BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 7 



Sullivan's concerts at the Paris Exposition of 1878, had advised 

 her to take up music professionally and had offered to be spon- 

 sor for her success on the stage; but even at this time wider 

 and more satisfying vistas were opening before her eager ambi- 

 tion. She was beginning to think for herself on many matters 

 of philosophy and religion. Perhaps the turning-point of her 

 career was reached when, in company with a pleasant party of 

 relatives and friends, she visited Spain. A glimpse of her in this 

 enjoyable tour is afforded by the late George Parsons Lathrop's 

 " Spanish Vistas, " in which she is frequently mentioned under 

 the appellation of "The Novice." 



She returned to Philadelphia in 1881, and with characteristic 

 thoroughness attended a course of musical composition with 

 Professor Hugh A. Clarke of the University of Pennsylvania. 

 Her interest in music never waned; many years afterwards 

 she took a course of lessons in singing, and entered into the 

 subject with much enthusiasm. She was also in the habit of 

 going with a Boston friend to the Burrage Rooms, where 

 through the generous provisions of a music-loving young lady 

 who died at an early age, opportunity is provided for practice 

 with two or more pianos and the use of a valuable library of 

 pianoforte compositions. 



An intimate friend of hers, writing of her abandonment of 

 music as a specialty, comments on the power that she possessed 

 "of taking up almost any study and carrying it forward to 

 completion; as soon as this point was reached," says this 

 friend, "her agile mind turned to another theme, with the same 

 result." 



The impulse that led her to put the practice of music behind 

 her, and to enter into a far more laborious occupation, is clearly 

 explained in a fragment of autobiography which she began in 

 February, 1900. This writing also throws some light upon her 

 mental development, and is so interesting one could wish that 

 it had been more inclusive, that she had deemed it worth while 

 to relate her experiences during the time when she was devoting 

 herself to music and meeting many of the eminent virtuosi with 

 whom she was privileged to associate, and also that she had 

 brought it down to the attainment of her medical degree. But 



