$1,000 Melodeon
Sirs:
In your account of Cardinal O'Connell, TIME, Dec. 24, you say: "In another basement likewise ... he found a broken-down melodeon. Some of the pipes would sound, however. . . ." I do not know who told you that melodeons have "pipes," but it is a considerable mistake. They have reeds, and bellows, just like a common house-organ. They are encased, though, in a body similar to, but very much smaller than, the old-fashioned "square" piano. There are two treadles but they are not like the treadles of the organ, being rods run from the foot to the upright rod that connects with the bellows. The right foot is used to pump air; the left is used to increase the sound.
There is in my home today a melodeon of solid rosewood, purchased for my mother in 1860. It has had several new bellows, and minor repairs, and is in fine repair today. It is keyed to what used to be called "concert pitch," which, I understand is obsolete today, all instruments being tuned very much lower. My mother was offered $1,000 for it about 1887. It has a five octave, seven key keyboard, which is longer than the usual melodeon, which had, I believe, only five and a half octaves, or possibly only five.
E. BERYL ROBE
Huntington, W. Va.
Not Sad
Sirs: I take exception to a few words in your notice of Ethel Barrymore and her Kingdom of God: "the hushed, sad peacefulness of cloistered life." I don't know whether your writer or Miss B. is responsible for that sadness, but there isn't any such atmosphere in convents or monasteries. I ought to know, for I've been in and out of both for a good many years. Life in a convent isn't so wild and hilarious, of course, as in a night club, which must be about the saddest spot on earth. But I never yet saw a nun who wore a long face except one, and she had the cramps. Too much Christmas candy, and the dear old lady dissipated. I visited a convent recently, and I came away with a bright memory of a "lot of girls." But they are mighty aged girls for a' that. The Sister who cooks is around 80, and she told me gleefully of the monster turkey somebody had sent for Thanksgiving. How she kept dishing it up in various guises for a week. She laughed till her false teeth—if you ever beheld 'em!—fell down. Every time I think of convents, it renews my faith in human laughter. FATHER WILL WHALEN Old Jesuit Mission, Orrtanna, Pa. Father Whalen recently wrote a short story about a mediocre actress, popular in small towns. It was labeled "Twinkle, Little Star" and appeared in the New York Daily News (tabloid).—ED. Marching Yorkers