Torquay - Jan 13 - 1924.My dear Miss Turner -
It was nice to have your friendly greeting in London - coming too just as I was rather "low in my mind" while convalescing after an attack of indigestion which kept me in bed Christmas day an[d] Boxing day. Tired and a chill probably. At any rate I was too unhappy to care if it was Christmas day or Fourth of July or even to feel much sympathy with Clare [?] who also was in bed (3 days) with a cold. He was with me for a week. It was cold in the train and on the channel and his bedding was designed for a 5 footer instead of a 6 footer+. After trying various circular positions he gave up & concluded to abandon his feet to the elements save for the slight protection of his overcoat. If he had waked me I could have contributed the old gray cape but he did not think there was anything I could do & suffered in silence. Naturally he did not have much time left for reading in the British Museum - he did however see Peter Pan. I had not seen it before and went to the west minster Cathedral for part of a service.
After he left I went to some theatres. "The Will" by Barrie - a curtain raiser - and "The Likes of Her" a cockney play - Barrie is a marvel. Also "Outward Bound". A lot of people on an ocean liner who discover they are dead - all bound for the same place which will be heaven or hell according to how they take it. They discover they are dead because of a couple of suicides - "halfways" who are so terrified that they may be separated . The man feels vaguely that they had done something wrong (they had turned on the gas) and when their little dog succeeds in "breaking through" they thankfully get back to earth to face life out. A large section of the audience was using its handkerchiefs quite openly! Someway the play was one to make you think.
I invited Miss O'Connor to dinner & to Under the Lilacs, but she forgot the number of the house 21 instead of 26 so while I waited inside she was hunting for me in 21 & 12 & telephoning back to see if I had called up (I had no telephone) I telephone later from the same hotel where she had been but could not get her. Finally I took a taxi & found her dinnerless at the theatre - she rushed out between acts for a couple of sandwiches & after the play we saw the old year out over welsch rarebit & cider. Miss O'Connor has been most kind to me in many ways & I am very fond of her. She lives in a big room as bare as a monestary cell and spends her days 9 to 5 at the Imperial College working at the spectrum of spetha [?] - trying to discern the series which you know much be there. It is a good deal like hunting for a needle in a hay stack[.] Miss Saltmarsh is working at a similar problem she is at Bedford College - she was a Vassar for a year and visited Holyoke one time along with Florence White and some other people perhaps at the time of a debate - she is very nice -
To return to my chronicle of vacation events I went to 3 of Sir Wm Braggs lectures for Juveniles at the Royal Institute "Concerning the Nature of Things" - Beside the Juveniles there were learned white hair gentlemen, dowagers & women of uncertain age who looked pedagogical. (This is an aside On the train from Liverpool to Betty's-e-Cred [?] a couple of women widows who were telling of their struggles to bring up their families - one was a music teacher - asked questions made remarks about my status husband & children & when I declared I was an old maid they were much surprised. They said I looked so comfortable & happy!) The lecture[s] were very perfectly illustrated[.] The desk was covered with white, & many lanterns were ready to illuminate the various experiments. I also went to a show of "Scientific Novelties" at Kings College for the benefit of a hospital - "lecturettes" and experiments of all sorts of varying merit & to an exhibit of Physical apparatus & two receptions one at the English speaking union & one given by the [...]. Quite a busy two weeks. Later went to the hair dresser. I think I understand how Noah felt when he saw the first green leaves appearing after the flood! The summer nearly ended my supply of hair cut industry & Harper tonics & salons are raising quite a fine crop at least in spots - but I cant yet cover my ears! My weight in Cambridge was 144 - 6 1/4 for clothes - in London after I had been on short rations I got down to 139 but I imagine I am back to 144.
Miss French was here when I arrived & I am staying on after her - The laboratories began or rather were open nearly a week before lectures begin. I am very glad I came here. It is warm almost [...]tionally after Cambridge 45 +/- outdoors & 80? in the drawing room - at any rate there is a grand fire all day long in the drawing room & there are radiators in the halls & even my fueless [sic] bedroom is liveable - If S.H had a climate like Torquay a garden would be a perpetual joy. There are roses iris, daisies, arabis [?] candy tuft, stick chrysanthemums, furze genesta all blooming sweetly though the roses look rather lump-some [?] there. This picture is over [...]ed but it does give the effect of the cold head lands & warm beaches. Perhaps you have been here. There are pleasant people in the house 3 elderly couples 2 pairs of honey mooners and some other couples - sisters and aunt and niece &c most of them very lovely. It has been a pleasure to be here. I shall quite hate to go away -
There were also pleasant people at the London place - A serbian studying psychology at Kings College - A medical student - A South African Dutch man - a Hollander in business in London - a girl who is a health inspector - an American girl getting pictures & lantern slides of illuminated manuscripts &c for the U. of Chicago - and Miss Wylie of Vassar - English & her 16 year old grdson who is in school in Switzerland. The maid was ill & the landlady with a sick head ache - the mother suffering with so much neuritis in her feet & the cook lame & sick with a cold - so we did our own work and the health inspector waited on table. But it was a nice place & no one could have been kinder than our landlady & it was cheap 2 1/2 guineas.
I had expected to leave London after Christmas but after the list of lectures at the
LondonRoyal Institution was published I did not seem that there was any reason in it to make one change from Cambridge where there is certainly a wonderful lot of courses offered. I shall go to Rutherfor[d] & J J Thomson this time & a couple of others. J J Thomsons point of view is quite the opposite of Rutherfords & considered quite out of fashion but they say his lectures are wonderful. Rutherford is not very logical in his arrangement of his material but he is quite wonderful in his power of putting the physical side of his subject before you quite vividly in a way quite line Millakin. His lecture experiments are at times very wonderful - One experiment - or set of experiments took 2 men two days to get up - That day he was very nervous & also plain cross & was so rude to his assistant that the boys stamped their feet at him not loudly but quite persistently so that he could not fail to see the point - He took it well & virtually tried to make amends by politeness to his assistant later - It was an aweful [sic] situation. The boys always stamp when he enters the room & when the experiments work well as they always do. He is as nervous as possible & cautions the assistant every second to be careful & not break any thing till I wonder the assistant can do any thing.I saw Lloyd George for a moment - He stopped off a few minutes as he was touring the country[.] He looked nice & smiling but a little untidy - of course he had no time to make any worth while point. He had been rather playing to the gallery during the campaign this Fall & strongly [...]ed for it. I have not run across people who believed he or Asquith were equal to the situation. Asquith says the Liberals will join with the Laborites to turn out the Conservatives & then the Liberals & Conservatives will turn out Labor & then the King will refuse to order another general election & the Liberals will step in! However most papers say the King will not interfere & that there will be a new general election & they are blaming the Liberals for letting Labor in. However most people seem to think this is the best time to let Labor try its hand. It must try to introduce the capital levy because the Liberals & Conservatives would turn them out. Many papers seem to think the Liberal party will inevitably break up. Most of the people who believe in protection thought the support to rush it through without a long process of education of the people a radical mistake but they give Baldwin credit for being an honest & fearless man -
I heard one debate at the Cambridge Union on the Labor program. There was a good deal of intense feeling on the party labor -
Well this letter is longer than good & I had better wind it up - I am finishing after supper in the drawing room -
Write me when you have time - your letters have been fine -
Affectionately -
Mabel A Chase