On board the Cunard R.M.S. "Andania"July 8
CambridgeHoney dear :-
This is absolutely my last Cunard sheet - no, two sheets - and what will happen thereafter I dont know, for I can't seem to think to buy anything thin. I have some thick - for polite local correspondence!
We surely are having an unusually interesting time! All sorts of things happen. None perhaps more surprising than your taking to a pony and six feet of snow, as your last letter indicated you might. I hope you got to the places you wanted to see. Their geography is quite vague to me! I'm glad to hear from Emma Pierce, thus indirectly and after many years - but I don't see why she hasn't written you at least Xmas notes along through them.
Last Wednesday - the 5th - we packed our bags and took a few last looks about Oxford and came to Cambridge cross country, as told not to do - and it was a most successful trip - no change! A friendly lady of our own kind I should say took an interest in us and told us all the flowers we passed and such, and in return we told her about America. We enjoyed her greatly.
Our abode here in Cambridge is entered by a narrow, bicycle-blocked orifice between two stores next St. Mary the Great. We look out on the church, on the market-place, continually interesting, and on a piece of the Library. Most convenient! We can ship home for our rubbers! Mine are never going to last the summer - for it still rains for large parts of every day, though it may be lovely between times.
Wednesday evening we went forth to see King's Chapel - very wonderful it is, and all unexpected to Charlotte! Thursday we got mail and money and then began to see the colleges somewhat more coherently - but I like these random jaunts we've had both here and at Oxford. The curator - no, porter, at Caius led us to the portal and said - "There's Dr. 'Arvey, that's 'im, with 'is 'eart an 'is 'and," - a statue on the corner of a new building. We couldn't see the grand portrait in the Combination Room until today because of the omnipresence of the Royal Agricultural Show. But the Show gave us, quite by chance, an opportunity to see an academic procession! We came along and joined a crowd near the Senate House, and in a moment the Duke of York, a slender, pin-cheeked lad with a tall hat, got out of a motor opposite us! And the scarlet gowns and black velvet tams got out of more, or walked up the street. The mayor (?) came along with a marvelous mace (?) which was to be carried by someone else, for the mayor, the Duke of York, Mr. Taft and some several men of consequence in agriculture were receiving degrees. The procession formed by the library and came very near the fence through which we and some thousands gazed - a gorgeous affair, nearly all scarlet gowns. Lord (?) Balfour is Chancellor and wore a wonderful black gown, with much gold embroidery, and a pretty page to carry the trian. Of course the elect had tickets to the Senate-house, and the next-elect to the yard - but we saw finely through the fence! We waited a half-hour, and the procession came out again, this time with the boy and Taft and the rest all robed. They came out the gate next us and marched down the wonderful street - King's Parade &c - to Christ College where they lunched. 'Twas really very splendid - but you'll be vastly amused at the speeches in the inclosed clipping. The difference in the atmosphere between Oxford and Cambridge is incredible! Oxford is chastely perfect and elegant and restrained! There are many things one must not do. Cambridge is so much freer! Likewise there is the sense of so much more being done. It's very conspicuous in science, of course, but it seems to me the whole atmosphere is affected. - In the afternoon Thursday we did some more things after a season of rest. The standing for the procession was wearing, but repaying. Charlotte has pined for royalty! But the Show meant no evening services since the college grounds had Fetes.
Friday morning I had an appointment, thanks to Dr. Meardel, with Prof. Hopkins - great bio-chemist. As we were finding our way, with some difficulty, among the lab. buildings, a pleasant man in shirt sleeves offered help. He turned out to be Barcroft - next to Langley in physiology, one who has been to the mts. of Switzerland and to the Andes on most important respiration expeditions - a really great one. But Sherrington at Oxford never runs around in shirt sleeves and informally helps strange ladies! Hopkins was delightful! He has a new lab, costing over a $1,000,000 going up, just for bio-chemistry, with several other buildings for special purposes, but meantime is in about three most unattractive and crowded places. He has about 25 research workers, many on government and other grants after their Ph.D. work has been completed. At least 4 Americans he mentioned. And the diversity of problems is amazing. There seems to be absolutely no lack of the necessary apparatus &c, though one worker's space might be separated from another's only by screens. And the whole atmosphere was so friendly and informal - the way he spoke with all the other folks. He took us ove to Barcroft in the Physiology-Psychology building, completed in 1914, and there again we had a grand time. Barcroft is rich - funny all the time, but yet doing obviously splendid work. Not as many folks as in bio-chemistry, but a lot. The head, Langley, is rather old, and perchance hard to manage. Oh, Dr. Hopkins showed us Foster's rooms in the old lab. where he used to sit with his feet on the mantel-piece and smoke. The tobacco jar was always full for those who came. Foster got Dr. Hopkins back to Cambridge. Barcroft showed us all the ways in which their building is faulty, and some of their good points may be useful to us.
Then right after dinner we hastened to the station and set sail for Helpstead, where Harvey was buried. Train for about 3/4 hour. Then a 7 mile walk in rain and shine. The larks sang - oh, lots of them! This was our date with them, so to speak, and they kept it. The country is highly fertile here - most of it grain land - only gentle hills. We went through two small villages, and saw many roadside flowers, and fields of poppies! They are a pest, but a stunning one. At Hempstead we were absolutely beyond the tourist, indeed all the way from the end of the train part. The church is tiny, it's [sic] tower has fallen, oh, 40 years ago. There's a Harvey chapel, for this was the rich family of the neighborhood. One, a great-grandson of William's brother, the Eliab who came to Hempstead and with whom William lived, was an admirable with Nelson at Trafalgar, in command of the Temeraire, which was next to the flagship in rank. We saw all the monuments and the sacrophagus, and took a lot of pictures, entirely undisturbed. In the little village we became devoted to the highwayman, Dick Turfin, far more famous locally that [sic] Harvey. The ring of huge elms where he held cock fights is stunning. The "Rose and Crown" offered food - it was 6:30, so we went in - a quaint old place, with holes bored in the oaken beams so D.T. could spy down upon the tap-room where we had our tea, in company with four old men who came in for ale and who told us choice bits! All very entertaining. The woman was most friendly and showed us how to go to the site of the old Harvey home - nothign there now of the old place, but the old moat still makes it an island. The moat is perhaps 20 feet wide and a dark, tree-overhung, spooky place. The rooks obligingly came to their nests, just as they should. We were driven in a two-wheeled trap by a red-faced innkeeper, behind a fat little horse back to Saffron Walden. Oh, it was really all too good to be true! I've never done anything I enjoyed more. There just wasn't another tourist around, and everything was lovely and interesting. We got back at ten, too late for a bus, but were able to walk the mile and a half home in the twilight.
Sunday morning. I'm up before Charlotte though it is 9:15. She is a bit of a trial in the amtter of slowness. She's energetic, very - but also not ready when things ought to happen. However, in most ways she's so good a companion that I try to be patient. Tomorrow she'll have to get up for we take a 7:47 train from the station a mile and a half away, and it'll be difficult getting started. The English do start late! Our Hather says the French don't like them in labs. because they arrive at 10 a.m. and then want to stop for the everlasting tea at 4 p.m. But I must say that the Cambridge labs get work done somehow.
Yesterday we did miscellaneous things in the a.m. and then at 2:15 met Dr. Hopkins, wife & son, sister-in-law (?), Dr. Hess (of N.Y.) and 2 daughters to be shown over Trinity from the standpoint of a fellow. 'Twas most interesting. The Hopkins are delightful. We went into the library behind the cords and saw the Newton things. I remember some of them from before and some of course I have forgotten. Some may have been added for Professor Hopkins spoke of additions here and there. There is a picture of Foster in the Hall from which the reproductions which we have was taken. The list of Trinity men is as imposing as that of Christ Church at Oxford, it seems to me, though the Hall and Chapel are by no means as lovely as the Oxford ones. Galton's portrait hung beside Foster's. We saw the Fellows' Garden - perfectly exquisite, where thre is a bowling green which has been used since the days of Queen Elizabeth. It's perfect turf. The grass in the lawns suffered much in last summer's drought, sister-in-law said, which may be one reason why our lawns are less perfect. We're impressed with the diligence of Sir Christopher Wren! He designed as many things both here and at Oxford, not to mention London churches. Prof. Hopkins said he thought he had no establishment in our sense, but that he really did the drawings himself. And Grindling Gibbon - if I spell it aright - must have carved with equal diligence.
We went home with the Hopkinses to tea, and minded our manners! Such a charming house and garden and children! The two women went ahead, the men went once more to the lake, and the boy told the Hess daughters and us about King's and Queen's. He was dear - and it was fun to hear about how to manage a punt &c - and most vivid was his tale of the [sic] how the 30,000 troops were quartered here 3 times during the war, and how the cavalry horses used to stampede in the lane we went on to get to their house.
I've bought you a little print of the Newton statue in Trinity Chapel - couldn't find the Library bust which Prof. Hopkins said was better. We were so rattled by our social ventures that we forgot to go rowing on the Cam, and I fear it was our only chance. To be sure it rained a time quite hard, but it stopped. We've found out that you turn to the right on the river so I think we could manage it - not punting, however, about which the boy told such diverting tales of losing the pole and sliding into the water. We looked at Darwin's college, same as Milton's, with an interesting portrait of him, and the mulberry tree. The gardener told us that the mound which you remember around the base is to hold the thing up. Also we glanced at John Harvard's College - Emmanuel.
Omelets seem to be favorite desserts - very curious! Tomorrow we go to Canterbury & the day after to Amiens, but beyond that our Paris & France plans are in the air because the change of dates of the Inter. Fed. is upsetting. We may go to Rouen instead of Mont Saint Michel & Chartres though with great reluctance. I have no credentials as yet and am much worried. They are needed. I fear it fell out between the Dean's & Pres. offices & it's serious. They should have sent them before we left, but I thought they'd follow us.
I shall mail home some guide books & cards - Open them & look at 'em. And read my New Repulican if you care to. I hope my Med. Jour. & Sco. are safe. I left a box in the hall for such.
Do you know the story of Queen's Bridge, the wooden one? The moth. said they could do it with no bolts, but they had to call the carpenters!
I'll send this to So. Hadley lest it miss you in the transit from Minn. to So. Hadley. Hope you have a nice time with Belle Mead. Much love to you, honey. I hope you'll find the garden all right. Don't pull up the Carpathian harebells? They may be small still. They're in blossom here & are pretty. They're little low border things.