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 
