From Baltimore she wrote:
“I’ve been wicked, and I like it. Edmonia took me to Kunkel and Moxley’s Front Street Theatre last night to hear an opera, and I haven’t yet wakened from the delicious dream. I think I never shall. I think I never want to. Yet I am very sorry that I went, for I shall want to go again and again and again, and you know that I mustn’t listen to such music as that. It will make me bad, and really and truly I’d rather die than be bad. I don’t understand it at all. Why is it wrong for me to hear great music when it isn’t wrong for Edmonia? And Edmonia has heard the greatest music there is, in New York and Paris and Vienna and Naples, and it hasn’t hurt her in the least. I wish you would tell me why I am so different, won’t you, Cousin Arthur?”
From New York she wrote of music again and many times, for she had accepted Arthur’s assurance that there was no harm but only good for her in listening to music; and in obedience to his injunction she went twice each week to the opera, where Edmonia’s friends, whose guest she was, had a box of their own. Presently came from her a pleading letter, asking if she might not herself learn to play a little upon the violin, and availing herself of Arthur’s more than ready permission, she toiled ceaselessly at the instrument until after a month or so Edmonia reported that the girl’s music master was raving about the extraordinary gifts she was manifesting.
“I am a trifle worried about it, Arthur,” Edmonia added. “Perhaps her father was right to forbid all this. Music is not merely a delight to her—it is a passion, an intoxication, almost a madness. She is very fond of dancing too, but I think dancing is to her little more than a physical participation in the music.
“And she mightily enjoys society. Still more does society enjoy her. Her simplicity, her directness and her perfect truthfulness, are qualities not very common, you know, in society, in New York or anywhere else. People are delighted with her, and, without knowing it, she is the reigning attraction in every drawing room. Ah me! She will have to know it presently, for I foresee that ‘the young Virginia belle’ as they all call her, will have many suitors for her hand before we sail—two weeks hence.
“She astonishes society in many ways. She is so perfectly well always, for one thing. She is never tired and never has a headache. Most astonishing of all, to the weary butterflies of fashion, she gets up early in the morning and takes long rides on horseback before breakfast.
“In certain companies—the sedater sort—she is reckoned a brilliant conversationalist. That is because she reads and thinks, as not many girls of her age ever do. In more frivolous society she talks very little and is perhaps a rather difficult person for the average young man to talk to. That also is because she reads and thinks.
“On the whole, Arthur, Dorothy is developing altogether to my satisfaction, but I am troubled about the music. Dr. South had a reason, of which you know nothing, for fearing music in her case, as a dangerous intoxication. Perhaps we ought not to disobey his instructions on the subject. Won’t you think the matter over, Arthur, and advise me?”
To this request Arthur’s reply came promptly. It was an oracular deliverance, such as he was accustomed to give only when absolutely sure of his judgment.
“Have no fear as to the music,” he wrote. “It is not an intoxication to Dorothy, as your report shows that indulgence in it is not followed by reaction and lassitude. That is the sure test of intoxication. For the rest Dorothy has a right to cultivate and make the most of the divine gifts she possesses. Every human being has that right, and it is a cruel wrong to forbid its exercise in any case. I am delighted to see from your letters and hers that she has not permitted her interest in music to impair her interest in other things. She tells me she has been reading a book on ‘The Origin of Species’ by Charles Darwin. I have heard of it but haven’t seen it yet, as it was published in England only a few months ago and had not been reprinted here when I last wrote to New York for some books. So please ask Dorothy to send me her copy as soon as she has finished it, and tell her please not to rub out the marginal notes she tells me she has been making in it. They will be helpfully suggestive to me in my reading, and, as expressions of her uninfluenced opinion, I shall value them even more than the text of the book itself. She tells me she thinks the book will work a revolution in science, giving us a new foundation to build upon. I sincerely hope so. We have long been in need of new foundations. But, pardon me, you are not interested in scientific studies and I will write to Dorothy herself about all that.”