Feb. 8, 1914.
Dear Mary,-
December 16. Have I truly had your very fine letter all that time and left it unanswered? I can't believe it and yet I cannot remember of answering it, either. It is fortunate that the friendships made in college do not die just because they are not well fed with writing paper. All this year I had not heard from Grace, until Xmas on a card she said "Why don't you write?" I had been quite sure I was not the debtor. But anyway I wrote at once and she answered as soon.
I was sorry to learn from her letter that Christine's younger sister has just died of typhoid fever and Albert has been very ill, but they think he will recover. The only news I have had from Jean is a postal last fall, a Xmas card, and Margaret's note announcing her engagement. I have finished a towel for Lois Mott and for Margaret. I did not make an engagement present for Fannie. I couldn't seem to get around to it at the time so now think I will wait until the wedding. I wish I could go to all my friends' weddings. I hope you had as pleasant a Christmas vacation as you expected to have. Mine was a happy but uneventful one. I spent some time in the country, tramping in the snow, driving etc. Frederick came home after all. I went to one big dance and enjoyed that very much. I have learned some of the nice, pretty new dances and like them.
Frederick is only an Ensign. Next year he will become a Junior Lieutenant. But socially they are not addressed by their titles until they are Captains. I wish you could see him. He will be in Philadelphia now until some time in April probably. I'm afraid he won't be home again before June. You must know Philadelphia pretty well. What churches are the best or most famous? Are there any particular places of interest we ought to see besides Independence Hall? Do you know what that series of paintings exhibited in Independence Hall last November were. (They may be there now, I don't know) They depicted many historical scenes connected with Phila. Or Penn. Or Penn's life. I wondered if they were Edwin Abbey's which he was painting for the state, but F- thought they were not.
Some of the pictures you mentioned in New York I do not remember. I know so little about art that I cannot enjoy it so very intelligently. Sometime I hope to take a catalogue into an art gallery and study. The painting that left the strongest impression was one of Edwin Abbey's, a scene from King Lear. He has a warmth of color, grace of form, sweetness and imaginativeness of face that pleases me. I have always gazed most admiringly at his many pictures dealing with the Holy Grail in the reading room of the Boston library. Some of the sea and mountain pictures I liked and some of the sea pieces I felt unnatural. The original of Rosa Bonheur's "Horse Fair" is very fine. I enjoyed the Joan of Arc.
Just let me tell you what a wonderful city Manchester is to be. We have a splendid library nearly completed, a fine new ten-story bank building in which my uncle is to work, and we are to have a new vocational high school with an assembly hall seating 1300, a gymnasium etc. An appropriation of $350,000 has been asked for. Our two best stores have just been burned to the ground (as well as an adjoining bank) and in a year there will be a nice new block there. It is a great calamity to lose those stores but they will soon be in business again.
Poor Mary! I am sorry your "young ladies" shocked you so. I suppose you must be very dignified when you see so much of the girls. I love some of my pupils but am glad to be rid of them after school hours. What I dislike most about teaching is marking and flunking people. Well, it's over now for awhile.
I have not read the "Inside of the Cup" but we have it in the house now and I shall try to read it. I have been reading Mary Antin's "Promised Land," and have enjoyed it immensely. I am sure you would like it. She has a wonderful trick of description that in a few words brings vividly before you not only the scene but her own emotion during it. I do think Jews are the finest people to work with in school, many of them. They are so eager to learn, so well-informed, but alas! so conceited! It is almost impossible to squelch them.
I had a letter from Esther Richards. She is working hard in her third year of medicine, at Johns Hopkins. She does not like the women students there, says they are not so steady-nerved and nice to work with, and at meals and always they talk nothing but shop. Literature, art, history, current events rouse no spark of interest or response in them.
I had a fine Xmas letter from Miss Ball. She made an interesting and characteristic comment on the abolition of domestic work. "The girls seem now to be regarding it with a sentimental attachment very little in evidence before the decision was reached about doing away with it. We shall see."
Did you know that Mt. Holyoke is to debate March 14 at Poughkeepsie with Wellesley. I hope we shall acquit ourselves creditably. Sometimes I have wished I were teaching a little English too but the English department is too hard and has too much red tape. It is drudgery and I don't want to do it. So if they want me I shall continue with the French.
Today was "go to church" Sunday. We had 1034 there. It was very fine.
I hope you are going to like the reorganization of the school. I certainly had rather lie down and die than teach college algebra.
Write soon, with much love,
Beatrice.When is your spring vacation? When do you finish in June?