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Elisina Tyler to Mildred Barnes Bliss, September 6, 1912 [1]

Vienna.

September 6th 1912Friday.

Dear Mildred,

Here have I been a week in Vienna and I haven’t sent you Julie’sJulie Mendiboure, William Royall Tyler's nanny. name yet! Please forgive me. I have plunged into the middle of my work and I am working my way back to shore with a certain amount of strenuousness. Also I had an admonitory fit of gout in my back which gave me food for thought. I must knock off wine—good and bad—and one or two more things which I like. I daresay the Ile d’YeuSee letter of July 24, 1912. did it, besides giving me a fictitious and unnecessary appearance of vulgar good-health which I doubly resent.

To return to our Julie. Her name is Mendiboure. Mind you send her word before you propose to go and see William, because otherwise he would almost certainly be out, and his early life would receive a blight.

Vienna is very very wet but as enchanting as ever. I get a good deal of spoiling; and one of my admirers brought me two [word or words not transcribed from the original letter]Several of the autograph letters of Elisina Tyler were not included in William Royall Tyler's gift of the Bliss-Tyler correspondence to Harvard University (see The Early Letters (1902–1908), note 1). At Harvard, these letters exist only in typed transcriptions where, often, foreign words and phrases from the original letters are not transcribed. this morning at the ArchivesThe Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv (Archives of the City and Province of Vienna).—of which the philosophic Royall ate one. By way of a dainty compliment I was told two days ago that my voice ought to be preserved by a scientific society who collects the speech of aged professors and savages! And I could tell you more, but it will keep till we meet.

Dear Mildred, find time to write to me before we leave on the 16th or I shall wish you back again in Buenos Ayres where your elegant pen occasionally took a welcome flight hitherward.

The Eucharistic CongressThe 23rd Eucharistic Congress, Vienna, September 12–15, 1912. See also letter of September 6, 1912. will begin on the 12th and 100,000 geistlichers“Clergymen.” and their appurtenants will invade Vienna. It will not be arousing. But I will hope to get seats for a grand procession in which the carriages of the time of Maria TheresaMaria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (1717–1780), empress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. will convey the EmperorFranz Joseph I (1830-1916), emperor of Austria. and the notables, and if I get them I shall forgive the invaders.

I do hope most earnestly that you will still be there when we come back (you see my mind is full of you.) Give my best love to Robert, and please remember me as warmly and deferentially as I do you—all proportions kept.

Yours always

Elisina.

 
Associated Places: Vienna [Wien] (Austria)