BLACKWELL FAMILY ALICE STONE BLACKWELL Kitty Barry 1877Gardner Aug. 14, 1877 Dear Kitty: This is Tuesday, & I spent last Sunday at Harrison Square. I took my Greek lesson Saturday morning & went down in the afternoon, coming back Monday morning, so as not to miss a lesson. I found things growing luxuriantly, and, as the day was very hot, felt as if I had come into a tropical region. Found Mother looking stout, rosy & well. She sent me upstairs to surprise Aunt Emily & Nannie. I knocked at Aunt Emily's door, heard a "Come in", & entered, to find a little girl, slim but much taller than the Nannie I remembered, leaning against the bed & Aunty, with her back to me, killing mosquitoes with a cloth on the end of a broom. I spoke to her, & she turned in surprise, saluted me, gazed upon me, & declared I looked like "a regular Blackwell" - whereby I was flattered. She is decidedly portly, to use your word, - and rosy & looks in very good condi tion. She forthwith gave me candy. the nonsense out of them. I must tell you about Mr. Black some other time. There is no need for you to exhort me not towhich seemed like old times. She seems to take great pleasure in Nannie -- Mother says she purrs over Nannie like an old cat. Speaking of cats, our black & yellow one had just five kittens and Nannie was in clover. When Papa got home, he saluted me as "[?] infant" -- whereupon I immediately took him up on the accent and gender. He looks very thin. I hope the Colorado trip will do him good. He works at his glucose industriously, and won't come to meals when they are ready if his experiment is in progress & at an interesting stage. They start for Colorado about Aug. 20, & probably will not get back before the middle of October. Clara & Maria Barlow are going to come & keep house for them, and about Sept. 8, Uncle George, Emma, Howie, and I, expect to go down. There is fear that Papa and Mamma cannot get the railroad passes they hoped to, in which case the journey will be very expensive, I suppose. I hate to have them go far, especially considering the dread [*be too hard on him, for I really like him. As for my [?] smitations,*] she eats, or rather doesn't eat, that make me feel pretty well convinced what is up. Don't tell Aunt Elizabeth that I abused Uncle G. I don't mind your telling her that I expressed suspicions. I forgot to say that Charlie Spofford spent the Sunday that I was there at our house. He has shaved off his whiskers, leaving just a mustache, and is a very good looking young man, at a little distance. Mother, who gets her information though Aunt Emily, says that the purser is a very silent man, and very ugly -- as to looks, I mean, not temper. Florence has taken a great dislike to young Washburne, whom Uncle Sam and Aunt Nettie are said to favor. She declares (F. I mean) that he is selfish and egotistical, and will never take care of anyone but himself; moreover, he says his father & mother don't appreciate him as Uncle S. & Aunt N. do, which Floy thinks he ought not to say about his parents. [*real character. I may drive you to seek a divorce, yet. I gave little Howard the kiss you sent him, and I think Emma*]So, if she dislikes him, I suppose young Washburne is done for. Aunt Emily thinks there is no engagement between Floy and the purser, only an understanding that when he gets money enough to start with, if they both remain in their present mind, they will marry. Aunt Emily fears that the purser may prove something of a tyrant as Floy's temper is so gentle and yielding. He has declared that he should never expect Floy to live in Scotland, where his folks are, as hers are here in America. I have not heard from Floy for a long time. I think I probably owe her a letter; for I have been so busy as to make me neglect correspondence somewhat. Yours of July 23rd came yesterday. Never fear that your letters will seem stupid; on the contrary. To think of my own Kitty crying in the night, and I regarded it as a striking proof of my affection for my absent spouse, for neither she nor Aunt not there to get my arms around her! I hug myself emptily in the night sometimes, wishing I had you in my arms, with a hungry feeling. That is disconnected enough; but never mind the grammar. Don't try to tell me anything till you feel fully able; only be sure that I sympathize, heart's dearest, whether I know much or little of the details. I have said nothing about Mr. Sach's being with you, as I understand that you and Aunt B. didn't want it known to the kith and kin over here. Tell me some more about the book Aunty is writing; I'm interested in it. Who was it who said that the Harvard professors didn't want girls there because they would find out the lives the boys lead? I don't think that is it. We could hardly learn worse about the students than the papers give them credit for, and that the girls who know students are often ready to hint -- though not generally of their own particular student. Some of the students don't seem at all desirous that college should Sarah nor Lavina had succeeded in bringing me to it before. Perhaps I wrote in too blue a spirit about Emma; consider part have a reputation for good morals, either. That day when we were out in his yacht (perhaps I told you) Sue Hunt asked Percy Cushing was a certain student, whom she knew of, had lately been suspended for. Percy intimated that it wouldn't do to tell on a fellow student. Sue said she could find out anyway, as she knew his sister. Percy said she could very likely find out the ostensible reason for his suspension, but as for getting at the really one, that was another matter. Sue said she thought they ought to be ashamed of themselves. "Oh no," says Percy with all coolness; "what's the use of going to Harvard, if you can't --" he paused. "If you can't be expelled?" spoke up Grace Roberts in a dubious quizzical voice, and I was tickled, for a snub from such a pretty girl as she might possibly pierce even Percy's hide. And did I tell you how, when he took out the second boat-load of girls, he declared that if anyone misbehaved, he should turn them up and spank them?! So they told me. Wasn't that a pretty speech for a son of Fair Harvard? I think working for their living must make boys more manly and knock of the blueuing sponged out. Goodbye, & God bless you, Mavourneen! Alice. railroad accidents that are happening all around. But I always feel more comfortable about Papa when Mamma is with him. She will look after his comfort, & have an eye upon him. But my heart ached when I came back up here, and saw Papa's dear gray head disappear as the cars moved off. He was waving his hand to me as long as I could see him. Somebody who heard he had but one child told him that was having too many eggs in the same base; and, but that it is the universal order, I should say it was decidedly having too many eggs in the same basket to have but one father & mother. Keep mum, but I think that Emma is going to have another baby. And I think Uncle George ought to be kicked. I mentioned my suspicions to Mother when I went down, and she mentioned them to Aunt Emily when we were out at the bench under the fir trees with Nannie frisking around. Aunty looked a bit blank, but said that "if things I'm glad if they amused you. I felt ashamed enough after writing you that letter. However, as you have taken mewere so that Alice had a suspicion, she guessed it was so." Also that, if it was so, they disregarded their medical advisor, and she had a great mind to tell them to shift for themselves hereafter. She is coming up here with Nannie for a short visit before going back to N.Y., and will have a chance to see how things stand. If it is so, I hope she will give Uncle G. a piece of her mind. What a set of pigs men must be! Some of them, anyway. And Emma ought to have her ears boxed too, only that she is bound to suffer for it anyway. She is not strong; and a nice thing it would be if poor little Howie should b e left without a mother's care before he can talk & explain his wants. However, Uncle G. is devotedly fond of Emma, and very kind to her; I will say that for him; and if anything should happen other, he would be finished enough. Emma's shape is not so much altered that I should have had any suspicions from that, but it is the way they talk, and look at each other, and the way for better or for worse, I can now venture to come out in myCOLORADO Woman Suffrage Association Office of Chairman of the Executive Committee Boston Dec. 24 & 25, 1877. My Sweet K. Your last letter was decidedly the right thing in the right place. I was under the shadow of examinations when it came, and was feeling as if I should like a good big cry. But of course when I beheld that jolly fat envelope, with Capt. Kidd's handwriting upon it, I seized it joyfully, & discomforts were forgotten. So you see the paper sellers are not the only people benefited by your scribbling. It's queer to think of you among aloes and cypresses and "soft gray olives" in -- or near -- the tropics! You'll say you have been there often and long enough for me to get used to it; but it still seems queer. There is no snow on the ground, and see if you don't think I had a reason to be shocked. I've no doubt Prof. Buck thought he was doing his duty by us, and giving us a useful explanation; but it did & does seem to me injudicious. Flo & I went to church this A.M.and we have a prospect of a snowless Christmas. Sun bright, air not too cold, sky lovely. We have had a spell of glorious days, most unDecemberish and awful weather is predicted in January accordingly. We are all well,. Flo, one day, when we were alone, got going and gave me a fuller account of the Burnside business than I had yet had. She detailed the steps of the courtship; how Edie teased her; how she did not let on how much she liked him till after the Anglia met with that accident and was several weeks after time, during which delay she suffered great anxiety and did not venture to ask for news. That was about last Christmas. Then the letters; and how the ship's people got hold of the matter and teased him; and their little tiffs and reconciliations; and how he brought out his particular friend, Dr. McLoughlin, to Somerville. she hates that Dr., declares him worse that Mr. Burnside. You see he knew and didn't say anything. And how Mr. B. cam out to Rockaway, etc. ect. She and Sarah Coates called him "the Laddie, and had just been having a great time over a letter just received from him when Henderson Bro's letter came. Her father read it, bit his lips, gave it to Aunt Nettie and left the room. Aunt Nettie read it, and looked at Flo queerly. Flo demanded to know what it was, and made a snatch at it. Aunt N. gave it to her the, and Flo, having read it, laid it down on the table and "Dished!" So Edie says, but F. says she doesn't remember saying anything. Then she retired to her room, locked herself in, and cried; with Aunt N. knocking at the door at intervals. Only twice, I guess, come to think of it. Flo, though loth, was convinced of its truth, finally; so that is the end of that. Flo seems to feel special resentment because Mr. Burnside had such an innocent way of looking you straight in the face and saying things. She says she shouldn't care so much if she hadn't let him know how jam in the city. This pen is enough to make oneinfuriated; or else the paper is in fault. Anyway, good bye. fond she was of him. But she hates to hear the wind blowing at night, and wonders whether "the poor old boy" is on the water. She is a brave little soul; she declares she doesn't believe in the eternity of love; does believe that people can conquer their feelings even when strong; and will come through all right. She says Mr. Washburne would make a very good husband, but doesn't expect to marry him. She is much interested in her elocution, is blue at times but only at times, and I think is getting on well on the whole. Dec. 25, 11877. Your letter + Aunt B's (for which please thank her, + tell her I'm going to answer it presently_ came last evening -- just on time. Thanks for the pretty Christmas cards. Aunt Marian is an unnatural heathen to talk so about Christmas. How can she say that the celebrations for the last twenty years have been a bore to all concerned, when all of us children used to be concerned? I think 3 of you today at Bordighera, keeping Christmas all you can. We are to have the grand orthodox pudding, [but] and Mamma has bought a lot of candy for Floy + me to divide between us. The presents have been mainly books that had been sent to be noticed; Floy had also made Mamma a teapot holder, very pretty. Knit, red + white. Why don't you like Nice? You, so fond of the sea, + now so near it! By the by -- I want to ask a question which I particularly request you to answer in your next, as my peace of mind is concerned therein. did you ever have a sentimental weakness for any (male) being -- adult male human being. You see I want to put it definitely before your present attack? A horrible suspicion has been instilled into my mind. If it was so -- as I heard rumored, I mean -- all I can say is that I don't If my last letter struck you as rather insane excuse it. admire your taste in mankind. You know Christmas came this year on Tuesday, and so the Sunday before many of the churches had Christmas sermons. Dr. Bartol preached one which,according to Mrs. Persons, was indescribably beautiful. She things she shall be a better woman during the coming year for it; and she is almost an angel already, so I think. I wanted her to tell me a little what it was about,but in came Mr. Moody, + so it dropped. I declare I shall be over there again one of these days, whether or no. But then, Mrs. Persons is enthusiastic on the subject of Dr. Bartol, + most of his congregation seem to be in the same state. Think of being minister over the same church for forty years! His sermons are not printed anywhere, that I know of, so I can't well send you extracts. You see he is very radical, + so I suppose is regarded as a dangerous character by the orthodox and conservatively inclined. Mr. Black says his radicalism strikes one of hope though my faith in you has been greatly undermined by 4 Colorado Woman Suffrage Association Denver, Col., 1877. much more in reading his books He has written several, I think; we have one: 'Radical Problems,' which I've been reading I than in listening to his sermons; that when he talks, everything he says seems so directly stamped with his own personality, that you never think that he is going to "subvert the foundations." I told you what a long sermon he preached the day I went. He was in at Dr. Talbot's a few days after, + Dr. T's youngest son told him that that sermon was so long he wanted to stand up and "holler." Or to that effect. Dr. B. gathered him right off into his arms, and said, "My dear, I know it was too long; but I couldn't make it any shorter. I'll never preach such a long sermon again." One of Talbot's girls told me the story. That's a dreadful little boy! Madame Mario must be rather a brick; but I have a feeling recent revelations that you keep everything I say which is that she and I should fight, if we ever got acquainted. Oh you sinner! [Foloy?] asked me the other day about "a Mr. Mackintosh," and whether I hadn't been severely smitten by him. Eagerly seeking to know whence she had got her information, I found it was from you!! You hadn't told her anything, but had given hints. Now, anyone who tells what is told them in confidence is a discreditable sneak; but anyone who, without really telling, hints round till people can guess, is just as wicked and twice as mean. To let out the name, above all things! Why,I never told Mother that! You're a leaky tub, Kitty, and that's all there is about it. Paederasty is a word derived from pais a boy, + erao to love. It seems that men used to love each other impurely in old times, and keep boys as their mistresses. I believe it is some times called Sodomy. You must have read about it in Scripture. Now that you know what it is, reread what Prof Buck said Colorado Woman Suffrage Association Office of Chairman of the Executive Committee, Boston, Dec. 31, 1877 + Jan. 1, 1978 My dear Kitty: I think you are entirely wrong about Prof. Buck, and I feel guilty and disgusted with myself for giving you such an impression. What he said seemed to me unwise and shocking, and I was enraged at the time, and came home and told Mamma, who thought as I did. But neither of us believed that he spoke with intent to corrupt the class. He seems to be a shrewd, erratic, blunt, but kindly professor, and neither a villain nor a beast. He is very much liked, in spite of his sharpness, and is generally considered, I think, the back-bone of the [University] college. It is we went [last Sun] the other Sunday. If it was he, he probably expected me to over take him shortly. But I crossed the street, and bolted up another street which runs parallel to the one we took before and so escaped. I went along grinning like a particularly asinine to yourself. And don't let on about Flo +Mr. Burnside -- what I tell you, I mean -- or I shall feel like a traitress. Affy, Alice quite true that Greek literature -- what I have seen of it, at least, except Homer -- is so full of references to that particular vice, that an understanding of what it was is absolutely necessary, to understand what you read. you would otherwise be in continual bewilderment and be exercising your imagination anything but beneficially. If Prof. Buck had confined himself to referring them to some book which would give them a brief explanation, as decent as the nature of the subject would allow, and there dropped it, I should have thought it enough. I suppose his palliations of the enormity of the practice were to save some of his beloved old heathens from too utter reprobation on our part. As for recommending such a vice to the class, he didn't, and you must be cracked to suppose it. Do you think any many in his senses, if he were ever so much of a rascal, would [try] venture on such a thing before a whole class in B.U.? It would be tolerably sure to get to the [and of] ears of the Faculty, and the Faculty would be after him with a sharp stick. Why Bishop Foster's son is a member of our class; and Prof. Buck knows that anything he says is liable to be reported to our fathers and mothers. Aunt Elizabeth has put in quotation marks "It had much to recommend it." Please let me know whether I said that. He certainly didn't: but he did say the system "had its good side to it." or to that effect; which was certainly bad enough. Mamma, while she thought it bad to set boys to investigating such a subject, supposed of course that he wanted them to know about it for its historical significance, and not with a view to demoralizing the class. Good [Heavens] gracious! I am astonished at you; and yet it struck Emma in much the same light. I have never heard a breath of suspicion against Prof. Buck's moral character, though Cheshire cat, yet feeling a bit remorseful; and have suffered in mind since, fearing I had been rude. Anyway, this ought to settle the suspicion, if he entertained any, that I wenthe is blunt, and not particularly refined at times. He has a nice wife, is a convert to coeducation, and, as I said is much liked by the students. I like him myself, although he sometimes exasperates me; and I could almost box my own ears for having sent abroad such an impression against him. When we were in the Memorabilia -- I think it was in the chapter that tells about the choice of Hercules, where Virtue and Vice appear to him personified, Prof. Buck, a propos to something in the lesson, remarked that it would be a very good thing for a young man who had a tendency to vice to be taken through some low quarter of the city, and shown the abodes of the vicious poor; that he would probably realize the truth of the saying "Vice is a monster of such" etc. He specified the first part of those lines, for he evidentially didn't mean it should extend to the pitying and embracing. And he has said other things which don't look to me at all as if he proposed to demoralize his classes. Though, as I said, I object to what he said to us on that occasion. Do I suppose any of the Cambridge Profs would say such things before a class? Indeed I do, and much worse, if by Cambridge you mean Harvard, where there are no girls to restrain them. Not all the Profs. probably, but some of them, I've no doubt. Florence has been growing plump, but has taken to tooth ache lately. It is now better, however. She and I have great scrimmages. You see she is possessed by a desire to pinch me, and of course I resist. It is no use to get her down, for she is no sooner let up than she flies at me again. Quarter is wasted upon her. She is reading "Student Life at Harvard," and considers one of the characters whom I like "a muff." We have fought violently about that. Vacation ends day after tomorrow. I was going to do lots of things this vacation, but I haven't. there to see him. Clara is not with us so I have no news of Maria. I hope to send a more entertaining letter Jan. 1 1878Last Sunday I went to Dr. Bartols again. I thought Mr. Black would probably have gone home for the holidays, and there was no teling when I might have another chance. On Saturday afternoon and evening there had been a meeting of the girls' club at Mamie Molineux's in the city, and i and two others had stayed over night. They have breakfast shockingly late there Sunday morning and I had to put my best foot foremost to get over to Dr. Bartol's clear on the other side of the city in time. As it was, I got there while they were signing what I suppose was the first hymn, and didn't look about me much as the user took me to my seat. I like Dr. Bartol + his church. The pulpit is very high, and hung with crimson, as in the old Hollis St. church; and Dr. B's white head up there is like a benediction. After service I glanced around the church, without seeing anyone I knew, although a member of my acquaintances go there; so I thought I was all right, and started out. But outside among the departing congregation I saw someone whose back looked very suspiciously like Mr. Black's and he was starting to walk the same way next time, but I had to free my mind about Prof. Buck. A Happy New Year, my dear! Good bye. Affy, Alice