[Some paragraph marks added for ease of reading.]Wed. afternoon
Honey dear, I'm so sleepy that I've got to wiggle my fingers a few minutes to get waked up. It was twelve when I got to bed last night, but reason of Miss Blood's dinner party and business letters I had to write afterward. Sunday I mailed 16 letters, almost all except yours and one to my mother of a purely business nature. And last night there were some more to do.
I went to an A.C.A. meeting! To be sure I thought it was a College Club thing, and yet I'd have gone anyway, being duly invited, to hear Miss Blood's friend talk. The show was at a perfectly grand Beacon St. house - "
sunnywater side" (I forgot my idiom there - "sunny side" of Commonwealth and "water side" of Beacon are the grand ones). There were about 30 people I guess (not as many as I talked to!) and of all ages and styles. There was a committee report or two and then a brief speech by Miss Hussey (sp?) the holder of the Alice Freeman Palmer fellowship. She's reading Babylonian tablets in the Semitic museum and being a Bryn Mawr Ph.D. I felt she'd know Caroline, so I got introduced afterward and my gracious, she knows everybody I do, most. I don't know when I've had so much fun with a complete stranger. I think I've heard of her from Caroline Thompson - she was once at U.Pa. Miss Laird is a dear friend and she's quite fond of Mt. H-.Well, the main business was the lecture by Mrs. Rose of Teacher's College on the Cultural Value of Home Economics. I've been gradually changing my mind about the possibilities of H.E. for some time, and I tell you I got much enlightenment yesterday. If there were more teachers with her breadth of view I tell you I'd say have a department right off! I think Mt. H- has to have one soon, or be left behind anyhow, not as a vocational show either, but as an important branch of general knowledge. But this problem of general or cultural vs vocational is not altogether clear in my own mind. If we turn out girls who expect to begin to teach at once, and whom we expect so to do, aren't we vocational anyhow? It is hard to see where the lines should be drawn - or should we frankly say we don't care a hoot, and we'll select certain vocations for which to prepare and also furnish a "general culture" course for those who wish it, and let the rest go hang.
I have digressed - Mrs Rose talked about the cultural value of H.E. and she did it most convincingly. One especially good point, seemed to me, was the mingling of the purely scientific and the sociological groups of studies on the basis from which the applied ideas of H.E. rise. Her recognition of what has and has not been done, and her exposition of how great is the change in modern home-making in the city from the earlier country house keeping were especially good, likewise her point that the rich leisure class who do the most of the work in public charities &c &c need to know especially the broader aspects of H.E. I'm free to say that I got many new ideas - ideas that I was so to speak prepared for by that nice Mrs. Strong who is head of H.E. at Cincinnati University and who was at Mrs. Johnson's last summer, sister of Mrs. Cleveland. She is the same broad-minded type, the kind that knows something. I tell you honey I feel like slaying that year of Freshman Latin as required, when the children's time is so short and the knowledge of the present day world they must live in so great and so complex. And you know I delighted in my Latin, too - even this morning I read Virgil over a school-girl's shoulder with joy as I came in on the car.
I may remark that the eats were very god yesterday. Miss Gill pointed out to me the portrait of the hostess by Benson - elegant thing to be sure. Miss Shaw of Radcliffe talked to me in a most friendly way, and there was the above-mentioned Miss Hussey with whom I had such a good time. I believe I could get quite a little enthusiasm over sociabilities if I had the chance to cultivate those graces. I may say that my summer hat didn't seem to be indecent, especially as the little rosebuds about match my dark red dress. Nell, then Miss Blood, Mrs. Rose, a Miss Beckler of Simmons (bacteriology & biology) and a Miss Brown (Simmons, Miss Blood's ass't) and I went to dinner at the College Club. It was most pleasant. Miss Beckler has my heart entirely. She has about the most beautiful eyes I ever saw. I've met her before and had the same impression. She's the one who knows so much about milk - acts as adviser for dairies &c, a pupil of Sedgwick's. We had a good dinner and a good time. The new drawing room is very elegant to be sure.
Dr. Porter killed two rabbits this A.M, one by hemorrhage, and the other by operation - no better than I can do, tra la. It comforts me greatly. There are many choice bits which I might narrate if I weren't going to Dr. Roseman's lecture in a minute. Then I go down town for my last fitting at the tailor's and then home to make a hasty toilet before going to Doc's to dinner - a real party, this is, I understand. I tried to crawl out on the basis that Elizabeth might come out to see me, but Doc insisted in telephoning again after I'd heard. She really is very nice to me - says we'll go to So. Had. in a few weeks. Saints preserve us! I want to go to S.H. but I desire also to save my bones. Elizabeth comes tomorrow night I guess if she's able. She was sick in bed when I heard, Sunday.
Time to stop - goodbye. Oh, some of my pictures of the little Hamlins are sweet. I'll show them to you someday. My cousin Louise is married today - fine day.
Love to year, dear -
Abby.Eva Mellor is paying me attentions, invites me to the closing show at Denison House, end of the winter classes. I think I may go - how she's connected I don't know.
[This letter was in the same envelope, but it seems to start in the middle of a sentence, and written the day before the letter above. But both are dated the same day.]
April 12, 1911.
knowing whether I want it or not. It would be charmingly convenient! Only you'd tell me to go to bed earlier. However I'd try to be quiet. Did I tell of slinging a pitcher of water on the bathroom floor the other night and smashing said pitcher? The walls of Jericho nearly fell! Mrs. Palmer stuck her head out, Mr. Horne ditto, though he did not get in dangerous range. Oh, that reminds me - he was one of the managers of the Metropolitan Opera Co. the year I heard my first opera! He showed me a program of their Washington season that year, and I must tell you one tale, even if I never get to my uncle's. He said Emma Eames was about the worst one of the lot to get on with, but that isn't the story. Sembrich was down to sing at the second Wash. performance, Traviata. At one o'clcok she "fell ill" - and Mr. Horne went to see if Nordica would do it.
"Have you forgotten that I sang last evening?", haughtily.
"Oh, no, Madame, and you sang gloriously, and I'm sure you could sing even more beautifully tonight."
"But I never sing two evenings in succession."
"Just think of that wonderful aria".
"No, quite impossible."
"Very well, but I should just like to know your reasons for not taking this $1000 which this performance would give you, of course." - She consented at length -
"But I have no clothes for that part!"
"We will have the necessary gown made for you".
And Mr. Horne hastily found a dressmaker who got samples, suited Nordica, and with three other dressmakers and several girls working in a room at the hotel, Nordica was fitted and the gown finished at 6 P.M. How's that? It is a ball dress thing - no night gown, tho a night gown is required in the last act. Probably she could provide that! Said Mr. Horne as he spoke of gathering the dressmakers, "I grew grey every minute." I just revel in these reminiscences of his. He's mighty nice about them, though - they aren't brought out every day. Emma Eames had to receive her $1000 check each night before she would go on. Van Dyck whom we saw in Tannhauser had $1200 a night, and also Lilli Lehmann, while Sembrich, Eames & Nordica, $1000.
I must go over to my uncle's. The snow was 4-5 inches deep this morning and it has just stopped - awful slush. I went to the Emmanuel Church for the music. I'm just looking forward to the Bach Passion Music Friday night. Elizabeth McKee and I are going together. This is her week home. She'll probably be over for some other night, but I don't know. She expected to spend Sunday with Ethel but wrote me she was coming home instead to take care of her laryngitis. I believe she needs to have her tonsils out. She has so many sore throats. Tuesday afternoon I'm invited to a lecture at a Beacon St. home (!!) by the head of the Home Econ. at Columbia, and to a dinner for her thereafter, given by Miss Blood at the College Club. It's a College Club show anyhow, and Miss Blood invites me to the whole of it. She and Mrs. Johnson have had a fine time down in Virginia. Mrs. J- is still in Washington. Some year we'll go to Washington, honey. I've never been. I'm going to save a Trans. article about a N.Y. church too - equal to European ones, "Paulist Fathers".
Good-bye - I'll have to make a rather short call at my uncle's and I meant to do it properly for once.
My love to you, honey dear -
Abby