Vassar College,
Jan. 25. 1871.
Dear Carrie,
Every time 1 think of you (and that is nearly all the time) I think
what a little angel you are, and how cross and bad 1 used to be sometimes
to you. Why are you so good and smart? How do you manage to be so?
X never realised before 1 came here how very selfish 1 was. 1 suppose
because you were all so kind and good to me at home that you excused
everything from me, but now it seems as though there was nothing at all
to me but selfishness and conceit. When X go home X shall try very hard
and not let my wicked temper get the better of me. Here there is no cauae
for getting angry because X am not intimate enough with any person and so
the selfishness shows out plainer than it ever did before. But don't say a
word against this in your letters, for it Is a good thing for me occasionally
to see my badness.
X have received several Austin papers, but from whom I do not
know. The handwriting is certainly none of our family's and it is not
C.C.A., and X cannot imagine who they are from; but do not care, so that
X receive them. Susie Towns end wrote me that she had seen in an Austin
paper that Mr. Swancoat t? , was building, or was going to, a house to be
called the "Austin Atheneum," on the plan of city houses, with gas, hot
and cold water and heated by steam. And that this was to be built on
know
College Hill. What do you know of it? and what is it intended for. I don't A
the meaning of the word "Atheneum" but suppose it to be a place like the
Hartford oae and I can't tee that they need hot and cold water, and where
is the gas to come from? Austin must have become very much more of
a city than It was when I left it, to have arrived at the dignity of gas, or
perhaps one of those gas wells has been discovered? The Republican
said thst within the last twelve months, one thousand buildings had been
put up in Austin; I wonder if they counted all the little negro huts In to
make the number and some chicken houses too I expect.
The Binghamton girls and myself have had a pleasure which not
very many here have had; and that pleasure was the being present during
Faculty meeting. Every Monday afternoon the faculty meet together, and
at the last one the three young ladies and myself were called down; it was
our being called for
about the same affair, our going away for the holidays, andAwas a great
surprise, for the Pres. had said before that he would not mention the sub-
ject again. It was all Miss JLymans doing I am sure, for she is the most
stern woman I think I ever saw. When we have all been told to be very
quiet and not talk at all when we pass her door for she was very sick and
could not bear any noise, it was a surprise to find her in faculty meetings
but as some girl said, if she knew she were going to die within an hour,
she would still go to facility meeting. But she is really very near the grave
and we ought not to make the going down to it any harder for her.
Perhaps you have seen in a New York paper the notice of a lecture
by one of the Vassar teachers. Miss Swasey £wayae, the elocution teacher
went down to N.Y. and delivered a lecture. I don't remember the name
it
given to	but it was about women; what they had done Irom the
earliest ages, and how sometimes they have been superior to men in reso-
lution and courage. We all thought that it would be very good, but Miss
Beach said that her father attended, and he wrote her that the hall where
Miss Swusey lectured was no larger than ours at the Colie^, that there
ol
were only sixty persons in attendance and^those many looked as though
they could not afford to pay the price of admittance, one dollar, and so were
probably there by invitation. It is too bad that she did not succeed lor she
was intending to make lecturing her business.
1 lease look among my papers in my bureau drawer and if you can
find it send the pattern of a transparency to hang in the window. I have at
home a very pretty pattern of a cross with leaves and flowers about it, and
want it now to make one for my window. I am almost sure that the pattern
is with my iraps in one of the drawers of my "yellow bureau."
There is splendid sleighing now and tonight the freshman class have
a sleighride; they expect to have a grand time, but 1 do not envy them at
all because the night is bitter cold.
It seems sometimes as though our time was entirely wasted in try-
ing to learn Latin. Today we learned one little iact, which was, the exact
meaning ol the word "veto." When the Pres. writes "veto" on a bill it is
the same as saying "I forbid," lor it is the Latin word meaning that. I
presume you knew all about it belore, but I did not. All the good though
that Latin is expected to do us is to discipline the mind, but mine can never
be disciplined* As Miss Lord* our Latin teacher said, the other day,
here
they intendAto make us think, lor nothing is excused which results from
thoughtlessness or forgetfulness. X shall write to Fapa and will now close.
This letter has been in my desk for several days, and today have
received letters from home and find answers to some of my questions,
but I cannot afford to write my letter over.
With much love Julie
(Julia M. Fease, '75)