account sometime of a strange piece
of magic charlatanism, practiced under the guise of beautiful art!...

"I think her growing recovery is largely due to the inability to secure
a doctor to christen her disease. I feel rather worn with domestic
drudgery, cooking, laundering, wrestling with disease without and demons
within. Still, as a trained nurse who can go sleepless for three weeks,
I do not look upon myself as a failure."

Marie's health improved slowly, due in part to the unsanitary conditions
of her home. She wrote:

"The roof of this miserable shack leaks all the time. The other day the
owner came around in his automobile. I was speechless. It made me mad to
think of that hound, riding in his car which we had paid for. Oh, the
miserable people who live in these two houses: old, decrepit women who
earn their living by washing clothes for others. It would make your
blood boil to see them. And then to see that fat dog in his auto,
accepting money from them and not ever giving them a whole roof in
return. When I saw him I wanted to say so much. I could only choke. Oh,
when you hear of the brutality of the mob, don't believe it. The mob may
indeed, under the impulse of the moment, burn and destroy; but think of
the cold brutality of a judge sitting on his bench and calmly condemning
some poor wretch to be killed, and this with no emotion. How can this
be? The revolutionists in France were the kindest beings, in comparison.
They had personal injuries to avenge, and all they did was to strike off
an enemy's head and that was the end. There was even a chance of being
saved, if the doomed one could find the right expression, some little
sentence that would affect the brutal (?) people. But this could not
happen before a judge!

"The trouble with the poor is, they have not enough imagination. They
are not refined in their cruelties. They could never invent the Bull
Pen, but would only quickly destroy. It is raining to-day, and I have
been moving about trying to find a dry spot where I can continue writing
without having a large splash come down on my nose. But I guess I'll
have to give it up. Oh, that cursed landlord! I'd like to do something
to him, not so much for myself as for those poor old things, they are
all rheumatic and stiff, but continue to live here because, poor souls,
they think the rent is low. Ye gods, the place is not fit for dogs to
live in, and yet he charges all the way from five dollars up for th