Marianne Moore (Letter Dates 14 February 1909 and 31 August 1921)

SOURCE: Moore, Marianne. The Selected Letters of Marianne Moore, edited by Bonnie Costello, pp. 63-6, 175-79. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.

In the following letters, written in 1909 and 1921, Moore discusses her thoughts on the suffragist movement and the institution of marriage.

To Mary Warner Moore and John Warner Moore

FEB[RUARY] 14, 1909

Dear Family,

I hate to think of your taking so hard, my anxieties. To think I could ever come so near the ragged brink though and miss it, makes me squirm. I find I did not have to get Merit in Philosophy. I merely had to get half 15 hours, but of course with persistent drawing of Passeds, it's very pleasant to have 10 hours. Mary Allen has 2 too few and Hilda S.-S. failed Philosophy (pretty badly), so there has been a general slaughter. Hilda will get her degree...