Category: Extra letters

To Bertha from Marie Schubert –

(Date is approximate)

By the way, did I tell you I had a letter from Delores which I honestly was sorry to receive. She isn’t happy I’m sure and has taken refuge in a hard slaugy rough sort of mood with here and there, the most pathetic little glimpse of an entirely different nature, a sensitive, hurt little girl.
Fate does cruel things to such nice people that I know that is riles me thoroughly (to say nothing of the cruel things fate has done to the just mediocre acquaintances within my observation.) There is a wonderful blue dusk veiling the lights, and it must be time to start home.
Tomorrow the Biennial with D. Davidson. More later.

Sunday morning –
It is darling of you to “remember” my precious wee rascal. He is just beginning to really eat you know and that cunning little spoon is quite the most appreciated gift he could receive.

He hasn’t been “christened” yet I did so want you to be his godmother. It would be a pleasure to me to feel that he belonged just a little bit to you, too. The denizens of the place included two rather undernourished looking chaps one an actor, one an Englishman and I think also an actor (or a critic) a perfectly delightful man who played Grieg for me till some unfeeling creatures began heaving back the chairs and begging for a Fox Trot. Dorothy said of him that he was “clever” and “all right if you put him in a room all by himself and shut the door.” Whatever that meant, I shrieked with laughter at her tone. He was lots of fun, no end witty, and rushed me all evening. Wanted to call.

I hadn’t the heart to blurt out a flat, “I am a married woman,” so I just left the question in the air so to speak so that he might recover from the shock of hearing “Mrs.” not “Miss” without having me there to witness his confusion.

There was a “Pat of a Chaperone” there Mrs. Swift, a widow, a naval officer, member of the arts club who told the actress that she knew her instantly when she “doubled” a part, and who set Mr. Casset’s teeth on edge with her prods about prohibition, and who insisted upon discussing the curtain raiser “Suppressed Desires” which was one of those plays about inhibitions and complexes and subconscious yearnings and sex which, if the worst comes to worst, one can bear upon the stage but not in the General Conversations when I pat cooking by the fireplace. She said, “Are you uncomfortable?” I remarked to her that whatever was the opposite of cold feet was what I was suffering from. She tittered, “Opposite of cold feet? Hot dogs!” You know the worst of her now? No, you don’t, she wore long jade earrings with a blue foulard.

There was Cleon’s adoptive sister a skinny bobbed-hair nice kid who smoked cigarettes and told hair-raising jokes. Others not quite sufficiently nondescript or bizarre to warrant a description.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself, but that was because the witty man saw to it thoroughly because the witty man saw to it thoroughly that I did, and I enjoy dancing again. I love it. There is something fascinating in swooping about in perfect rhythm, even on splintery planks.

Must get dinner, get dressed, and so forth, so forth. So once more, I’ll say, “continued in our next.” Think I’ll post this afternoon on my way to D’s and Biennial because I probably won’t have time for another “scratch” till next Sunday.

Am very much with the illustrations for Christmas, you know. The subject of my picture? My dear, I know dozens, the thing is to find time to do them.

Good luck,

Marie

P.S. Did I mention that the hero of “_____ Jones” was a real negro and these are the Provincetown Players. Or that I am having my piano out of storage and into D. Frantis’ studio?

To Bertha from Marie Schubert –

(Date is approximate)

September ?
The Somethingth

Bertha dear,

There’s no use waiting for a space of time sufficient for writing all I have to tell you. So, I’m going to make a start and let it grow. Twenty minutes now and perhaps plenty minutes later on.

Where did I leave off and where shall I begin? I suppose I told you of the book I illustrated, Mother Goose Rhymes, adapted for use in the primary grades of school and as a reader. I simply adored doing it. It is difficult to realize how very inspiring Mother Goose can be. One would think it had been done to death but it never will be – it can’t. I turned out cover and _______ piece in color and over 25 illustrations in a month (doing all my regular accounts besides and part of the time Mr. Pavies’ besides, which was going some even for a Speed Queen. I admit that it was) and somehow managed to do stuff I was willing to sign.

Catherine Melton arrived out her just at the hectic finish of the book and I dashed about with her quite amazingly considering everything else I had to do. We had one wonderful meal at Twilight at the Cliff House, a silver and hyacinth blue Twilight outside a dark hulk of a Tramp ¬-steamer disappearing out to sea, and inside, a very subdued honey-colored glow of light and a stringed orchestra playing Kashmiri songs. It was most entrancing.

I hardly dare plan anything but I feel that anything is possible if I mortify my flesh by labor-unceasing and fix my hopes and struggle for that something like a Demon. I feel that I have learned to struggle like that, and perhaps if I fixed on some huge glittering goal, it might be a pleasure to fight like that with a fierce abandon.

My twenty minutes are up. Santa Claus has my nose to the grind stone just now. Hales Department Store have me already drawing toys every spare moment.

(More later.)

Sunday AM, at office.

Such hopeless quantities of work to do. I want get finished anyway so may as well take ten minutes and scribble a PostScript to my disjointed letter.

I fear my friends cannot understand how very, very much they do mean to me. I am forced by circumstances to scramble so that it is difficult to settle down and collect my thoughts sufficiently for a real letter and by the time I get around to the letter writing, so much has happened that I can’t put it all on paper.

You know in the commercial game, you cannot say to a client, “I am too busy to do your orders this week.” You lose the account instantly if you are ever “too busy” for them. Each client things his orders should have precedence over all others and I am in a dilemma. I have to do Mr. Davies stuff. He gives me a corner in his office you know rent free and helped me get started which meant so much. His work is the most exacting and of course pays less. Hales would take all my time from now till after Easter but they would have none at all through summer Wermen’s account pays best of all but is occasional all year round and Harr Wagner the publisher pays very fitfully but the work is marvelous experience. There are other accounts which for one reason or another I want to handle.

So I keep wildly violently busy and thank the Good Lord that I get enough so I don’t have to worry about money at any rate – and dream of a more leisurely _____ _____ later when I have saved some not for a rainy but for a sunny day.

Write soon,
M.

To Bertha from Alice “Sally” –

June 2, 1926

Charters

Dear Bertha,

Here is a check for you which I managed to get in dollars. They made me explain why I wanted it and lots of other things but finally got it to me. I’d like to write you a decent letter, dear sister, but it is three nights since I have slept a bit and I’ve lost a pillow in the past week. In other words, I’m worn out. I’m sailing on the “_____” tomorrow morning and when I get on the boat and eat a little, I’ll write a nice letter. In the meantime, I’m sending you the European time.

Please excuse this scrawl but the temperature has risen suddenly. I’m sick and I’m tired and the combustion is too much.

Lots of love,
Sally

Miss Bertha Ballou

54 Via Montebello, 54,

Firenze (Italie)

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