Millet to Stoddard: December 8, 1875

Letter 15: Letters of Frank Millet to Charles Warren Stoddard: May 10, 1875 - January 3, 1900

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Remember me to Anderson and tell him that I am at work hard trying to get up a day and evening life class in Boston. Hope he has made some steps in that direction in New York. He and I were talking over this in Venice.

East Bridgewater, Dec 8

My dear old Chummeke: --

Here I am still and where I go I can’t tell. Of course you cry “I told you so” but hear me patiently. You remember how I spoke of having begun various portraits, well neither of them is “done” and I am struggling with them as hard as ever I can to get them off. The little girl has bothered me awfully. They live now in Boston, she & her mother and have not been out owing to bad weather and illness for a month until last week and then the two days they were here, the thermometer was 3 below zero all the time and I could not heat my studio [page 2] though I got a frightful cold in trying to use it. As a consequence my portrait goes on very slowly indeed and meanwhile my father’s gets in gradually. I have made two crayon heads and have a little oil portrait almost done. Then there is my mother’s to do yet for I do not want to come away without leaving that: I began all these things in the hope – how foolish it was of getting enough money from them to be able to go to Egypt, and then it turns out that just as I shall get money enough it will be too late to go. Damn the money --- I don’t mean to swear but couldn’t help it. So I have deliberately cast my anchors here until I can succeed in finishing what I have begun for having set out and spent a lot of time [page 3] to start. I would be a fool to give up and lose money and time too. So, what can I say about my return? Nothing except that I shall leave as quick as my things are done. I have steadily refused all other work and have had four applications for portraits in oil and two in crayon within the month. It could put money in my purse, but I long for the other side. All the people here think I am crazy but I am willing to have the name if I can get the game.

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Oh Gimmi if you were here to snuggle up – cold! oh no! G. Washington! Thermometer 2 degrees below often and all frozen up [page 4] solid. Still I have a fire that keeps me warm as that I am even uncomfortably heated in this cold night away in the corner a long distance from the stove. O, by the way, I must tell you that I have just had a letter from the Editors of the Atlantic Monthly saying that they have accepted my story called the “Fourth Waits” the substance of which you remember. I am glad of it as it will put at least $100 in my purse. I have a regular engagement in the Advertiser now which brings me in nearly $10 a week and I have to write only about 3 hours and that on Sunday. I sent you a little sketch in Appletons [page 5] journal called “Fourth of July in San Marino” which I got $40 for. How is that for high? I made the thing all out of whole cloth because in the day Arthur and I went it rained like fury [?] and we had no such adventure as I described. However, the money is spent. I am now on my Neapolitan sketch, the draft of which I have unfortunately lost and am obliged to rewrite it from memory, which is tedious work. I shall illustrate it. You say nothing about your literary labors. I hope you are doing a great deal of work. The market seems to be good. If they will take the stuff I write they ought to be “drooling at the mouth” to get hold of yours.

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I wonder what Donny Adams is doing. [page 6] I had a letter from Mrs. A the other day and she said nothing about her daughter. I met Will Green a week ago. He was sober, preoccupied, couldn’t talk, had something on his brain. Don’t know what it was but he seemed anxious that I shouldn’t arouse any reminiscences of Venice. He is coming in to see me again soon (“in” means in my brother’s room in Cambridge). And that makes me think that I have not yet met your brother Fred. He said he would call me whenever I said so, but I have had no fixed time that I could be in the office and have no other place in town where he could call. He asked me if I could get him employment but I had a brother in law on [page 7] my hands and, of course, must look out for him first. He has now got into the custom house as clerk and if I should come across another place of course I would try and get Fred into it. Times are very still now and money is awfully scarce. I do not see what a fellow with no fixed employment can do to get a living. I know I have to work hard enough to pay my expenses. If I thought I could get Fred into good ways I would rush and see him tomorrow but I haven’t much faith in him after what you have written me. Don’t worry about him, Charlie, because he will come [page 8] out right if he is worth it, and if not he is not worth worrying over.

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My head throbs when I think of Paris and of my return which is yet so indefinite. You must not wait for me. If you get money go! And I’ll meet you when you come back, and you shall tell me all about it. For it is now too late for me to think of going for I must first get my money! Oh my! That a few dollars should hamper one so. What a slave I am to nothing but coin too. I hope your money will come much as I hate to have you go without me – for I have dreamed over our Egyptian trip and the Jerusalem experience. But it is fate. If you were here, old boy, this evening only I could relieve my mind and satisfy you. I often wish you were here to visit me a while and then go back with me.

With much love yours always

Frank

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