Brumbaugh`s Collection: Correspondence from Abbott H. Thayer

Transcription

Smithsonian Institution
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Brumbaugh's Collection: Correspondence from Abbott H. Thayer, 1851-1915
Extracted on Dec-11-2015 07:28:46
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[[underline in pencil]] artist [[/underline in pencil]]
My dear Beaches!
beginning with you Mrs.Beach who gave me Emma: I always wince a
little when the coals of fire arrive that I am so accustomed to at
Christmas! I do nothing for any body and behold me getting my full half
of all the delightful things you send us, yet never sufficiently made over
to have my change of heart [[latce?]]
[[end page]]
[[start page]]
and I nearly forgot as usual almost the biggest gift Wills Stevensons
letters
I get a big share of the joy of them.
Transcribed and Reviewed by Digital Volunteers
Extracted Dec-11-2015 07:28:46
[[written sideways]] The worst of my case is that I wrote in my
imagination in good season affectionate ^[[insert]] Christmas [[/insert]]
letters to Each Beach household especially to my two brothers.but
(partly [[?]] to an eye give-out never got them on to paper.
Heaven brings us some day more together
Yours always Abbott H. Thayer [[/written sideways]]
[[end page]]
[[start page]]
substantial effect the following year.
and behold you Violet give me will of Mr Will for my own and this
delightful bellows is a striving gift to an old-time lover who [[underline]]
dotes [[/underline]] on ^[[insert]] wood [[/insert]] fires.
Have you all seen Oliver Hereford's ^[[insert]] new [[/insert]] animal
book? It is a really the best thing of the kind.
[[upper right margin]] T267 artist [[/upper right margin]]
Tuesday
Dear Ella,
I wonder how many more days I shall go on guzzling your Sekel pears
before I am moved with gratitude and brotherliness to give it to you in
black and white how greatly you have added to our autumn luxuries by
your sumptuous gift and [[underlined]] so [[/underlined]] perfectly sent so
beautifully wrapt in paperI & we all keep [[underlined]] full [[/underlined]] of them and still they last!
I wish often you'd visit us- and talk Japan- I have been much happier
for having established an image of violet hueI am always struck- with a Sense that she is a mighty dignified thing! I
hope to be liked by her!
Good bye
Yours always
Abbott H. Thayer
[[pencil notes]] A.H. Thayer
To his sister-in-law, Ella Beach [[/pencil notes]]
Dear Violet,
TE63
I was sorry you didn't turn up at Dr. Weeks's on Monday - Wednesday
night I phoned Mr. Smith from John Gillatty's. S was out but his
accomplice Mr. Amsden gladly (or at least very cordially) undertook to
bring the picture up there for me to see (and sign) the next A.M. and
then all happened [[strikethrough]] the next [[/strikethrough]] in due
order.
Mr. Smith may some day tell you what a dressing down I gave the
entire class of restorers while good natured Mr. Amsden took it all with
good Irish tact and general niceness. I intend to set henceforth
an example that I believe will grow to be followed by inscribing on every
[[strikethrough]] thing [[/strikethrough]] canvas I sell something like this "The purchaser of this picture gets it on the condition that he promises
that no so called restoration [[strikethrough] of [[/strikethrough]] ^[[insert]]
whatsoever [[/insert]] shall [[underline]] ever [[/underline]] be done upon
it beyond washing it with liquids no stronger than soap and water."
Well I didn't mean that this announcement should happen to end this
epistle but Gladys is clamoring for all letters 'ashore that's going ashore'
as she starts in a foot of fresh snow for the mail. Wishing you and your
sister Ella the Annual good wishes
Yours always Abbott H. Thayer Dec 26
[[upper left corner]] 1915 [[/upper left corner]]
[[upper right corner]] TE67 [[/upper right corner]]
(sister of Emma) May 12
Dear Violet, Nothing but one perfect torrent of complex jobs, up here
could have headed off my writing you about your bereavement. No one
knows better than we, up here what untellable grief it is, when one of
those beautiful souls is taken away. It makes me laugh when the old
fashioned talker says dogs have no soul. What on earth is a soul if a
Collie like that isn't [[underline]] all [[/underline][ soul! It is just a soulrelation one has with them and nothing else.
These griefs are what help us to guess that there [[underline]] is
[[/underline]] life after this one
Your affectionately
Abbott Thayer
[[sideways]] 1899 [[/sideways]]
[[end page]]
[[start page]]
10[[?]] [[line]] 6[[?]]
My dear Mrs. Dewing.
Ever since I saw your beautiful flower picture in the S A A. I have meant
to write you about it.
Every time I went there it looked more beautiful than before. I don't see
how any one could carry so beautiful a thing [[underline]] through
[[/underline]] to such a wonderful finish
I never saw a flower picture where the individualizing of each beautiful
thing had so exquisitely brought each thing [[underline]] into
[[/underline]] tune so wonderfully and when I realize that it was either
done very fast or is a wonderful triumph of memory I bow to it most
sincerelyI most unintentionally (which goes without saying) failed to get to the
[[end page]]
[[start page]]
[[written sideways]] Show of the [[underline]] Ten. [[/underline]] It closed
before I knew it was openRemember me to Dewing
Yours most sincerely
Abbott H. Thayer
Dublin N.H.
June 10 [[/written sideways]]
[[blank]]
[[end page]]
[[start page]]
15- mural
Bostn
Suggested mural
My dear Mr. Endicott.
I find to my regret that the letters I wrote in answer to your last was
never mailed. I have in the mean time been out of town 10 days
I am sorry to be forced to reiterate that I can not put any historical
subject certainly any Mass. one in that panel under the circumstances I
think all artists will agree with me that an allegorical one would be far
more suitable, all the more now that the historical ones are [[underline]]
within. [[/underline]]
This ends my hope of having a share in this work unless your
committee have
[[end page]]
[[start page]]
[[written sideways]] power and will to place something like ^[[insert]] an
allegorical [[/insert]] figure of memory or something of that kind there. In
this case I should be delighted to undertake it.
I remain yours very sincerely
Abbott H Thayer
Manadnock N.H. Aug 7. [[/written sideways]]
you can imagine that Kates actual hope that if she died this might be
has helped cause it.
Dear Gertrude , [[in pencil]] (Bloede) [[/in pencil]]
Have you ever guessed that my immense intimacy or harmony of nature
with Emma Beach would end in my marrying her. It began as a dream of
great benefit to the children that love her so, but now I also love her truly
or we are to marry at
Nantucket [[underlined]] tomorrow [[/underlined]] The sight of the
hopelessness of housekeeper substitute for a mother has had a voice
in hastening it.
I was so sorry to hear that you didn't "stick it out" in Europe but its
enormous charm got hold of youyour affect.brother
Abbott. [[in pencil]] Thayer [[/in pencil]]
Sept 2- [[in pencil]] (1891) [[/in pencil]]
Emma will go to Dublin with me early next week[[inverted image of Quincy Hotel]]
[[underline]] (Oct 19. 1901) [[/underline]]
Benjamen ferm [[[circled]] 1 [[/circled]]
My dear Doctor King,
Dozens of times I have thought of trying to convince my sister-in-law
Gertrude that she is unjust to me but the knowledge that she would not
read anything from me has silenced meIt has occurred to me that you as a man would do me the justice at
least to read a few words from me ^[[insert]] and there after would be an
influence on her [[/insert]] It is a pain that I have long grown accustomed
to, to be held up by Gertrude as something
[[end page]]
[[start page]]
4)
acts, and that quite regardless of whatever comforts it naturally restored
to me.
She cannot deny that she knows as well as I do that if his sister Kate
continued, after what we call death, to feel solicitude for her children,
that it was what she yearned for that her dearest friend Emma should
become a mother to her children, and I balanced the knowledge of this
fact against what I have always despised, or wished to, viz. public
opinion, and I addressed this act sincerely to [[strikethrough]] my
[[/strikethrough]] their mother, as I am sure you can imagine doing. It is
scarcely worth adding, since it is so often the case,[[strikethrough]] it
[[/strikethrough]] in similar conditions,
[[circled]] 2 [[/circled]]
execruble and [[parts of three lines erased]] fed ... of like an ... of every
one who ... her sentiment. [[/parts of three line erased]] [[insert]] Pardon
this erasure [[/insert]] My case is simply thus: my children 2 1/2 years
old, 5 and 11, at the beginning were, all those years of their mother's
insanity, suffering an endless succession of attempts to have a good
motherly governess, [[strikethrough]] & [[/strikethrough]] some them
being sent away, others not like us [[strikethrough]] either
[[/strikethrough]] -- You surely can, as a father imagine the seriousness
of motherlessness to small children. Most of the time I was necessarily
[[end page]]
[[start page]]
away all day, and scarcely could see them except on Sunday.
Gertrude wrote Mary that her almost chief hero was Wm the Silent.
Wm the Silent married four times, this brings down her whole claim to
hate me to the fact that I married three months after the death of the
children's mother instead of waiting longer.
I scarcely believe that Gertrude in her hear believes me to be capable
of lying, and I tell you that this very fact of my speedy second marriage
was one of the best
that their mother [[strikethrough]] had [[/strikethrough]] I mean Gertrude's
sister Kate, had sincerely told me many times that she hoped I could
marry Emma, and make her a mother to the children, in case she should
die, but it is true.
As to any suspicion Gertrude may have (I have heard something about
it) that the [[underlined]] thought [[/underlined]] of this subsequent
marriage was conceived improperly early-strange as it may seem
nothing of this kind was the case, and the fitness of it only
[[end page]]
[[start page]]
I have nothing to ask of Gertrude - during all these years of hating me
she has freely invited herself to visit my relatives, all of whom cherish
and respect me [[insert]] and, by the singular dignity of my Mary, is
allowed to cultivate her who utterly trusts me, and while avowing that
[[underlined]] I [[/underlined]] may not speak to her! [[underlined]] Surely
a strange person. [[/underlined]] [[/insert]] [[strikethrough]] person
[[/strikethrough]]
I am yours very trly
Abbot H. Thayer
Monadnock N.H.
Aug. 31
P.S. Why does Gertrude approve the people who allow [[underlined]]
her [[/underlined]] to speak to [[underlined]] them [[/underlined]] while
they approve [[underlined]] me [[/underlined]] [[strikethrough]] cultivated
by her [[/strikethrough]] if it is her ideal to hate me. Surely she has fallen
among singularly [[waynaviiouscrus?]] persons
rushed upon me about a month before it occurred.
My present wife and I had felt utterly congenial and naturally very
intimate for years.
While Kate lived, Emma had become not only [[underline]] her
[[/underline]] dearest friend, but a sort of second mother to [[underline]]
us all, [[/underline]] and during the hard years of Kates suffering Emmas
visits, whenever she could be spared from her own home, were
immense comfort to us all.
[[end page]]
[[start page]]
[[written sideways]] [[circled]] 7 [[/circled]] Even if Gertrude [[underline]]
says [[/underline]] she doubts my words,I shall not believe it, but only
feel that she cannot make herself own, against her hatred, that she
knows me to be, at least of the noble class, and incapable of a lie in so
grave a matter as this.
Wm the Silent, 4 wives- adored 2 wives- execrated [[underline]] for this
[[/underline]] fact.
A. H. Thayer
[[/written sideways]]
9)
Please notice that I do not say that I married from any more Saintly
motives than are apparent in any such case.
I simply awoke to a/sense of this being the one solution of all our
troubles, as far as they were curable, and found someone capable of
awakening to the same feeling, and she is sincerely worshipped by us
[[underlined]] all [[/underlined]] and Kate is her saint, as Gertrude knows.
At the time of this second marriage the motherlessness
10
of my children had grown to be more painful than ever and to
[[strikethrough]] wait [[/strikethrough]] delay this heavenly solution of the
whole case ^[[circled]] merely [[/circled]] to protect Kate's name from
fools, with her, as we hoped looking down, and seeing all, [[paragraph
mark]] I simply scorned fools, and obeyed Kate, and I pity Gertrude.
[[pencil notes]] My family say it was four years
Kate was insane I can't get clear whether it was 3 or 4. Gertrude knows
little of our sufferings in this time, and the agony of seeing one's children
motherless. [[/pencil notes]]
11)
If Gertrude were in my daughter Mary's place and Mary in her's, she
would say to Mary "I can have nothing to do with any one who wholly
trusts and loves such a man as your father," and I confess I think Mary
somewhat abnormal in admitting Gertrude to her friendship under the
circumstances.
Mislaid and only sent now
Oct. 19 Yours very tr, A.H. Thayer
[[underlined]] Return [[/underlined]].
My dear Dr. King,
Your letter received,
I see I am responsible for your getting the idea that I asked you to do
something. I had no other object in writing than simply to lodge my own
statement of my case in the mind of a member of the household in
which my sister-in-law lives, in as much as she will not hear from me
directly, & merely to give the truth a [[underlined]] chance [[/underlined]]
to extend to her. If my action was an undue liberty you should pardon it
[[strikethrough]] who [[/strikethrough]] [[underlined]] in a case
[[/underlined]] where every other way is denied me, and where as you
know well it would be worth far more to Gertrude to be enabled to
forgive than me to be forgiven. It is not [[underlined]] being hated
[[/underlined]] that hurts, but hating.
Yours very tr, A. H. Thayer
Monadnock NH
Oct. 26-'01.
[[in pencil]] Dec. 18/94 [[/in pencil]]
Dear Clara,
I want to give you a Christmas present, and I'm so afraid of not
choosing what you prefer! Why shouldn't I just consult you? I think of a
canoe like Parson's yet that might prove an expense to you in the end in
transportation. I have put aside in my mind fifty dollars
[[end page]]
[[start page]]
or rather, comical as it appears I would send you the check now to get it
with when the Season comes.
How stupid and tactless I am! but I glory in friendships that are beyond
question of tact don't you? Write me, and don't make any trouble about taking anything from me - I
have by the way an "arc of mind" [[left margin]] & no longer want the
[[dress?]] [[/left margin]]
[[end page]]
[[start page]]
that I didn't mean to leave to the end. viz-could you give the time to pose
at a N.Y photographer Christmas week under my eyes for a Minerva?
Yours [[affectionately?]]
A.H.T.
for it, and I know you are too much my friend to object to my making this
fickle attempt to reciprocate benefits (Yet really the only frank way when
a lady joins with me, (her looks and character joined with my ^[[sight &]]
painting power) to make a work of art, it does seem that for her to stay
limited in [[strikethrough]] money [[/strikethrough]] money and me to get
so much, when but for such as she, I
[[right edge of page, written vertically]]
Abbott thought he might meet you at a photographers and escort you up here.
[[end page]]
[[start page]]
[[written horizontally]]
really couldn't, were wrong.
Useless chatter! The smallness of the present gift however exempts if
from any suspicion of being an attempt to pay you even in the least part
but it is only a Christmas gift from a very warm friend. Write me at once
what you you would rather have than a canoe (I sh'd of course deliver it
in Dublin!)
N.J. March 10.20
[[preprinted]]]] "ASSOCIATION" POST CARD [[stamp- Place Stamp
here DOMESTIC 1c FOREIGN 2c]]
[[vertical on far left]] MADE BY GEO. E CROSBY CO.. BOSTON, MASS
[[/vertical]]
[[/preprinted]]
[[left half of page]]
[[preprinted]] Message
[[line in the middle]]
[[right half of page]]
Address [[/preprinted]]
My dear Mr. Thayer, Is the [[strikethrough]] Summer [[/strikethrough]]
'[[underlined]] Winter Sunrise [[/underlined]]' painted from your house?
We love having it ^[[in]] the gallery- it looks very well- please give us
particulars about it
Sincerely
Roland F. Knoeden
Smithsonian Institution
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
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Brumbaugh`s Collection: Correspondence from Abbott H. Thayer

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