Evening star., 1924-10-28
THIS AND THAT
BY c. Z. TRACEWELL

/ have Just received letter so
interesting that 1 am going to share
1T with you today. | will be pardoned
surely for allowing the compliment
tary references to myself to remain,
| because no one would dare to touch a
| word of it.
Nothing that I could write, l am
| sure, would be as interesting as this
letter from a gentlewoman 81 years
old. who, crippled with rheumatism,
has for companions the great books
and radio.
Memories of Emerson are her con-
stant companions, and the voices that
come through the ether nightly make
| glad her hours.
Here in this coy corner, devoted
| to the better things Of life, let us
settle down for a few minutes to a
real transcript of life. The letter
follows:
please find inclosed some lines
that The Star may print in some cor
! ner of an early issue. They were
written when Mr.. Coolidge was first
| elected Governor of Massachusetts,,
but have never been published.
"A native Vermonter, having trav-
eled widely in our own country and
in Europe, l confess that the quiet
beauty of mountain, lake and valley
there is to me Incompatible.
Born early in the year 1888 and
educated mostly in Burlington long,
of course, before Mrs. Coolidge saw
the light, it has been a delight to me
that such as she has had the advan-
tage of co-education in a college
there where my nepheWs have at
tended.
,-I. 1, Irt
ter to you in place of directing 1t to
the editor of The Star? Because, in
the first place, | have long wanted to
tell you how much enjoyment your
This and That column gives me.
You seem, someWay, akin to Charles
Lamb, and l wonder If the gentle Ella
isn't one of your favorite authors.
Like him, your graceful and humor-
Gus touch adorns whatever you no.
tice.
Yesterday your topic of old books
made it quite impossible for me to
remain silent. l love them all. And
person who has spent more than 81
years upon this changing planet has
vigor enough left to know what she
likes. And she does not care for most
of the free verse even though signed
by Amy Lowell herself
Did you read some time ago
long screed by that lady, written
upon the ghastly visit of a mother al
midnight to secure the bare bones OF
her criminal son, through which the
wind howled as they hung from the
scaffold? My antidote was to repe-
ruse some of Shelly's lines to the sky
lark and Hymn to Intellectual
Beauty ere her poetry (?) could be
forgotten.
"And you quote lines of Bryant
u iol, len
in pigtails Him | used to see in New
York and in Boston and other places.
| saw Lowell and visited with the
authoress of Little Women in her
own house while listening to the dis
sertations of her father. Heard Walt
Whitman read his own verses, and
time and again heard the gentle tones
of dear old Emerson as he tangled
the pages of his lecture to find the
right place. He, indeed was the in
spirer Of my early life, and is still
revered and beloved
You will continue, l trust, and not
forget the sonorous words of Gray.
Yet why enumerate them, so many
that are yet Incompatible. Go on,
Mr.. Tracewell. and give pleasure every
afternoon to 'shut-in,' crippled for
many years by rheumatism, with her
right hand almost incapable of hold
ing pen.
Her companions are her books and
her memories of active, interested
years of a full and varied life, now
rendered happier than once seemed
possible by the little crystal that
gives her solace in lonely hours. All
her own friends are gone into the
invisible world. where she must soon
joyfully join them. Yet her interest
in whatever affects humanity and her
love of the true, the beautiful and