Dear Miss Addams:
Having written almost without avail to various people in England for definite information about Miss Hobhouse, I have finally elicited a more or less informing letter from the mother of Miss Hobhouse's executor & nephew. But even she criticizes the correctness of statements in a newspaper clipping she [page 2] sent me without telling me what she believes to be the facts. Her letter will be useful but it is quite insufficient, & it was in answer to one written, not to her, but to her son. So I shall have to go to England in the hopes of learning more, & accurately, than the bare outline of certain salient facts in Miss Hobhouse's life, before I can carry out your request for a brief article for your paper. I expect to do this on October 16th & to sail for America on Oct. 30. And as I am quite [page 3] uncertain as to how much I can glean or how long it will take me to glean it, I think it better to write you that there is sure to be some delay in the matter. I think I had better undertake to write the article on the voyage and in that case you will have it by the middle of November. My boat ought to dock by the ninth or tenth, & as soon as I could get the paper typed, I could send it to you -- a matter of perhaps two or three days more. I am desperately sorry not to be able to get the information I needed. There was [page 4] no one in Geneva whom I could get in touch with, who knew anything definite -- many had a vague general knowledge but one could not offer that sort of thing to you for printing. Her family simply did not reply to my letters until this one of Oct 3rd. was sent. Mrs Hobhouse said there was nothing about "Emily’s crossing the lines to Leipzig during the war, nor her work in Germany during and after the war” in the clipping -- only one -- which she sent me. But she entirely omitted to tell me anything about it herself. I asked Dr Hilda Clarke what she knew, & as usual, I was given the impression that English friends had done all that was done -- she [page 5] & her brother leading them. But she added that Miss Hobhouse had worked with Friends, & deserved credit for doing anything in the state of health she was in, although she had not initiated any [endeavors] nor had she gone to Germany during the war but only when Friends -- (i.e: Quakers) had gone after the blockade had done its work.
I feel quite sure she was in error & that Mrs. Hobhouse knows when & how & why her sister-in-law went there but in order to find out I am making the journey to England instead of sailing from Boulogne. If you -- [page 6] but no! it’s too late & you will not be able to write to me until my return. My address will be:
c/o Mrs Walter Cope
200 East Johnson Street
Germantown
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
U.S.A.
I am being made incoherent & much distracted by the really beautiful singing of old French songs by a beggar below my window, if you will please accept this as an “[excuse] for bad writin an spellin,” but I think [page 7] & hope I've made clear to you that I'm not forgetful of very promise -- but much hampered by inability to collect material to [fulfill] it until I can be in England & that I am going there with that end in view.
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