260 Cumberland Street, Brooklyn 5, N.Y.

March 6, 1953

Dear Cousin Will,

How very modest you are. The memorabilia received from you just now –

the “tree”, the Informal History, your Footnotes and your Family Profiles and

Appraisals, - are to me irresistible. If asked what I would not care to have, I

would have said some such memoir as you have now sent me – Warner and me; but could

not have imagined anything of such absorbing interest – too exciting to lay down

for “leisured reading”; and so very beautifully contrived and ordered as content

and as format. How, as I have just said, beautifully enticing in the manner of

writing. We have felt in “Aunt” Mary Moore’s letters to us, this same charm and

individuality.

The literal expanding of the metaphor, harmless as a fly, is so very

treasureable, and with what delight I read of Grandfather William’s library – several

volumes from which, he had given my mother – morocco-bound, in scarlet or marbled

with calf corners; then the moor and the motto: - fortis cadere cedere not protest;

I have said to enquirers that I was not related to Clement Moore; how pleasant to be

able to claim him (whom Warner used to parody: “Twas the night before Christmas and all

through the house but one creature was stirring and it was a mouse; it nibbled the

stockings pair after pair” that is as much as I remember.) I have wondered if we

were related to Sir Emmanual Moore; the one “o” is not unwelcome, is it, since Sir

Thomas used but one. Warner and I too were brought up to feel that secular pursuits

on Sunday should be replaced by John Bunyan, Bible stories, the game Bible Characters;

and each Sunday we were expected to commit to memory a psalm or portion of a psalm

and memorized the Shorter Catechism.

I have a February-March seminar once a week at Bryn Mawr this year –

in English – and am belated with my preparation for the next class or I might overstep

the bounds of considerateness in the length of this letter. I so very greatly

thank you for what you say of my being an asset to the family, Cousin Will. I

wish I could write with the warmth and power with which Cousin Fannie Geiger writes.

May I say – for I am – affectionately yours,

Marianne

P.S. I shall take Warner and Constance (my sister-in-law) the memoir and a

transcript of your letter when I see them this evening in New York and

Warner will, I know, be thanking you very soon. With what relish shall

we from time to time be re-reading these pages and your letter. Every

word had savory concerning your branch or ours.

P.P.S. As for not having heard of you, I overstayed with Cousin Edith Love and

Mary Louise when they were in New York, hoping to meet you but you had

been detained and I now recall some mention of Gulf Oil and your travels.

(As a minute stockholder of Gulf Oil, I was puzzled to find in my mail this

morning a heavy envelope, first-class, from Gulf Oil, but assumed that one

of my predatory literary protégées (or protoges) had appropriated the en-

velope – as has been the case with Allied Chemicals & Dyes!

Marianne