Exams are over!!!!! I don’t know the results yet except that I made 71 on the course in Livy (not good but passing which is better than I hoped) and 89 on Latin and I don’t know what I made in the course. I was mighty glad to get your letter. Yes’m, I am very careful, you see the beauty of my letters to Bob is that they are not to Jack, they are to Bob and they relate the effect of the last letters. They are perfectly open and not the least bit more affectionate that they were before. Simply there are some girls whom I occasionally permit to censor my mail and one who does it without permit and the letters are for their delectation. Bob merely desires to hear what they bring forth. Is that alright?
I wrote the other day and asked William for my bracelet and he sent it. I wrote him a very brief note of thanks. I think that will end that chapter in my history for a while. They way he see’s fit to write me but he hasn’t since Christmas (although I sent him his blocks) and there was not a word with the bracelet. I scarcely know whether I would answer him if he did since he overlooked the blocks episode. Advice needed. Intelligence office, what would you prescribe? It would be better to drop him neatly I think because that will shut him up for a while with something to think about. Then, if I ever met him again, he could have a fair to reinstate himself. He is altogether, too spoiled, however, to worry about. Isn’t it too bad? I wish he had stayed nice. He was eighteen yesterday, I suppose. He is enveloped in tobacco smoke now. He was to be allowed to smoke when he was eighteen. I believe he once told me he was going to swipe his mother’s picture of me and take it to his room when he was eighteen. He would not admit that now, I fear. I wonder what happened, we didn’t fight. In fact, we thought we were friends but when that little box came day before yesterday without even a word in it, I was perfectly certain that everything was all off, even more certain that the fact that he never wrote about the blocks made me. I wish I knew. As I said, advice is solicited.
I have a new roommate who has been here all day so I hear but has not honored me with any message nor appeared at all. She came while I was a History exam and dumped her bags and has been off with some frat girls from Weat ever since. I have straightened the room and now at home to roommates. I hate her because of the looks of her bags and because she can’t be like my Lucy baby. Well, I must go see if the mail is in.
Not a letter! Wow!
I want to see my crazy roommate. She’ll arrive someday however and I know I won’t like her.
Well, I’ve got to stop now and dress. I am going to primp for the “it” in honor of exams being over.
To Bertha from Marie Schubert – (Date is approximate)
[Note: Marie Schubert Frobisher was a fellow art student. She later worked as a commercial graphic designer and illustrator of children’s book]
Despite the title, the stories in this book are apparently sympathetic to Indians.Illustrated by Marie Schubert
Dearest Bertha,
I haven’t much paper and as for time — but little trifles like that couldn’t deter me. I have a budget of news so I’ll just use Christian Science on the fishes and say “there’s no such thing as dirt. You are in error.” (It’s very simple.)
Let me see. How on Earth can mere words describe Dorothy’s stroke of luck! Her mother said last night the door burst open and in flew D. like a gale with her eyes as round as saucers. She was waving a canvas and screeching, “I have a De Laszlo. It’s mine. He painted it and it was my canvas” and so forth. Mrs. Davidson say she has never seen Dorothy in such a state. Well of course she was! I hate to admit it but I’m afraid I think De Laszlo (or whatever the name is) is better than Sargent. He lectured at the Corcoran after his exhibit of which I think I told you and everybody thought that he was wonderful and (I missed it). Dorothy said the minute he finished speaking, some of the men in the night class leaped up on the platform and grabbed his illustrative sketches. Mrs. _____ ring stopped them and said, “Those sketches are the property of the gallery…” and everybody was so glad to see the men get left because they had been so piggy about it and made such an exhibition of greed and illbreeding. You know how it would look.
[Note: Philip Alexius de László was a Hungarian painter known particularly for his portraits of royal and aristocratic personages. John Singer Sargent – also a painter of aristocrats – is the more famous of the two.]
Winifred, Duchess of Portland (by de Laszlo)Lady Agnew (by Sargent)
Well, he promised to come to the school some time and criticize and the pupils have been making nervous daubs ever since expecting him any minute. Last night, he walked unheralded into the night life and was amazed to see some of the students painting at night. He became so interested that he called for a canvas. Dorothy had a good one big and clean except for a mere outline. The man is a master undoubtedly. You will love this portrait of Reggio(?) (the hawk-faced Italian on Sicilian or whatever he is. You know he posed once a magenta silk cap and gave a talk on cameos). He did it in fifty minutes and Reggio (who adores and worships this man) sat like a statue the whole time. Dorothy says it was just marvelous to see him scrub around and bring out the skull and eyes and nose and mouth and all, in big firm swipes of paint, and oh, oh, oh such color. I went down before breakfast to see it and remained till nearly lunch time. When I came away I felt glassy eyed I had stared so hard. The man is a wonder. This is Reggio and it is color and it is form besides, Dorothy is going to have it framed in diamonds and have the fire department, police and militia guarding it. I’m thinking of lending her a kitten too as poor old Reggio plead and wept begged in trembly chest notes for it. He said he would give it to Mrs. Reggio and to think what it would mean to his great grandchildren and words to that effect. “Compliment me, I am a married man. I will give it to Mrs. Reggio.” Embarrassed poor Dorothy to pieces but she escaped off with it. Mrs. Leisinring saw her and didn’t stop her and it was Dorothy’s canvas do I don’t think they will try to make her return it now. She might lend it but that would be risky you know it would. (“Nine points of the Law” n’everything.) [Note: This refers to the expression “Possession is nine-tenths of the law” meaning that ownership is easier to maintain if one has possession of something, or difficult to enforce if one does not.]
And guess what D said to me? “And now at last I have some news to write to Bertha and I’m going to have to write her.”
I have other things to chatter of but they pale beside an event like the hereinbeforementioned excitement. (Here’s for the anticlimax.)
Blue mist presented us with four kittens on Friday the thirteenth and Krishua was so sympathetic and interested in petted blue and the kittens and I said to her, “You see Mistie got ahead of you. She put you in the shade. She had four babies and you only had three.” If you please then minutes later I went to look at them again and it was Krishua who had four and Mistie three. Krishua had simply swiped one and had it with hers, petting it and shining it all up. Mistie didn’t mind either. It was Friday the thirteenth for her and three kittens looked just as desirable as a family of four.
Having sandwiched the kittens in between to soften the shock of transition, I’m gathering courage to discuss my dinky little commercial-art affairs – though I must say that to glide gracefully from Count Philip’s masterpieces to “eight men’s straw hats and give Palm Beach suits, and five…
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I seem to be coming to the end of my paper so some of my gossip must keep but at any rate, I’ll crowd on as much as I can. For instance, Catherine Melton has somewhat deserted D. She was hurt about some theatre tickets. D asked to get them and I couldn’t get good ones. D met her and exclaimed disgustedly, “for goodness sake, is that the best you could do?” and I apologized and D was still put out over it and I took it personally when D was just impersonally annoyed (of course) and then later there were often things and they have drifted apart. C is very much “in with” the arts club people now. So is D Trout by the way. Oh, did I tell you Miss Critcher has invited D.J. to paint in her studio with her class but as a friend and fellow professional if you please and Dorothy criticizes pupils and Miss Critcher too and is such a help to everybody.
Oh, did I tell you? I met Miss Critcher and she mortally insulted me. She asked how I was getting on and I raved on about my orders and how I had more work all the time than I could possibly do and how fascinating and lucrative it was and she said wasn’t it nice that I had found a branch of art, if one could call it that, in which I could succeed.
Bertha, she wasn’t trying to be catty. She said it because that was just what she thought and it came right out a la enfant terrible and afterward she wasn’t conscious that I was simply pulverized and annihilated.
I bet I’ll pain better portraits than she does yet. Oh, I forgot to tell you she asked after you very particularly and I just blew your…
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…have good anatomy, clean times, and some degree of composition about the things and so in spite of the haste which is so bad for drawing, I think it is good experience and is teaching me a lot. I am interested in it and am making money. Besides, I feel that I’m just getting started and that the field has unlimited possibilities and though I yearn and long to do some (notice the plural, might as well wish for a million watermelons as for one of you know if I’m hungry) canvases and some statuary groups three at least. My “Paw and _____” My Seminole Indians for Cadman’s “No Dawn for and no Rising Sun”, and my Uncle Remus and Miss Sallie’s little…
To Bertha from Marie Schubert – (Date is approximate)
[Note: Bertha has left her job in Elks, and is now studying at the Boston School of Fine Art. Marie is studying at the Corcoran in Washington DC.]
Greetings once more,
Here is another Sunday and my letter not yet mailed which proves what a hectic life I am leading.
I really haven’t any more news except that Dorothy is sick with annoyance from the atmosphere in her life at the office and comes home mentally “frazzled” by it. The three girls as I told you have been reuniting Miss Cutcher’s studio. Now the talk of a studio of their own. I have an idea that I may a little later arrange to have a half day (or maybe two) a week for myself (wouldn’t that be splendiferous and then I’ll paint a marvelous “pie” and take some fat cash prize and buy a studio of my own and everything.)
Dorothy agrees to do “something” to submit next “Biennial.”
She says hers will be people outdoors in sunlight. Now, you think of yours. My trouble is I can think of a dozen I have been saving up to do and I do not know which one to do first.
I do hope by now you are beginning to feel that the Boston move was somewhat of a gay adventure. Maybe something quite thrilling has turned up since I last heard from you. A nice thrill, not an apache, burglar one. I hope you see a more lovely aspect of city life than I do.
Goodness! How drab and dismal bare and squalid and ugly and hopeless are the rows and rows of awful little hovels that line my march to duty every day!!! The car I take at 16th and New Hampshire Avenue goes down you, Florida Avenue and Seventh. How children reared in such surroundings can be anything like civilized human beings or as much as even half-witted is to me quite preposterous. It is simply terrible to contemplate the hordes of people who live in that hideous dreary manner. What is it that keeps them passive and unrebellious? Why do they not either force a more beautiful everyday panorama or die in an insane asylum? It is something outside of and beyond my comprehension or imagination. How (even if the they can stand it for themselves) can they tolerate the pitiful appearance of their children? Such bedraggled little guttersnipes! Poor little things.
[Note: She is referring to the Shaw neighborhood in Washington, DC. Shaw originally grew out of freed slave encampments in the rural outskirts of the city. The neighborhood thrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the pre-Harlem center of African American intellectual and cultural life. Duke Ellington would have lived and played there at the time the letter was written.]
Did I tell you that President Harding and Norman Rathvon attended the unveiling of the Dante statue in Meridian Park (two blocks away) (just across from Mrs. Henderson’s famous “castle”). Yes, Norman Jaucré and Mr. Harding were there and it was a delightful occasion.
I have added three books to Sonny’s growing library. Kipling’s just so stories with R.K.’s own illustrations and came across your “goes wop with a wiggle between.” By the way, Walter quoted that to me the other day. It had made an impression upon him also. He was in a hurricane.
The other two were beautifully illustrated “Fairy Tales of Haus Anderson” and “Swiss Family Robinson” which used to be so satisfying when I was young. They picked so much better than Robinson Crusoe.
Karl has presented Sonny with a dishpan and a spoon “to keep him quiet,” he carefully explains. So, can’t hear myself think, feel as if I ought to shout to you. Do write soon. I love your letters.
Loads of love,
Marie
P.S. My nephew is a niece named for Lady Vaux with one of our family names “Coffyn” for a middle name, “Vaux Coffyn Noble.” Distinct individuality – just one in the world. There are dozens of Mary’s and Bettys and Elsie’s but ________________________.
To Bertha from Mary Schubert – (Date is approximate)
350 High Street
Newburyport, Mass.
Oh Bertha – What an adorable hanky. Many thanks – It is too pretty to weep upon but what else can I use it for.
Everything is weary. I was never so in love and he was never so cool. It couldn’t be worse and the whole darn family is in bed and everythin’ – I’m so weepy. Never mind lots of things turn out all for the best though perhaps we may not see it right away.
He kissed me in that dratted taxi – as I never was before. West Point must be one of the happy hunting grounds.
Loads of love and best wish together with a bunch of thanks.
Mary
P.S.
After all the other bosh, I ought to have agreed. Broken hearted or some such thing – but it’s a little too late to wish, don’t you think?
[Note: Bertha is 32. She is living in the building below in Boston.]
238 Hemenway Street
Boston
Dear Mamma,
Busy days! I am almost swamped but am getting used to a full program so my head is still above water. Your interesting package containing so many welcome articles arrived yesterday. All will be most acceptable. I had been thinking I must buy a few handkerchiefs and paint rags are always thankfully received. As to the smock, it is a beauty. I shall perhaps be mobbed if I appear in another new smock. This year, having already become a joke for my cleanliness, but after all, cleanliness has its advantages and I sometimes thing that looking a little nicer than the other women in the class might have some bearing on the fact that Hoffman, a genius, has fanned me with many little attentions as of late, including the privileges of working with him in the afternoons when I don’t model, on portrait sketches. Hoffman is a great artist already at that. Nobody else has ever seen anyone except Sargent and De Camp and a few of the big men who could do better than Hoffman. Every day now he is turning off little “masterpieces,” well they are good. So it is fine to work alongside although I am so plodding comparatively. Presently, I shall pick _____ and do better as is though I lack the divine spark.
[Note: Irwin Hoffman who was allowed to enroll at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School when he was only 15. He had his first solo show at the age of 19, and was was referred to as “a prodigy in portraiture” by the press. He would have been a decade younger than Bertha when the letter was written.]
Painting by Irwin Hoffman (1922)
Today I painted in the morning, modeled from two to three and drew from three to four. It was a terrible day. Last night it began to snow and blow. It is blowing yet but the sky has cleared. This morning after three days of Spring, we were in a raging blizzard, the worse of the winter. Even I balked and had breakfast with Miss Fisher, then I waded out to school. People are trying to clean the walks but the wind swirled moving the snow in the air but the snow that should have been on the ground that it wouldn’t stay put and there was no keeping the ______ cleared until after morning. It was horrible.
Added to my other miseries I have been put on a committee and must have two posters by Monday and everybody declines to do posters. I cannot see my way to do two. At present, I am up against a blank wall but am beginning to see daylight after all for I’m _____ the making of lots of posters and if worse comes to worst, I think I’ll invite two or three men and dine with two or three other girls and myself at the Union next Sunday, and make them all work. I think it could be done like an old fashioned “bee.” How’s that for an idea, and old maid to get things going and two or three beautiful young girls as bait for two or three handsome young artists. I’ll bet it works if all else fails me. I know two or three flapper _____ who would work like beavers for the chance of dining with Hoffman. “J’ai une bonne idée.”
Am glad Mrs. Jackson is better. She certainly has had a time of it! I trust Papa is entirely recovered now as you wrote that he was all well his but for the soreness in this throat. I think it would be a fine thing if he could take a leave and get away for a little while. Thank you very much for all the things you sent me. I appreciate you’ve thought of me greatly. Am wondering when I’d better start home. When do you think? I want to go home and I want to work, too. From the standpoint of work this is the best year I’ve put in in many years. I’m putting in more hours and pulling ahead steadily. Wish I could work there. “I wish I were dead, this is such an awful world and sleeping when you’d rather be working.” I’m not quite that enthusiastic but I like to work in the new class. Everybody takes on a new lease of life in it. Well, time to close.
