Yorktown Heights, N.Y.
Dec. 24, 1899.My very dear Susie,
A merry, merry Christmas to you, sweetheart. You have helped to make mine merry by sending the beautiful Mount Holyoke Calendar which I received yesterday. I am enjoying it exceedingly, and thank you very, very much. I wish I could thank you with my arms around your neck.
I suppose you are now at home. I can imagine how glad your sister is to have you with her again, and how happy you are to be at home. I wonder if the weather is as disagreeable with you as with us. Today has been a windy, rainy, blustering Christmas Sabbath, so unpleasant that very few were at church this morning and this evening we shall not attempt to go.
The past week has been a busy one. Last Monday Josie Kear and I went to New York to buy gifts for the Sunday School Christmas tree. Thirty were already purchased, but we had seventy on our list. We worked hard all day, not stopping for dinner but had to leave about a quarter of our work unaccomplished. So someone went on Thursday and finished it.
Wednesday I went to see Irene again. I cannot understand her. I like her very well, but I can't read her at all, as I can dear old Mortimer.
Yesterday we worked all day at the church with a dozen or fifteen other ladies and three or four men and we flatter ourselves that the decorations are beautiful and in excellent taste.
Do tell me what you think about dancing and playing cards? I am not sure that I have not asked this question before, but if I have I have forgotten your answer. Do tell me something of your views. I am continually feeling that if I don't do these things I ought to have clearly defined reasons at my command to give, and yet I cannot get my reasons into very good shape. I feel that I ought not to dance or play cards, and that is about all I can say. Perhaps as true a reason as any is this, - that if I did these things I should degrade my religion in the eyes of many people, and injure my power of doing them good.
You cannot imagine how I have puzzled my brains about these questions during the past few weeks. Once I about decided that it would be perfectly right for me to play cards, - then I went back on my decision. I am not going to do these things unless I am absolutely sure they are right for me, - I have come to that conclusion anyway. The fact that every young person in the circle in which I move plays cards ought not to influence me, I am sure, though it is hard - the dancing does not afflict me so much, for a number of them do not dance.
I suppose these matters ought to be of little consequence to me, since we certainly are not placed in the world merely to have a good time. When I get to teaching again I shall not worry about them any more - I shall have so much else to think about. Now I have too much time to brood and mope, and it isn't good for me - I feel as if I should be perfectly happy if only I could teach again. I long for it - in the fullest meaning of the word. (It is against my principles to underline words, but I find myself doing it tonight.)
Don't you like to hear the mind flow? I am enjoying it tonight. If only you were here! And David, too. Then my pleasure would be unalloyed.
We don't know when we shall have a visit from David. Perhaps not until February or March.
Do you think it is merely prejudice in the minds of many Christians that makes them object to dancing and card-playing? - You see I am back at the old subject again, but I can't keep away from it. - Do you think I feel that I ought not to do it, - merely because I have been brought up to feel so? Isn't it entirely a matter of training? Lilian Dixon is a true Christian and very conscientious, yet she is one of the most beautiful dancers that I ever saw and thinks no more of playing cards than I do of croquet - And I am sure David Mekeel is a very good boy, yet he is an excellent dancer and goes to dances nearly every week.
But on the other hand mamma says, "Do you find the devoted, earnest Christians among the dancers as a rule? Of course there always will be exceptions?" But if you don't, perhaps it doesn't prove any thing, perhaps it is merely a matter of prejudice. Oh, dear! I am all in a muddle. The only safe way is to stand still and do nothing that I am not sure is right. Our religion is not worth much if we cannot sacrifice something for it.
Christmas Day we are going to spend quietly at home - On New Year's Day we are to dine at Conklins. I don't know whether anyone else is to be there or not. I rather hope not, for I have not had a good visit with Emma in a long time, and if there are no guests but our family we can have a nice little chat. I wish Emma and I lived nearer each other. There isa girl who neither dances nor plays cards,
but it isallthough [sic] she is an Episcopalian, but it is because her mother was a Presbyterian and her father a Friend.What a queer letter I have written you. Not a bit of a nice letter, I think. But perhaps you will forgive me. It is a comfort to sit down and write just what I am thinking, and I cannot do it with all my correspondents, indeed, with no one as with you.
Yours lovingly,
Gertrude.