Did you ever hear about the learned Herr Professor who regarded
unnecessary adornment with contempt and favoured sensible,
utilitarian clothes for women?  His wife, who was an obliging
creature, adopted `dress reform.’  And what do you think he did? 
He eloped with a chorus girl. 
                           Yours ever,
          
                                         Judy

PS.  The chamber-maid in our corridor wears blue checked gingham aprons.  I am going to get her some brown ones instead, and sink the blue ones in the bottom of the lake.  I have a reminiscent chill every time I look at them.

17th November
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Such a blight has fallen over my literary career.  I don’t know whether to tell you or not, but I would like some sympathy—­ silent sympathy, please; don’t re-open the wound by referring to it in your next letter.

I’ve been writing a book, all last winter in the evenings, and all the summer when I wasn’t teaching Latin to my two stupid children.  I just finished it before college opened and sent it to a publisher.  He kept it two months, and I was certain he was going to take it; but yesterday morning an express parcel came (thirty cents due) and there it was back again with a letter from the publisher, a very nice, fatherly letter—­but frank!  He said he saw from the address that I was still at college, and if I would accept some advice, he would suggest that I put all of my energy into my lessons and wait until I graduated before beginning to write.  He enclosed his reader’s opinion.  Here it is: 

`Plot highly improbable.  Characterization exaggerated.  Conversation unnatural.  A good deal of humour but not always in the best of taste.  Tell her to keep on trying, and in time she may produce a real book.’

Not on the whole flattering, is it, Daddy?  And I thought I was making a notable addition to American literature.  I did truly.  I was planning to surprise you by writing a great novel before I graduated.  I collected the material for it while I was at Julia’s last Christmas.  But I dare say the editor is right.  Probably two weeks was not enough in which to observe the manners and customs of a great city.

I took it walking with me yesterday afternoon, and when I came to the gas house, I went in and asked the engineer if I might borrow his furnace.  He politely opened the door, and with my own hands I chucked it in.  I felt as though I had cremated my only child!

I went to bed last night utterly dejected; I thought I was never going to amount to anything, and that you had thrown away your money for nothing.  But what do you think?  I woke up this morning with a beautiful new plot in my head, and I’ve been going about all day planning my characters, just as happy as I could be.  No one can ever accuse me of being a pessimist!  If I had a husband and twelve children swallowed by an earthquake one day, I’d bob up smilingly the next morning and commence to look for another set. 
Affectionately,
Judy