Memories and Anecdotes by Kate Sanborn
page 61 of 188 (32%)
page 61 of 188 (32%)
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in the same way. She also was resigned, as indeed she had to be. I
began to tremble lest my own hair should never return. But I should be telling you about St. Louis. We were most cordially received by clergymen from three churches and all the professors at the university, and the trustees with their wives and daughters. Wyman Crow, a trustee, was the generous patron of Harriet Hosmer, whose _Zenobia_ was at that time on exhibition there. The Mary Institute was founded in remembrance of Rev. Dr. Eliot's daughter Mary, who while skating over one of the so-called "sink-holes," then existing about the city, broke the ice, fell in, and the body was never recovered. These sink holes were generally supposed to be unfathomable. Since I could not dance, I took to art, although I had no more capacity in that direction than a cow. I attempted a bunch of dahlias, but when I offered the result to a woman cleaning our rooms she looked at it queerly, held it at a distance, and then inquired: "Is the frame worth anything?" I acknowledge a lifelong indebtedness to Chancellor Hoyt. He was suffering fearfully with old-fashioned consumption, but he used to send for me to read to him to distract his thoughts. He would also criticize my conversation, never letting one word pass that was ungrammatical or incorrectly pronounced. If I said, "I am so glad," he would ask, "So glad that what? You don't give the correlative." He warned against reliance on the aid of alliteration. The books read to him were discussed and the authors praised or criticized. St. Louis was to me altogether delightful, and I still am interested in that city, so enlarged and improved. I used to see boys riding |
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