Dear Jane Addams: Someway or other I think I owe you an apology for gazing at you so much last Monday at the Midland Author's dinner for "A. E." Perhaps you didn't notice at all, though I sat opposite you before you moved to the other side of Mr. [Russell], and once you asked me if I had been a member of the society for long.
The reason I looked so was this: For many years, since coming to this country from England, I had heard and made something of a goddess of Jane Addams. You were all to me that a great woman should be. When in my teens I was given a job on a newspaper interviewing famous people. But I didn't get to you, though I tried to.
I listened to your voice over the radio the other night, and said to my son: Well, I told him all that you had meant to me. I didn't really intend going to hear Mr. Russell, but decided to do so at the last minute. And there you were. At last I had met you!
You will not mind me telling you this, I feel sure.
Devotedly,
Emily Calvin Blake. [signed]
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