You will forgive me if I say word in typewriter about Mr. Totheroh's³ play, which I am sending back to you⁴.

Take Mrs. Forrester⁵'s first entrance in Act I. What does she say when she comes into the Judge's office? My, your stairs are steep! That is what the scrub woman says when she arrives. Did you ever, Zoe, know a woman with any spunk or sparkle who used "my" as an exclamation? I remember a fat old Methodist neighbour who used to drag out "My, but the days are warm, Mr. Cather!" In her first sentence, Zoe, he shows her up for a common, dreary thing. In her next sentence, she refers to her age1 and to her travelled2 state! Two things she would never have done. (1. Her paticular weakness, 2. Bad taste.)

A little later she trills to this lumping Swede that his little boy's eyes are "blue as a mountain lake". Ho-Ho! When she doesn't talk like a corsetless old Methodist woman, she talks like a darling club woman, and says she "would die" to have such eyes etc. That expression stamps her socially. So does "you can help me out". Everything she says stamps her socially, except when she brazenly quotes me. She says Niel will be "a great asset" to Sweet Water society. Lord, they needed assets - some future, with Marian as the social leader.!

Everything that Niel says is the speach of a cotton-mouthed booby. As to Mrs. Forrester's smirking about "drinking ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ here alone, with two men" - - - the dining-room girls in our little town-hotel might have said that:; the commonest King's Daughter⁶ or Eastern Star⁷ sister would have refused the sherry, or drunk it and said nothing. On page 13, the playwright becomes unbearable because he makes the Judge bring out discreditable insinuations about Captain Forrester. The integrity of the book really rests on Captain Forrester.

My dear Zoeë, I read no further than the first act. Nothing could induce me. The language he puts in Mrs. Forrester's mouth shows that he hadn't the least idea of the kind of woman she was. I snatched up the book, which I hadn't read for years. I could find no excuse for him. As you know, Mrs. Forrester was done from life, an absolutely truthful portrait. Her⁸ speech was always a delight to me. She never said anything very wise, or even very witty, but her voice and eyes spoke together - it was quick spontaneous staccato, usually a little mocking. She never used bromidic expressions, such as "I hear Niel is back", or "You can help me out". One can't judge what one writes I suppose, but if I let her down and made her talk like a common slut, may I suffer for it?!!

Zoeë, I pray you turn to page 8 of Act I and see what that rather nice boys' picnic becomes. Nothing great, those few pages, but something rather fresh and rather genuine about it. And this is what he does with that nice morning.!

Now, my dear Zoeë, I don't care how many grand situations he may have built up in the acts I did not read, or how "dramatic" ⬩W⬩S⬩C⬩ he may be, and I don't care what might happen to a the common woman that he has made of Mrs. Forrester. We'll forget this episode forever, but I do want you to refer to the passages I have mentioned in the first act and judge as to whether you think I have been unreasonable.

I do thank you for the verses you sent me. Of course, I like the one about your own room very much the best - in fact, I like it very best. The one on Jobyna⁹ I would like, if you hadn't put her name under the title. I just, somehow, cannot in my mind connect Jobyna with the out-of-doors or the quiet things of nature. And yet, you know, I liked her very much.

Now that I've explained myself a little, my mind is clear of wrath against this young man. It's the only quarrel no, discord, that has jarred you and me in so many years—and I've been a goose to take it seriously. Forgive me.