18 NORTH PINE STREET
YORK, PENNSYLVANIASunday.
Dear Pat - "wholesome holyoken" -
Your epistle arrived yesterday and the answer goes off tonight. I better be prompt or you and the reply will pass each other.
Many thanks for the music - and for the compliment. You know I can not play music direct from the composer's pen. I tried it - the Mannequin's Dance - blues tempo - but what came forth from the keys sounded grey. Tomorrow I will have Chris play it for me. Anything like "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" would appeal to me you know.
Where am I adding a ballad? Nowhere - merely trying to help Sissy and John find one for the Nite Spot scene. Adele Carroll and two friends are to sing while the villain squanders the Golden Slippers. She has finally selected "Mood Indigo." Thanks all the same.
How did you enjoy Anderson's new play? Talking about plays - I have promised the crowd to repeal the Philadelphia trip if and when the right play comes there or to Hershey or Baltimore.
To your Latin declension. Bene! Nolamistatse. [?] You better try some Latin during your college career. Is there a screw ball Latin teacher on the faculty, to match the ones you have met. I enjoyed your introduction to each and every one of them.
So history isn't too bad when taught by people like Peter! He sounds as interesting and profound as the SRL article.
You know, strange as it may see[m], any very brilliant person is a combination of wisdom and naiveté. Your Mr. Vierick (correct?) sounds like Scotland's foremost philosopher whom I had in class at Edinburgh the other summer. He floated too although physically he would - or could - do nothing so graceful.
Holyoke sounds most interesting. Too interesting - to want to study ballistics. I refuse to believe that all the studying is bringing no results. Changing from one French teacher to any other can prove most disturbing. It's like the difference in an accent between Yorkers and Bostonians. Mlle. and Mr. S. E. G. probably have different accents, and all you need is to get your ear atuned [sic] to the new. I had exactly the same thing happen to me in college. I can still remember the feeling with which I entered that class. I was terrified that I would be called upon and not know what was been said. Gradually my ear became accustomed to the new voice and I found mine.
Want to bet on that blue book test in Dramatics? Tell me whether the mark was A or B. when we meet. Sounds to me as though somebody is just going through the freshman occupational disease called getting adjusted. In Latin - Virgil to be exact - ask Jane - there is a line which translated means - "Perhaps someday you may be glad to remember even this." Of course college is more exacting than Bell Penn - that is, any college which has any standing - and even if you did have a good foundation, it is no easy job to get adjusted. Mt. Holyoke was just the one place for you. Give a trial before you leave for New York.
If I remember Pat. She can become too tense and intense about her work. Remember last year how gloomy the outlook seemed at times but you made the grade. You'll do again. Had mid semester grades yet? You must have and were they terrible?
Take out that English bike and take a ride when the going seems rough - and concentrate on the bumps in the roads and the college bumps smooth out. Try it.
Anyway, it is not much more than a week before vacation, when you and your friend - room mate? - shed the college coloring for a time.
Will be glad to see you Friday at rehearsal - with your head free from bumps caused by hitting any walls. You'll find there are windows not walls if you just tell yourself that the rest can get there so can I - and you can - "begony." [?]
Margaretta Hallock