The Johns Hopkins Hospital April 27, 1921.
Lady dear,
Please slip me a word of insight as to Mary Daboll. She turns up on our student horizon, not happily, either. Dr. Meyer asked me about her today, if she annoyed me as she does him. It seems in his classes she sits & flirts throughout, talking & giggling in a most distracting manner. He said he knew she was from Mt. H. & tho't he'd ask me about her. He is seriously considering asking her to stay away from class till she finishes her conversation. Neither of us finds her stimulating. Her papers in my practical work are colorless, just get by, but show no cerebral metabolism. She sits on the back seat, & never volunteers or asks a question afterwards. Does not look scared, but what the chief calls "haughty & rigid." What's wrong? Have we missed a trick? What would you do about it?
Your last letter touched me keenly, more by what it did not say. I had hoped we'd get you for May 3rd. I shall see you anyway this summer. All that is in my heart you know. It does seem as if your burdens could not last much longer. I think of them every day, & wonder at your patient spirit. The back was a strain that I know something of. It can make grey days & long nights. Somehow I feel as if Miss S. were not the comfort to you she used to be. I used to feel that she was one person who understood, & upon whom you could lean. It was a joy to know you had such support. Am I wrong about her?
You ask about myself. This trimester is the greatest strain I have had yet. Had anyone told me a year ago I could survive the past 9 mos. I'd have laughed them to scorn. Since April 1st I have been having 2 clinics a day, & 3 on Saturdays. My evenings & Sundays are filled with trying to prepare for the next day. I try to do my best, but my mental habits are not spasmodic, & do not respond to the urge of emergency as those of others do. It is this terrible responsibility of directing human lives that gets me; this making people over. Last week I went to Wilmington, Del. in consultation. She's coming here to Balto. in a private sanitorium. I suppose it means a life sentence for me. She has one child she didn't want, is about to have another, doesn't love her husband, has been psychoanalyzed to death.
I invariably reserve one service at church on Sunday. It is the only thing upon which I can lean, & I need it badly.
Good night, dear, I'm glad you are in the world.