My dear Miss Addams,
Yesterday I finished reading "So Big," and was completely transported far from our balcony and the glorious Alps to dear dirty Chicago! I had closed the book but a few minutes and was still, in thought treading the streets and seeing the faces so far away, when your precious letter and package were brought to me!
I scarcely know how to tell you my feeling and Frieda's on reading the letter and studying the noble photograph and the vivid and characteristic etching! For I have often seen you shrink from, and, as it were, push from you terms of flattery or extreme eulogy; but it is only literal truth to say that I felt as if the most distinguished insignia that the world possesses had been suddenly, and quite undeservedly, bestowed upon me!
That this makes me deeply happy, instead of miserably self-conscience, or even self-accusing, is because I see in it a tribute to him who is gone from us, and whose selfless loving nature really did deserve even your affection, though I cannot see how you could have known that it did! For him, for Frieda and for myself I do bless you more than words can say! Hoping this may reach you at a season not quite so busy as the one just over, I want to tell you of some recent experiences of ours which, as an incident in internationalism may, I think, interest you.
As you probably know, Marc Sangnier's International Democratic Peace Congress met in London in mid-September. Preparations had been on foot just at the time of Ken's death, and being then very unwell, and also very uncertain as to the near future I ↑only↓ felt able to promise -- either to entertain or to pay for one delegate. But when, after all, we found ourselves back in Woolwich at the beginning of September, even though I was still suffering, indeed worse than ever, from the fearful pain in my face, something (I shall always believe in was Ken's will) seemed to take hold of [page 2] me and to compel me in spite of advice and of "common" sense to write to Miss Fry that I would entertain two men delegates (as to whom she was having difficulty). They proved to be Georges Legay and Pierre Jousse, two young working-men, clerks (I think) in the National Railway offices -- not very well educated, not speaking a word of English, but ardent disciples of Sangnier and his crusade, and so polite, appreciative and affectionate that I felt quite maternal towards them. They stayed from Tuesday to Sunday, but I really did very little for them except get their breakfast and a lunch when they returned late at night from meetings. Nevertheless they expressed gratitude in the characteristic extravagant French fashion (though with obvious sincerity) and made us promise if we should ever be in Paris, to let them know. This promise was redeemed in less than two months, as we decided to spend three days in Paris on the way hither. Before leaving home we had an exquisitely phrased letter from the father of Pierre Jousse expressing regret that they were not in circumstances to entertain us but begging that we would dine with them 'en famille' on our second evening. Both boys met us at the station and, on the way to our hotel, told us their plans for us. In accordance with these, the next afternoon, M. Jousse, having taken a half-day "off" work, guided us for miles about the older parts of Paris, and then to his home, high up above a tiny courtyard off a narrow, dark street. We were received literally with open arms by his courteous and delightful father, his vivacious stepmother and ↑his↓ grave little brother, and after some conversation in the bedroom (for the two sons, we learned, sleep on trundle beds on a garret-landing) we were taken to the dinner-table laid in the father's neat workshop. (He makes sponge-bags and folding-rubber cases with pockets for [travelers]). There a dinner fit for a prince was served of six or seven courses, each more delicious than the last, and some of them taken out of the oven just behind our host's chair. But better even than the repast itself was the naïve pride in it of all the family, their obvious joy in having us with them and their exquisite courtesy -- it would be an insult to say "manners." It will always remain one of our most treasured memories, and oh! how I longed to have Ken share it with us, and to have our friends share him!
The next day M. Legay, also leaving his work for the afternoon, brought his mother and took us an even longer tramp through the aristocratic Paris, and then for dinner at a restaurant; and on the Friday both boys dined with us and saw us off at night for Lausanne, presenting me, the one with the Life of Pasteur, the other with one of Anatole France's novels, in French of course. Frequent letters have come since from both families -- indeed from each member [page 3] of the Jousse family, and we feel that lasting friendships are formed. When I recall that at first we were, Frieda especially, disappointed that we were to have French and not German delegates, I feel that something more than chance was at work; for our understanding of and sympathy with the French point of view has been immeasurably widened.
I am afraid I have stolen far too many of your precious moments for the reading of this long story -- if indeed you have proceeded so far -- but after all unless the big movements which are your concern do produce the described reactions in individual minds they never can be very fruitful, whereas if our experience during and since those meetings of September was actually multiplied by a few hundred, as I trust, the Marc Sangnier Conference did effect a great stride towards international motherhood! We hope your "George Fox" celebration proved a very happy occasion; I am counting on hearing of it from someone at The Commons. What I could have said in my letter which could possibly be worth quotation from your lips I cannot imagine -- but if it was words of gratitude for what the Quakers have been and are [today], and for what their fellowship has given and is giving to us, I can only wish they might have been words of fire.
I think you must know Joan Fry -- at least she profoundly admires you! It was she who most helped us to find what we sought in the Society of Friends, and who seems to me one of their best exponents.
Frieda and I join in renewed gratitude, in warm love and in the heartfelt desire that 1925 may bring you those twin blessings of Ken's beloved "John Ball" -- "hopeful strife and blameless peace."
Yours devotedly
M. A. Byles Maynard.
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