Letter from M. Carey Thomas to Mary Elizabeth Garrett, March 15, 1891

Dearest Mary, Talking about letters - some enclosures of yours last week reached me absolutely slit open at both ends; also one open letter so great care is not always enough and letters open in the mail. I always seal mine carefully. I suppose you received all my enclosures of last Tuesday and I hope you have torn them all up. I was more than a little indignant about your last Sundays letter without one personal word (4 pages of med. sch.) and I gnashed my teeth over the letter I had written you on that very day and made various resolutions and remained sternly indignant all the week and allowed no time for writing to you and indeed resolved that a person who would allow herself to be provoked in the face of such letters and alterations as had been showered upon her should have no more of them. Do you not think you owe me a forgive me? Ah well love is very strange, and I hope I shall never love any new friends or lovers. I cannot tell you how delighted I am to care for so few and I think of Mother with a throb of quiet delight that never any more in the world can I suffer all those especial agonies that are stored up in a childs [sic] heart for a motherGÇÖs suffering and loss. I have had many such thoughts lately for last Thursday Dolly, who has been very sad all this year and so much so these last four weeks that I asked her often what was the matter until I saw she did not wish to tell me, told me she wanted to ask my advice that since last spring she had had a growth in her breast and lately it had got much worse, that she could not tell her Father as things of that kind made him ill and he had very important literary work on hand that must be finished at a certain date I saw of course she thought it was a cancer. So I went to Baltimore on Friday - I should probably have gone anyhow - and on Saturday I telegraphed for her, took her to HalstedGÇÖs office and had him examine it. He said it was a fibrous tumour of the breast, not malignant, but should be operated on, said it would heal in 2 days if at the hospital, but much longer if at home. He advised her to have it done without telling her family. I took her home with me arranged about her room and she goes over today with Harry, poor little girl all alone. I have written to Miss Hampton and done all I can, but it is hard lines. She has a stepmother the author of GÇ£Margaret KentGÇ¥ and many other novels. Today I sent for her eldest brother and told him all about it. He was awfully knocked up but approved. It is the simplest kind of thing Halsted and Father say. Bessie says half the women in Baltimore have been to the Hospital on like errands. Mrs. Ir Keyser [?] is telling everyone that she has just been there for six weeks for the reason. You can see how many things it has brought back. Father says if Halsted had been there three years ago MotherGÇÖs life might have been saved, even then he thinks, that to him, used to the old school Agnew. Allen Smith - surgery, the way HalstedGÇÖs wounds heal seems like magic, that Halsted can do things undreamed of 5 years ago in Baltimore. Will last week was full. On Monday I dined at Mrs. Wayne MacVeaghGÇÖs with 12 women - the $12 dinner ClubGÇ¥ - and they carried on wildly. Few of them seemed to be professional wits and kept the table in a roar, and much of it was clever fooling, but once in a long while would suffice me. They were very nice to me although I fancy all of them were 20 years older at least. The week was full of candidates for our different posts and my work and shoals of letters and the election of a European Fellow. Lilian Sampson, a Philadelphian, the most brilliant biologist we have ever had, whether graduate or undergraduate, has got it. She is rich and I hope her people will let her use it. They are wildly delighted. Then Friday I left for Baltimore and we had Mr. and Mrs. Gilman, Bright, Mamie, Mr. and Mrs. Stedman to luncheon (10). She is a pill, he very halfcut but very humble and deprecating. We had a very nice talk however about his subjects. Then Mamie and I heard him lecture of GÇ£TruthGÇ¥!!! The time before he had lectured on GÇ£BeautyGÇ¥! The hall was crowded and the matter was GÇ£boshGÇ¥ Gilman and Mrs. Gilman were unexpectedly genial. Then GÇ£A scrap of paperGÇ¥ and the Kendals. Saturday from 10 to 1 the School. Then Miss Kirk and Halsted, then Julia Marlowe in [illegible]. She is very poor lacking in everything but a sweet face and a slight youthful figure. Dr. Shorey thinks her great which proves he knows as little about acting as he does about art. Then Bessie, arrangements for the hospital, Dinner, and just as I was going again to see the Kendals a telegram from a man we think of appointing as instructor in Romance languages and I had to give up going and talk to him all the evening. Today I just got here to meet Miss Irwin and Mrs. Irwin and Mrs. Deikheim to luncheon. I have read Keats of course, Montaigne (for the first time in his own French) WoodberryGÇÖs essays on literature (I am going to see if I canGÇÖt get him made prof. of lit. at the J.H.U.) - they are very creditable and nice in their point of view although not too brilliant, tempered to the fleece of a Univ. that can applaud a Stedman, a volume of Stedman and a lot of Milton. No Greek. After Easter I wish to start again. Ah those starts and those agains [sic]. I feel better all the time, and I think perhaps next year and surely next summer, but no one could have kept his head above water this year with the med. sch., and the school, and the college, and your not being strong. I am inconsistent enough to hope that you will be in Baltimore at Easter for the time is very short before you sail and, if you are, send Nicoline to bed once and ask me to stay with you one night so that we may have one very nice talk. I will promise not to talk too late. Your room reminds me that I do not like the thermometer below my angel. I think it sports the chaste effect I do not know who gave it to you but I scarcely think you bought it. Suppose it were to be hung in the dressing room next. Of course you must come to Bryn Mawr before you go; and I will not receive you for just a day, nor without Nicoline - I wish my hair done several times. Yes Tristram and Iseult was one of the great sensations of my artistic life. It was curious but it was my fullest baptism into the world of sound, and Sara was only herself, the marvellous interpretor [sic] of a passion a little less than divine, and her voice of gold vibrated to splendours a little less white than the heroisms of Tristam and Iseult. But I shall not sleep if I let myself recall either and it is past eleven. Goodnight Lovingly yours Minnie C Th