Corporation House
2 Bloomsbury Place
London W.C.,
April 29. 1928.Abbie dear
How nice of you to send the card & line for a combined Easter & birthday (55!) present! I wish I saw you oftener - there is always a feeling of real & great pleasure when I see you at my door. I wish I had a little more physical energy - or a little less of the other kind. The balance is not always very well maintained between the two - but Chevvy [?] is going to appear at your door next autumn, often.
I have been trying to walk a little more - in flat streets at sea level, - but I dont [sic] think the after effects are very desirable. I can manage perhaps a half mile on good days, bit more without feeling breathless. Still every little bit helps. I like being in a city for awhile - one is less aware of the pleasures of Tantalus & it has other pleasures of its own to offer. The mere not being known to any one one meets is rather a nice private feeling after so much South Hadley!
I am working really hard & hoping for the best. It would be horrid not to do my Year Book nicely, but it is jolly hard work, & my brains are rather inadequate[.] The British Academy volume is finished & has only to appear which is a large load off my chest, & I am full steam ahead on the Year Book. I shall be here until September I think with few, & short intermissions - week ends with Grace & the like, - but no continental tours for which I have neither time nor money, - nor energy. Will you not come to England at all this summer, & where will you be?
My love to you dear - lots of it, & always
Yours
Nell[Figuring out Nell's full name was a challenge. The fact that she addressed Abby as Abbie (the spelling she used as an undergraduate) and was similar in age to Abby made me think that Nell was a classmate or neighboring classmate of Abby's. A diligent search of all the Nells in the 1890s did not yield a match. Then I got to wondering about the reference to being in South Hadley so long ... perhaps a professor of about the same age as Abby? A bit of searching around the faculty list and the Internet yielded that Nellie Neilson studied English medievalist history, and had a publication for the British Academy that came out in 1928 (The Cartulary and Terrier of the Priory of Bilsington, Kent, Oxford University). FamilySearch.org revealed that she was born on April 5, 1873, making it very possible that she could get a combined Easter and 55th birthday present in April of 1928.]