Wyncote

Jan. 13.

Dear Viola -

With mingled feelings of rage and joy I find
your letter has been lying on this table all day, and
am ashamed of not writing before. Theoretically I am
studying all the time but- The last comedy I was
engaged in terminated last night : Preliminary beginnings
etc. Scenery to fit :

1- Bill Williams my especial property, Mask and Wig star
Memb. Fencing team embrio M.D. receives four tickets
for M&W Prelims - which are a small show given by
our Great Dramatic club before the Easter show.

Bill sends me two with request to take Miss D. the day
being Thursday ( i-e- the day I find this out . and the
show being on Friday )

Wherefor I pike many miles 'cross country on Thursday
evening and get aforesaid Miss. D. invited
--stoping at Bills room on my way homw I find the girl
Bill expected to take is in New York. Now Bill not
being indigenous to these parts his acquaintance is small.
Also Bill has hours all day Friday. Wherefor that a tieke
ticket may not be lost , gone to waste etc. The affair
being extremely select on account of the smallnes of the
club house. It is up to me to provide une compaignete

Wherefor Bill and I swap tickets that it may be true that I did not get the tickets I had after the swap untill Thursday P.M. at 11. wherefor of course it was impossible for me to invite any one till Friday. It beinga arranged that Bill shall go for Miss D. ( remember MissD expects me at 7. Friday with some notes on the Volsunga Saga and Niebelungenleid which same I am to collect some time on Friday between drinks.)

Ergo I send by Bill to MissD. instructions as to behavior on meeting Miss E. whom I plan to invite Friday PM Friday P.M. I arrive at Miss E's but met at door Miss C also of the bunch. - Problem - X equals the way of inviting one till the other leaves. Miss E. ill and I am left with Miss C. after strolling about for some time I conclude that I may as well invite Miss C. despite the fact that it is impossible for her to consider herself anything but an afterthought. She accepts on provision of her mothers consent. I supposing her mother to be sane arrange to call at 7.35 at which time I find that Miss C. can not go. Show at 8.15 I arrive at Miss L's at 7.30 Miss L not knowing Bill I lay the matter before her in a sane manner and we arrive at destination about half hour late. Show. then Bill and I shify - shift - partners and I take Miss D. ( Hilda ) home feeding her disconnected

facts concerning Volsungs and Niebelungers, also
carrying the key to Bills room which I had used to dress in
in. (This essentially returned.)
I dont know whether I have expressed the comedy of
the situation so that you will be amused but I assure
you that it was there. did not know that it was going
to take so much space. forgive me if it bores you.
Two nights of this week are accounted for. Wednesday
I went out for the first skating of the year - girl
couldn't go so I spent most of the evening in a parlor
two boots and a pair of courderoys.
Tuesday evening I indulged in that childish pastime
sliding down hill also the first time this year.
Monday evening I attended the latin proseminar
The rest of the time I have I believe spent in study
except a few moments bumming around Houston club, playing
chess etc.
----------

Enough history - you see I am trying to write faster than
I can with any degree of accuracy.

My regards to"Hansel and Gretel" do you think
it will be of use to me in marking up my thesis?
Pass a hunk of sympathy on to Gwen.
What do you know about Mr Gilbert Parker of this town?
He has a vivid, most vivid imagination -and the most amazi
amazing faculty for lying - a savage gun - and a pea
green pink past with yellow and green stripew in it.
After a frantic search among lordknowswot in some drawers

of what remains of a bureau above I find your other letter telling of your dissipation - cantatas etc.
Pears say, pardon! Blossom, mama Schmidt, but
find nothing therein that requires any further comment from
me. As to the Spinich Drama it is hardly a subject
I can fully treat of in the present letter.

Lope de Vega has written some nine hundred and more
plays of which there remain to us 431 that we may
consider authentic. I have not as yet finished
reading them although I have read several very fine ones.

Mr. Herr Wolf has written Studien about them in German
and I have laboured with his misplaced verbs with extreme
several things - Mr. Señor Edouardo de Mier has translated
Herr Graf vos Schacks german history of the
Spanish Drama into spanish which together with some
minor works I am engaged in overlooking but which
I can hardly sumarize in a few short sweet words - so-sweet words.

My particular job is to trace the development of
the figure of the gracioso in the Works of Lope, his fore-
runners and followers. Now the gracioso of the Spanish
play corresponds to the Fool in Shakespeares and
I can think of no more fitting subject for me to make
a keen cold-blooded scientific study of ( A preposi-
tion is a bad word to end a sentence with - but never mind

If I ever take my degree of Doctus Philosophiae in the
far dam fut - pardom me- future this same scientific
folly will be printed at much useless cost to yours truly
and put in several college libraries where the kind and
gentle public will be spared the pain of seeing it .

I will refrain from more of this as you probably are ready
for dinner or a rest or something .

Give my medicated and disinfected regards to your family .

I hope my wireless will do something to help out
that holler feelin of lonliness an exile .

I send this to Savage arms that you may get it before the
quarentine is off .

taking advanced work in grad - latin to know whether Plautus died before Martial, and other slight technicalities - in that the case mentioned only a century or two had elapsed - may be three - Due to a couple of weeks with Mackail and about all the english editions of the latin classics in the library I am now able to argue with the boss quite learnedly . The boss rather foolishly told one of the Library attendants that he could detect any one that used a automobile to translate Latin with - ergo - I have purchased one of Bohn's 40 H.P. double cylender horses. Translate B's english version of Martials epigrams into the best American slang whereon the boss says my translations are gratifying - showing I - always showing INDEPENDANT thought - Things of this sort always cause me to assume my most solemn and scholarly attitude and give voice to such grave philosphic thoughts as " The only way in which we shall ever fit ourselves to do great things is by constantly striving to do whatsoever we have to do with the least possible effort - for if we exert all our strength in the preformance of a small matter how shall that same amount of force be able to accomplish a great thing .

I am sure such small fry as emerson and ruskin never got off anything more sensible . It matters not that I can neither write nor spell, I shall soon be M-a- ( the degree is much more imp -osing written that way ) and soon after Ph-D- ( that can also mean Dr. of Pharmacy ) and when I have these ornaments to distinguish me from ordinary band presidents, senators, ambassadors and the like hoi polloi - I shall not be expected to look to such un-

Wyncote Pa.

March 1-

Dear Viola :-

In respect to your charming valentine I may say
" The same sweet face, only a bit more mature "
Your ignorance concerning boston is painful .
Guess thats enough sweet speeches to begin with .
I have been on the jump for a week or three everybody try-
ing to get in all the jamborization they can before lent .

If it is only necessary to get 28 hours out of every twenty-four, I can hold up my end but when I have to take off nine nights a week beside it taxes even my vitality.

The engineers -two eees- which signifyeth the students of the Engineering dept- not the fellers wot runs engines - give a dance - the french dept- gives a play - the Houston club gets a new library and has to dance over it - the Faculty in general gives a reception ( enough letters finally ) a few misguided private individuals want their friends to enjoy life and get up private halliojamifications and then one has to pay party calls - ( this is all one sentence ) and review Italian periodicals in the trolly cars to the horror of the hoi polloi - and in general and particular -"le temps passant et le douleur reste "

the old poet having in mind the morning after - with which if he was as indicated a coury poet, he was well acquainted.

last week being accounted for - this week - monday and tuesday
hours for recitation - and houston club loafing -
to-day I brought Bill Williams home with me and
kept him up till about three A.M. -

Yesterday 120- pages Schack - being in Spanish

120 pages - Paul Meyers french about the Chancon of the
Albigensian war - This A.M. 80 more pages Spanish
and am now intermitting .

This evening I stay away from a 05' class reunion because I s
spent all my spare cash feeding after the afore mentioned
french play - My state of general weariness being perhaps
shown in the accuracy of this typing .

I don't know whether I mentioned it, but I am trying
to work the management for a fellowship which will take me
to Spain this summer and pay me for not working next winter
i-e- will allow me to stay where I am and continue to read
spanish plays for a living. I think I have a pretty good
chance, which men means that the Dies Irae when I have to
earn an honest living is- may not be so near as might have
been feared.

Had more to say but cant

been feared .

Had more to say but cant
ti think of it now - Good Bye - remember me to your mother
and Owen -

42.

Wyncote Pa.

Apr. 5.

Dear Viola :-

Have just finished a very poor excuse for a note
to your mother . I never tried Peruna . and owe my health
solely to my absinsurance from health foods , and all forms
of my gymnaseum exercise . also to disregard of most of the
socalled rules of health . any thing more requised in
this line of information gladly furnished at @ $7#* per foot

Trust your chaperones will not get nervous prostration
from responsibility thrust upon them in your mothers
absence , .

Dont get the connection of Asst. treas's. fiancees and
Colorado . but it is probably due to my lack of perlookthrough
-ity

I suppose Gwen . is painting the town a dull flaming
scientific red in the absence of her guardian .

As for ladies capable of carrying on trensterrestrial
flirtations with missionaries -and married ones at that -
directly under the noses of their regardful familles - I
do not suppose the presence of a mere chaperone or six
makes very much difference . I am enclosing a typical
Philadelphia publication that has just been sent to
temperate and sunday-school-superintending dad .
Father being in New York the news will be late - aged and stal

Wyncote Pa.

Dear Viola :-

Not that it is time for me to write, I am merely
waiting for father to fire up on some dictation -

Hope your scientific family is improving - As for me same old
story, Spanish when I do arise, Provençal for breakfast,
Latin at mid-day, french for afternoon - tea, Italian for
dinner, and a sprinkling of German in the form of skittles and
beer- beer at any convenient and intermediary season.

Found a bully good scene in" Los Novios de Hornachuelo " this
afternoon . one Lp- lope Melindez hath been elevating the

devil whereon his nibbs Don Enrique no. 3 of Castilla
walks alone into the gents. settin' room and gives him a heart to
heart talk . Beginnins " I-am-this-sickly-- The sickly king .....
and working around to " Lope Melindez , I am Enrique , we are
alone : Draw your sword , for I wish to know between thee and me ,
since we two are in your house , in this room with locked doors ,
Which- Who in Castilla deserves to be king and who wolf vassal of
Eztremadura ....

Speech in between very fine but too long to put in here -----
Any how Lope crawls and the king puts his foot on his head
and then keels over in aea ague fit , grasp the point , nervy king
ne ce est pas . well there's a bunch of company in front room
so I 've got to let up . Good night Rememberances to your mother and
Gwen.

Sincerely

P.S. anything to act a antidote for pre- preceding page .

not that I have any ideas to sprinkle over these lordly pages

I merely continue for want of a successful peroration .

The only new and important event is that I am again taking fencing

lessons and that I walked about ten miles this P.M. .

Also I wrote a letter to you at the Savage Arms which
you may or may not have received . I cant remember whether it was
some time ago or not . am at- not writing this to growl
about a reply merely mentioned in passing I suppose it was
last week or day before yesterday . It is getting too late for me
to attempt to be amusing so I will quit .

Thats All

47

STEAMSHIP

Dry 4 Land

Dear Billy :

I am not yet able to manage this new juggernaut ..., but wot do I care I'm off to the raging main I'm off to de land of Spain and not on the one horse line whose borrowed writing paper I am now decorating Aperool the 28 mit der "König Albert" that is if me loyal friends lend me the dough in time, I have at last succeeded in selling a hunk of my brain at a fair price, that is to say me troc an lovin Alma Mater has given me a fellersheep $500.00 (like the 000s after the . they make the sun more imposing also $150. of gettin teeched and your unkle Dud feels like a dignified wage earner a earnin his cigarette money by the sweat of me brow.

I feel that I am really displaying my genious in drawing pay for sitting for three months with my feet on the most imposing caaaaaaaaafe', taaaaable' of Old Madrid, the payment dont begin till November, but I would not belong

48

to my own family if I waited until that time to
blow the sane spondoligos. Besides I am really being economical
I always convince myself of that whenever I spend any
sun of money. This time I am saving a year, so nice to save a year that aint
I've got to take my exams and address a couple of hundred people and gather
a teeth brushes etc. also a few minor details. in the next 12 or 11 days
feel as if I almost could fill in the time.

To leave my highly interesting self for a line or two
You may sweep your own side of the room and dust & Gwen's side ( of the room )

Gwen may sweep her side of the room and dust yours ..., If the browns rent
the front of your apartment from you they may also rent the front of your ice box
a( hoora got it in one piece ) @ ( and it looks so buznuz like, I just adore BUznuz
@, as I was about to say the usual legal rent for ice box fronts in a country
where all out doors is a ice box most of the time .

Sorry cant keep my " mind " off myself any longer, if you want me to
bring you back a cute little bull fight or any other trifling suovaneer dont fail to
let me know .the lion at the top of this parer dont feel half so chesty as I do
Just to think of me goin to Spain on borrowed money that I am going to REPAY

UTICA, N.Y.

MAY 24

7:30PM

7906

C