry Tilden and responded sufficiently to make me fly from our room when ever she appeared; and of course I was treated in just the same way by Libbie, who was seven years or more older, and a woman while I was a child of 14-- a few visits from her and a few sentimental remarks and a little teasing from the other girls, and I know from a slight touch of personal experience what was going on about me. I scarcely saw the object of my childish devotion at all, I knew nothing about her, she left after three months, and I did not see her again till five years afterwards in baltimore when the disillusion was sweeping. Still my fancy, for it was always nothing more, made me understand the tragedy of Bessie LoreGÇÖs and Mariana LaddGÇÖs devotion before which all the 70 girls stood awed. Bessie became subject to swoons for the first time in ger life, was out of school for three months, came back, only to have Mariana undergo a long illness which forced her to leave school. Then Anna Shipley, who roomed with me that term, was affected in the same way and lay awake night after night in tears, then she too from her misery-- for of course Bessie Lore had no other thought than the grief she suffered from MarianaGÇÖs absence-- became ill, left Howland, did not get over it for two or three years. It was a most extraordinary series of incidents but no one seemed to connect the result with the cause. Bessie this evening told me that she knew at the time that her illness was simply caused by the fact that she was not strong enough to bear being with Mariana, Her mother took her away but Bessie said her misery was so terrible that they had to send her back to school for fear she should have brain fever. She said that she could tell in a collection room of 70 girls the moment MarianaGÇÖs hand touched the door outside. For years she was like a burnt child and did not dare to be friends with a man or a woman lest this unhappiness should happen again. Then she says she realized that nothing ever could be like it, that that once exhausted [sic] her emotional nature, and that nothing would or could replace even the friendship she now feels for Mariana. As Bessie has just engaged herself to Mr. North, in Scribner's publishing house, it was rather amusing, but I was quite delighted to have my intuitions proved true. What reminds me of it now is that I am lamenting over a girl that I have thought one of the cleverest students in college-- she is in my Advanced Anglo Saxon, that is, this is the 3rd year I have had her for five hours a week and her work is splendid from a literary point of view. She is not entirely a lady, she is affected, and not a strong character but when she translates even my uncouth Anglo Saxon prose, it is as if her lips had been touched with ApolloGÇÖs lyre. I have never watched anything like this transforming touch of literary and artistic feeling in an ordinary person. Well, as you may imagine I was delighted to have her elect as a major and now what do you suppose has happened-- as ill luck will have it-- her out of all the college, this stroke of lightning has struck. She is miserable about a perfectly ordinary girl whose whole mind is not worth one least corner of her own and my Anglo Saxon pact is spoiled. I fear for this year, Is it not too bad-- what shall I do if any other such cases should occur but I am glad to be able to say that I see no signs of it. Have I told you that there is one girl in College from Boston-- Miss Balch-- who is now in her second year, and who is a delight without the alloy caused by miss ClarkGÇÖs half-- what is it GÇ£halfGÇ¥ where there ought to be a GÇ£wholeGÇ¥ mess. Miss Balch is all round the most [illegible] girl at the college. Never in any quiz has she said anything but wisdom. She is brilliant and earnest and steady and thoughtful, and and a lady, and as witty and wise a sophomore as I ever expect to see again. I wish I were she -- beginning over again I might have avoided so many mistakes; still she would have to be very sure of four years abroad before I sealed the bond of exchange. Your note was very welcome, follow it by another when you can. I hope the Yellowstone was splendid and the autumn coloring not quite gone. I am glad you are well, and so sorry to feel you are so far away-- you at one extreme and Bessie at the other-- and yet it is nice you do not feel quite as far away as Bessie. Perhaps it is because we had such a nice, nice talk that Saturday evening. Take care of yourself and do not be alarmed by receiving a Committee letter from me soon-- not an important one only a little odds and ends. Do you know I have done something very brave-- Miss Schroder spent last night here, She seemed a possible secretary and I wished to probe her at leisure. Goodnight - lovingly yours, Minnie C. Th. The next letter shall not have a word of college in it I promise you-- but there is a little debris to be cleared away before one can begin.