Dear Miss Addams
You may remember Maarten Maartens and the delightful and delighted visit he paid to you and to Hull House many years ago. But you will, of course, have forgotten that his then very young daughter accompanied him on that occasion, and that she looked you up when you came to The Hague during the war.
My father died in 1915, and my mother in 1924. For a number of years I have devoted my time to singing, but, of late, I have also done some lecturing on Maarten Maartens. I always worked with my father, and since his death I have been able to go through much of his work with the translator of the new or revised German translations, and to assist literary countrymen of note who have taken to studying his poetry and prose and writing about it.
Now American friends suggest that I should give some talks on M. M. in the U.S., adding one or two lectures on modern Dutch writers, novelists and poets, who have been important in the renaissance of literature in Holland during the last 50 years. Encouraged by these friends, I have made up my mind to plan a lecturing-tour through the eastern part of the U.S. during the winter of 1927/28. I shall be glad to lay aside my concert-work temporarily in order to recall M. M. to the memory of those [page 2] who received him so enthusiastically at the time of his visit, and to introduce him to and some of his compatriots to the present generation.
Do you think well of the plan? Your opinion will influence me greatly. The prospect of meeting you again after so many years would lure me to Chicago anyhow; but I should be glad, while I am there, to have the opportunity of meeting any groups of people who might be interested in my subject.
Is there any hope of seeing you again in this part of the world before Sept. '27?
↑Yrs sincerely↓
Ada van der Poorten-Schwartz [signed]
P.S. For lecturing I use one of my own names and my father's pseudonym: Beatrix Maartens.
Comments