"I almost wept when reading your letter about the baby. Perhaps it was because of the line, 'A little daughter was born to me.' It recalled to me this Christmas time many years ago when I was a little child and I heard the story of the little Jesus. 'And unto us a child was born.' How those words ring in my ears! So vividly come back to me the pity I felt when I heard the story of the poor little infant born to be crucified. It always made me cry—out of pity, the pity of it all! And I wonder if we are not all, all of us, born to be crucified.
"But I suppose I must congratulate you on assuming the responsibility of fatherhood for the third time. You might long ago have studied pre-natal influences and the rights of the unborn. I hope you have not neglected these sacred duties. It surprised me that you wished for a girl, for not long ago you expressed the opinion that women were soulless creatures without memory! Suppose your daughter should not be an exception, how would you feel then?... You have been very active. As for me, I fear my only activity will be that of a dreamer. I differ from the dreaming class only in one respect and that is, in making confidences, which dreamers never do. They shrivel up into themselves. They usually create their own sorrows, which have no remedy except the joys they also invent. They are natural only when alone, and talk well only to themselves."
In the same letter she plunges into the gossip of the Salon:
"I don't blame Scott for his carelessness. The poor fellow has been suffering terribly because of his wife, who has left him and gone off with a new love to a new home. Scott has been quite heroic about it, but he suffers. You know how in our radical society men and women try to deny that they are jealous, try to give freedom to each other. But whatever our ideas may be, we cannot control our fundamental instincts, and poor Scott is now a wounded thing, I can assure you. But he speaks beautifully of his wife—even packed up her things for her and escorted her to the new place.
"Scott came here the other night with your friend the journalist, Fiske, who has become quite a part of our little society. I am sorry to say that he is quite sad, too, but for a different reason. The poor fellow seems to be suffering from lack of literary inspirations. He has a habit of asking people what shall he write about. He asks Terry, and even me, and in pity I am trying to write up the old women in our tenement for him....
"I see a good deal of Thompson and his wife Minna. Now that Thompson, who was a famous radical, is more prosperous, he is growing careful and conservative. The glory of her husband is reflected in Minna. I don't call at their home so much as I did, because I made what they call a break there the other day. I thoughtlessly introduced myself as Miss L—— to someone of his relatives or relatives' friends, after she had already introduced me as Mrs. C——. And Thompson informed me next day that it was inconvenient to explain such things to conservative people, and that I ought to be more careful in dealing with the unenlightened ones. I suppose I ought to think more of the reputation of my friends."
Marie likes the Jews of the Salon, many of them, very much, but there are some she doesn't, as the following shows:
"Things are rather dead in the 'movement,' just now. But there is something doing among the Jewish radicals, who, you know, are very important in any radical movement here in Chicago. No wonder things are lively when the Jews have such a leader as Mr. Kohen, whom one might believe to be the long wanted Messiah, destined to lead his race into the promised land, which is evidently Chicago. There was a hot time about three weeks ago in the Masonic Temple meeting when this modern prophet demonstrated to us who were not Jews that they (he and his friends) were the chosen people who would not only liberate themselves but also us from the yoke of capitalist oppression; and contrary to all previous rules, they would do this without any consideration of moneys; all that Mr. Kohen expected in return was due appreciation. I suppose I ought to be grateful to Mr. Kohen, but somehow I am not. I ought, too, to be grateful to our Jewish Madonna, Esther, but there again I am not. Poor girl! she is really the Madonna of the Chicago movement. All the sorrows and troubles of the Salon rest upon her poor shoulders, and she silently suffers, sacrifices and redeems. Then there is little Sara, another chosen one. It is she who is chosen to make men miserable for the good of their souls. She has been very pensive since the great poet B—— left, for now she has no one to worry about. I suggested to her that she might worry about Terry, if she liked, and she said she would try, with a weary little sigh. It was she who one day explained to me at great length that all love except sensual love was of a transient character. If, she said, man swears he loves you, but does not show any physical interest in you, you can bet that his passion is of that intangible sort that has the radiant tints but also the evanescence of dew!...
"I am going to a ball next Sunday night. It's on the Jewish holiday in memory of the time when poor Moses led the Jews from Egypt and they had to eat unleavened bread. All the orthodox Jews will spend the day praying in the synagogue, without tasting food or drink. They make up for it the next day, though, you bet. The ball is given every year by the radical Jews, usually right in the Ghetto, and nearly always the followers of holy Moses jump on those who no longer follow, and there's a hot time. Last year the radical Jews, mostly anarchists, had to have police protection! The police are good for something, after all! What should we do without them? We would exterminate each other without delay!"
Perhaps Marie's temporary "grouch" against the Jews was partly due to the irruption into her Society of three new and attractive Israelites of her own sex—an event happening about that time. In one of these newcomers, Terry, it appears, was somewhat interested, and Marie has often admitted that her philosophy of freedom is powerless to overcome her "fundamental emotions." Writing of Miss B—— she said: "She is a regular little Becky Sharp, very demure and quiet, and proper and distinguished. All the women hate her, and the men flock about her, for she is pretty and a free lover, of course. She comes once or twice a week to our salon, and then Terry is always present, and they get along famously. She talks of 'the realm of physics,' or 'of biology,' and I admit it bores me, her voice is so monotonous. She takes evident pleasure in Terry's society. Perhaps I am a little jealous, but it does not make me feel any different toward him, and that is the main thing, the only thing I really care about....