Work Text:
Chère maman Jeannette,
Joyeux Noel! I hope that by the time this letter reaches you, you have worked your usual spell on papa and put him in the holiday spirit. I shall miss you both dreadfully this year, of course, but I cannot bring myself to be so sad. Paris is more charming than usual at this time of year. The streets seem to blaze with all the candle and lamplight from the shops and churches, and the patisseries are producing the most delicious sweets. You would love it, I am certain. Next year, you should convince papa to come join me for the holiday. He’s always talking of the places he wants to take you, the things he wants to show you, and where better than Paris? When better than Christmastime? Oh, mama! The concerts and the theater - why, you have never even been to the ballet! - you must come next year. If Mlle. Essler is still with us, we shall see her, and you shall be well amazed! She dances like fire - her feet flickering. Though you, maman, would have liked Mme. Taglioni better, I think. Alas, she is lost to us, gone into Russia. Still, you shall come, and I shall show you around, and you will be enchanted.
Elaine sends her love, of course, and thanks you for letting me stay with her family over the holiday. And while I am thinking of it, thank you (and please thank Papa, too) for enrolling me at Mme. P’s academy last year. I know how you worry over me staying in such a large city, but Madame is very conscious of our safety, as well as our education. It is true, we go as regularly as our purses will allow to the theatre, the opera, the ballet, and the cafés for which Paris is so famous - but we are always well looked-after. And it is a great help, you know, to see the works we study in our classes played out upon the stage! Madame impresses upon us the benefit of seeing works given in different languages, as a way of improving our own skill - Masses sung in Latin, opera in German, Shakespeare in English. How is your Latin going, mama? Have you started the Ovid I gave you? You may find some of it just a touch rude - or so I hear from the other girls, as I haven’t read that volume myself. If so, you must read it to papa to see if you can make him blush! I am also enclosing a second copy of my mathematics text and the Plato we are reading this year - I know you’ll love them, if papa doesn’t already have them in our library.
And now, mama, I come to a more serious topic. As you know, next year is my last here at the academy. I don’t doubt that you and papa have talked about what I might do when my time here is done, but I have a plan of my own. I know you understand the need for a woman to find her own way, her own feet in the world, for her to know that she can stand proudly on her own, husband or no. Don’t fret, mama, I shan’t be trying my hand at the stage, either as a danseuse or and actrice, much as I enjoy both in the school theatre. No, I want to continue my studies. Elaine has told me about seminaries in America, where women are educated like men! Of course, mama, I know you picked for me an excellent school, with lessons in dancing and logic; rhetoric as well as etiquette. But I am not satisfied. I wish to know more. Fr. Nicholas, who teaches us philosophy and Latin, has told us of the developing art and science of the chemist, and the exciting advances being made in this field. We haven’t the materials or space to do such work at the academy, but perhaps in America, at a real seminary - oh, mama! Think of what I could discover!
I can almost hear your fretting, mama. Schools are quite expensive, yes. But I expect (though I would never listen at your private conversations) that papa has put by a sizeable sum for my maintenance after I leave school. What better way to employ it than in the betterment of my mind? America is very far away, it’s true. And perhaps the people are a bit vulgar - though we have an Américaine in our class, Susan, who is well-mannered enough even for your taste. She comes from Pennsylvania, and says that her part of the country is full of very decent people, though she cannot speak for the rest of it. The seminaries that Elaine and I have found the most information about seem to be located in Massachusetts, not too far from Susan’s part of the country. I expect that people there are quite as decent, kind, and mannerly as they are in Pennsylvania. I would promise quite solemnly not to take up dancing in the cabarets or walking out with rough fellows, but I know you will worry no matter what I say.
But dear mama, you have only yourself to blame for my determination to seek knowledge in far-off places. This is what you have started, teaching me in those early days, when I was so small, to love the classroom even as I love the music room, and books as much as dancing shoes. Do not worry too much, now. I wanted to tell you, first, so that you can tell papa at your leisure, as it seems right, and so that you will have many months to grow familiar with the idea. You are my confidante, you see, and I am trusting you to aid me as much as you can. I know you want the best in all things for me, and will not be swayed if papa becomes unreasonable. I know he wants good things for me, too, but I think he is afraid that if I stay too long outside England, I shall become my mother all over again. Please help him see that I am nearly a woman grown - sixteen in the spring! - and must eventually be trusted to have the running of my own affairs. I know you will be kind and understanding to me in this, as in everything else.
Please kiss papa for me, and bid poor old Pilot bonjour. The groundskeeper here has a dog that looks so much like Pilot that it makes my heart ache for home - especially now, at the holidays! But I am in good spirits and quite merry, and I wish you and papa likewise.
Your loving daughter,
Adèle Varens de Rochester