Letter from M. Carey Thomas to Mary Elizabeth Garrett, December 20, 1891

Dearest Mary On Friday Mr. King died as I suppose you know. I knew too late to reach Sat Steamer. He was ill from Sunday to Friday attended by Price, both lungs affected, temp. 104 and delirious from the first but Dr. Price told them he was not seriously ill till the very last Friday morning when Osler saw him. Still it was a case where no doctor could have helped, I fancy and poor Bessie. She wrote me a distracted letter on Thursday not at all realising his danger but only so afraid of possible chances. I then got a letter from Miss Hampton who acted as trained nurse that last night written at BessieGÇÖs request telling me of his death. I telegraphed and wrote and came down late last evening although I had intended to stay at Bryn Mawr till Xmas Eve in case I could be of any help to Bessie, but I shall not go to see her till she sends for me until after the funeral tomorrow. Poor child it is worse for her than for anyone, and she is really too delicate. I realised that s much more fully since her visit to me - to travel alone or live alone which fact leaves her face to face with the awful alternative of Annie and Jim. I know what I trust she will do later - refuse to accept this alternative and make her life for herself but just now it is hard. He was the one person she loved entirely and I believe she saw in him no faults and next until this med. sch. I think she cared for me, but since of course my changed feeling has made and ought to make a great difference - but even now there is no one nearer I cannot help being anxious about her for she had by no means recovered from her attack and was only driving, not walking, out on warm days for an hour. It brings back the break up of MotherGÇÖs death and adds one more broken link of association for as long as I can remember. Frank King has been at our house constantly, and for the past 6 years my association with him has been very close. You know of course what it means to Gilman - it is triumph for him - one more bulwark out of his way, one step nearer the reversal of the med. sch. being open to women. Did I tell you DeGarmo, the new Pres.of Swarthmore after being at Ithaca with McGill Ex Pres. WhiteGÇÖs father-in-law White and Gilman, told me two weeks ago that they all -the college pres.s [sic] that is - understood GilmanGÇÖs little game - to delay the opening of the med. sch. indefinitely in order to keep out women in spite of the trustees. Indeed the situation here fills me with despair. Gilman is appealing to all the baser passions of his trustees, he has now in his last pres address not yet out declared that he hopes to see in Baltimore great quadrangles of buildings, beautiful homes for the Hopkins Univ. and of course with a board like this against buildings no one can for a moment succeed in pressing the spiritual needs of the Univ. At the last meeting $160,000 was voted for this new building. Frank King was ill and nothing could be done against GilmanGÇÖs insistence and now he is declaring no further progress can be made until the physical laboratory is enlarged by an electrical laboratory costing $60,000. You see his aim is to use up every dollar of surplus, so that no money can be voted to the med. sch. You will I think have to remove both conditions time and amount simply saying you will give 6 months notice before you withdraw the offer but within the next few days we will draw up a letter submit it to Father and Mr. Gwinn for criticism and send it to you. It seems as if we might have sent it long ago but first BessieGÇÖs illness then this terrible fight on the building and then Mrs. Travers illness at the Mt Vernon (1st paralysis speechless - and one side entirely paraylysed and then now acute inflammation of lungs. All the Travers are here waiting for her death and Susan by universal consent is the most heartless of the heartless crew) and now Frank KingGÇÖs death has utterly upset Father and between Mr. GwinnGÇÖs grip but you shall have the letter as soon as possible and in time to return it before Feb. 1st. After first hearing of Mr. KingGÇÖs death I was in despair but now I am hard at work. If we can put into the Univ. Dixon and Laurie Riggs!! Father has interviewed Dixon and Tim the other, both are solid for women in the Med.Sch. and Riggs is one of the most intelligent of younger men. Father will do all the work of seeing the Trustees and Mr. Gwinn will help but he will not be well enough before Jan 8 (the fatal date) to do more. Ah but the hospital - if Francis White would only let Father and Riggs be put in and who can be Pres? Then our BM board - whom shall we elect and how can I get anyone who can be trusted to support my policy as Mr. King did without faltering. Monday Just here Bessie sent for me on Sunday and it seems she had been expecting me Sat evening and all Sunday morning and had not understood she was to send me word. She is of course heartbroken and can neither eat nor sleep and I am so awfully sorry for her. There is really no comfort, for in one sense I shall never be comforted for MotherGÇÖs death till I die, but in another, time does help. Poor child she sent for Father to try to convince her of immortality and told me she had determined to believe in it. Of course it is a momentary effect of her grief. I want to try to help her and yet she has got to bear it for herself. The funeral today was at 2 oGÇÖclock and I went to the grounds, although it was a private interment. Mary King went, Annie staid [sic] with Bessie. At the house all the Hopkins Univ. and Hosp. trustees were there in a body and almost all our B.M. trustees Gilman, Hurd, Curbet and representatives of all the other corporations and interests he was connected with. It was a tremendously heavy gathering. Father spoke and prayed and Dr. Rhoads read the 37th his favorite psalm and it lasted 35 minutes. I saw Bessie this morning and bought her a black dress, went to the school before the funeral, saw Newton about the ventilation system we wish to introduce into the laboratory (a modified B.M.S. system) and since I have been attending to Father who is worn out. Tomorrow after seeing Bessie I return to B.M. to meet the architect and building committee and then back here again on Xmas Eve. Zoe expects her baby daily and I have no doubt it will come as last year at Xmas time. Annie Carey grows daily larger and yet Bessie knows nothing of another baby, so it cannot be true, yet her shape is an overwhelming misfortune unless such an explanation is possible. Could they be ignorant of it and be surprised some day by a little Francis no. 2. Since I wrote on Sunday I have been in bed most of the time with a cold and headache. Monday I lectured twice and retired to bed for Tuesday with cough. I got up to have my 5 students my executive board to dinner - the mighty Executive Board of the StudentsGÇÖ Association to whom I have formally made over the charge of the StudentsGÇÖ Conduct, my dear students, who are so clever and loyal and reasonable that they console me for much. This exhausted me so that I had a raging headache that night, unbearable until I took a huge doze [sic] of bromide and slept it off. The next day, Wed, I was helpless with the after effects of headache bromide and antifebrin, but Thursday I lectured twice, went in at 3 P.M. to the opening of the Drexel Institute and met in the library before going in the platform such a wonderful assembly. Carnegie, Pierfont Morgan, Edison, Wanamaker, Vice Pres. Morton, Low, Patton, Gilman etc etc. Depew [?] was a great shock - he is no orator, speaks through his nose, pronounces vilely, and views everything from the point of view of an uneducated man. The building is - well, all hall but otherwise fair. That night I went to a college reception and the only thing I cared for this week I had missed Mrs. MacVeaghGÇÖs big ecclesiastical dinner of 3 bishops through illness. Friday Miss HickGÇÖs Mother and Mrs. Hopkins a horrible school inspector of Boston lunched with us - it seemed so strange to remember my friendship with Miss Hicks so many hundred years ago - mentally such hundreds - and Mrs. Winslow the reader we so rudely refused (so unavoidably too of course) dined with us. It seems she acted for many years in the Boston Museum Co. and in Laura Keins Company and she entertained us with reminscenses [sic] of Charlotte Cushman and Wilkes Booth to whose Romeo she played Juliet and he was so rough he always had long whips of her hair on his coat buttons and her slippers on the stage and Desdemona to his Othello and how her legs were nearly broken by him and so on and so on. She was paid $50 by the neighborhood Club to read and very well too she read GÇ£The man who wasGÇ¥ and a charming scotch courtship from BarrieGÇÖs GÇ£Auld Licht IdyllsGÇÖ. The Neighbors Club met in Denligh [sic] you know and at 11 when it was over and I forgot to say on Friday morning I had seen profs from 9 till 1, it was nearly over with me too. Sat. I had settled down for a 5 days rest when the news of Mr. KingGÇÖs death brought me home. The excitement of this B.M. Univ. and Hosp crisis has cured me of cold headache exhaustion everything. And I fear, my dear, I have not written you the kind of letters best filled for yo to get, but you know when one writes freely deceit is difficult and really the anxiety about this univ. med. sch. has almost discouraged me. That and other things. But now this new year (and if the winds and tides farvour this should reach you on New Years Eve) let us be brave. I know it is far easier for me than for you for I am well and perhaps I make less effort than you for you have to try much harder, but please try. And after this I will try hard to help you to be courageous. I am sure you will get well and I am sure life has for you many charming things and things better than charming and I hope it has many hours on which we can talk hand in hand on the way preferred in RossettiGÇÖs sonnet that I thought I could quote when I began this sentence. And so this New Years wish is for courage and happiness and looking forward instead of looking back. I never intend to look back any more - and for love for me - we might fill up the corners of the hampers with that just to make the Xmas bundles of courage and happiness and anticipation fit snug. Your letter has just come reforwarded from B.M. I am so sorry you have backache again - oh - dear why does it not go away. Yes, I remember so far off and faintly that entombment and I too hated RuskinGÇÖs [Sta. Maria Magguire Tentoneltos?] and I adored the Barbara and that lovely Belime in San [sic] San Zaccaria is it not and the light and colour of Venice even as I have seen it in two parched Augusts is beautiful beyond words. Your photos, only the 4 proofs have come. 4 I detest, 1 is excellent, and I do not think the GÇ£MuesGÇ¥ matters 3 is I suppose the best and 2 is not at all bad 3 and 1 I think the best. And 3 is really very sweet and I like it much. 3 then of course and if you wish two as I do 1 - Most people would probably before 2 to 1. Goodnight my watch says a very few minutes of midnight and now while you are reading this perhaps the Venice clocks are striking in the New Year and perhaps if you had known how many thousand miles of ocean were to divide us this year you would have let me stay with you last new years eve [sic]. Still I forgive you and after all, if you were only not so wretched, I am glad one year separates us from the miseries of a year ago - only you know in spite of that I wish just for once you had the chance - to throw away - of being with me for twelve hours - and, unless you threw it away, we would take them in Venice, would we not? And I wonder if I could be heroic enough to refrain from keeping you out all night in a gondola for you see this would be my only stay at Venice, and I wonder if you could refrain from talking med. sch. and B.M. School and Univ. all night for for you too it would be your only chance for those absorbing topics. What do you think? [enclosed is the program for the Dedication of Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry]