News

HMS Is Facing a Deficit. Under Trump, Some Fear It May Get Worse.

News

Cambridge Police Respond to Three Armed Robberies Over Holiday Weekend

News

What’s Next for Harvard’s Legacy of Slavery Initiative?

News

MassDOT Adds Unpopular Train Layover to Allston I-90 Project in Sudden Reversal

News

Denied Winter Campus Housing, International Students Scramble to Find Alternative Options

A LETTER FROM A YOUNG LADY.

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED

DEAR MR. EDITOR: I don't feel one bit like writing, but there are some things I want to speak to you about, and I do think it would be so nice to have you give me your opinion about them.

I heard papa read out of the paper last night (of course you know I never read newspapers; mamma says very few English girls do) - now what was I writing about? Oh, yes. I heard papa read that Oscar Wilde had arrived. Now whatever do they make all this fuss of him for? I don't care one speck about seeing him, but I know some of the girls are just crazy to. I've seen his picture, and think he's horrid ugly. He looks like a Yale senior does when he asks you to waltz - sort of frightened and remorseful. But I'm just going to tell you of something that happened at the theatre the other evening. I went with my Cousin Harry (he's my second cousin), and a great, big, horrid man leaned over and asked me if I wouldn't take my Gainsboro' hat off at the end of the act so that he could hear the orchestra; he said he'd given up trying to see anything.

What do you think of co-education? I just think it would be lovely. I'm told that Harvard students are very kind to the annex girls, and take them to the theatre and Germans and sleighing-parties; it must be awful sweet - for the girls, because I have a friend in Boston who says that annex girls are terribly quiet and wear green glasses and never use slang, - she says they wouldn't chew gum for anything in the world, but I don't believe that. But don't they really use slang? Now I don't either, but Dinkie Karamel (who goes to Lasell), says that one can't get along without it; she says that you can't make yourself understood sometimes, and she asks me how I'd say that I was - well, I was "mashed" unless I used slang. Why, I'd a good deal rather say "I'm perfectly gone;" that isn't slang, and it means just the same.

Isn't it horrid awful to think that some women want to vote; I know that I'd vote for the best-looking man, and so would all the girls; but I don't see that there's any fun in voting. I only voted once in my life, and that was at our church fair, when I voted for the handsomest girl there. It isn't so that I voted for myself, and that hateful Hurty Randall only said that because I beat her by one vote. Don't you think that gentlemen ought to wear evening dress at the theatre - I mean swallow-tail; gloves and all that? Now I don't know why, but I know that Cousin Harry doesn't get thirsty so often when he wears full dress. But, dear Mr. Editor, don't you think it is awful to flirt? I never flirt when any one I know is watching me, because I really think it's wicked. I've bet a pair of gloves that Harvard would beat Yale next summer in the foot-race. I've bet with Pinky Ashton, whose brother is a Yale soph do you think I'll win?

The other day I was in Boston, and saw a funny-looking creature with a "mortar-box," I believe it's called, walking the street. At first I thought it was a Chinaman, or belonged to the Humpty Dumpty Troupe, but my cousin said that he was connected with the Tuft's Soda Fountain Manufacturing Company. At present I am very much occupied, for I am taking painting and drawing lessons, have a dancing master, take piano and singing lessons, go to riding and swimming schools, have a lady teacher for French and German, and a love of a gentleman teacher in Italian and Spanish, and learning to play the banjo; of course I don't paint much, but the teacher gives me all the pictures, so it doesn't make much difference.

When I have more time I shall write you a real long letter; until then au revoir.

Yours,

MERTHY NOUGAT.P. S. - What kind of clothes, if any, do the Hares and Hounds wear when they run?

Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.

Tags