Bessie B. Nesbit
Mount Holyoke College
South Hadley, Mass.Tues. Dec. 5, 1939
Dear Mama & Papa,
Greetings! I am beginning to get the full significance of the term that the hardest time of the year is between Thanksgiving & Christmas. We had a lot of fun yesterday in Chem. Lab. It's always quite long but you get so interested you forget the passage of time. This can never be said of Physics even in its most exciting moments. Last night I went to the concert of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. I was bored stiff & almost asleep the first part; but after the intermission, they played some fine pieces; at least, I liked them. Dukas' L'Apprenti Sorcier, & Ravel's Pavane pour une Infante défunte. In the 1st part they had played a lot of pieces by Sibelius, the Finnish, composer. They played two encores Prelude to Lohengrein, and Finlandia by special request. After Finlandia was over, Mr. Warbeke (teaching philosophy) got up and said he thought it would be nice to send a message to Sibelius in Finland and tell him that our thoughts were with him & that we had triumphed with him in his music last night. Mr. Warbeke was so moved he could hardly speak. Then he asked everyone who was in favor of this to stand & every one in Chapin stood up at once just as if a button had been pressed. It was very impressive and moving.
Oh something funny happened last night. Stelle and I arrived just a couple of minutes before the concert started and found a strange man & woman in our row where Mr. Barlow and his friend had been. Then Mr. Barlow came up and acted more forcefully than I have ever seen him before. I thought for a minute he was going to oust them by brute force. But when he found that the man & woman had better seats in the center & didn't want to move, he wisely took the better seats. This morning I met him in P.O. and he was awfully nice and told me why they had taken the other seats etc. He was really awfully nice & said more than I have ever heard him say before.
Miss Laird met me Mon. & asked if I could come to tea & bring Grace Wed. afternoon. I asked Grace so she said she would be delighted. So picture me drinking tea at Miss Laird's at about 5 P.M. this Wed.
I got my French blue book back to day with only 71. I think the highest was 88. I don't know exactly what this means but I hope to have a conference with Mr. Saintonge next Wed.
Please be thinking of me while I am doing my Religion. I gave the book to Dr. Adams today, & he seemed delighted. Needless to say, I felt proud of my father.
Don't do too much at the Fair. The spice nuts surely are delicious. Two weeks from tomorrow you'll be seeing your wandering child again.
Lotions of love
BessieP.S. It makes me jealous when I think of you two polishing of[f] Mr. Turkey without my assistance. Worse luck.