The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-06-03
Theodore and j. Gilohrist.

The reader, as he may have expected,
will find q story In THE Letters Of Theo-
DORA" by Adelaide L. Rouse (The Mac
milan Company. Theodore bids for our
deep sympathy in her first letter. which is
addressed to her friend Miss Felicia Cabot,
at the Rockwell Institute, in Rockwell, N. j.
Our letter writer and heroine Is in New
York trying to sell the wares Of her magma
ton to abominably Indifferent and slow
purchasers. A ghost story in which she
had extrava CANT faith has just come back
from the Black Cot, an obviously unintelli-
gent publication, and within twenty-four
hours she has received the thanks OF six
publishers, accompanied by as many arti-
cles penned thoughtfully and laboriously
by her and declared succinctly by them to
have been found unavailable.
Here was a state Of things 1t hurts
the heart, to say nothing Of the stomach.
to have manuscripts returned. Troubles
augmented themselves. They grew TO be
very much like giants. A novel came
back to Theodore. 1t had only been out
three weeks. She did not believe it could
have been read in 80 short time. This
suspicion that it takes more than three
weeks to read a novel shows that Theo-
dora's troubles had touched her mind.
Her resolution and industry in urging the
novel seem to have remained unimpaired.
She kept it lowering in the hands OF the
literary advisers. In her fourth letter.
addressed to Miss Leigh Brandenberg, at
Seven Oaks, Sullivan county. N. Y, she
reported it as in statu quo The journeying
and unembraced novel had an attractive
n A
Theodore had certain distra ctions and
interests. II not compensations. We find
her going out for beefsteak salad and
a cup OF coffee" in the third letter. The
fifth letter makes us aware that she at.
tended divine service at st. Polycarp's.
She had way Of going there, though II
was not convenient, because she liked the
rector, an ascetic looking man, with a nice
voice, who read the liturgy remarkably
we'll. Moreover, John Gchrist turns up
in the fifth letter, and we know Immediately
that he is going to he important. There ID
a good deal in the fifth letter about John
He is In town, is instructor in Latin at
Columbia University ITO think OF his
being at Columbia!" -He has grown quite
a bit stouter and the extra flesh is becoming
to him. Evidently, he takes to New York
as a duck takes to water. He looks like
man who would enjoy good dinner and
make a good speech afterward.' Il don't
want him in New York. Still, ] don't see
what am to do about it; it is a free country"
Was it really the case that Theodore did
not want John in New York? He must
have served to divert her mind from the
novel on it's travels. and from the inflow
OF ironical thanks, along with rejected
manuscripts, from the editors. Still, in
spite of John, or it may be by reason of
John as we'll as Of the literary mishappen-
ings, Theodoras belts got loose and her
rings almost slipped from her fingers. She
took to milk and raw eggs, poor girl. She
paid visit to the old farm in Massachusetts
where her family lived before they moved
to North Dakota. A nice old man took her
along when he went after the COWS, and
she saw the elder bushes and the goldenrod
in the COW lane. and had "a nice, honey
supper" and stayed all night, and dreamed
dreams Of childhood, in which Johnny
Gilchrist was included.
1t is not allowable to tell ALL even Of
very charming tale. We may be permitted
to extract from the fifty sixth letter, written
from London, the brief intelligence: John
and were married yesterday morning at
the American Embassy. Sudden, was it
not?" In the fifty-ninth and last letter we
find the pair in New York again and tinker
ing away at a sonnet together in their
common study" But more We shall not
reveal. Theodore wrote well. and her
letters make an amusing and delightful
story.