![Letters quoted in text concerning Orozco painting in Baker Library](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiICvh-jdLMTfsEwPnleEWTLFu4KX9kKI37Rpxau81NO9lCGUbeIIgJszB0zy2mCcVq2EE2GGbzwMWLcTl2eRl6FZslFRUx4F0-djrAv9E-kG-H79dr92xW6tB8bbGnMTxnbcajyWIM94/s320/DSCN0125.jpg)
But one writer clearly got under his skin. A member of the National Arts Club wrote to Hopkins, "Does it seem fitting that in these times when American artists are starving that a College of the standing of Dartmouth College should go to Mexico for its Fresco--such monstrosities could as well be perpetrated by a disordered mind--in the United States?" The writer continued, "Are we training youth to deliberately cultivate all that is not moral or fine or beautiful? Why not run a sewer through your library--or hang mirrors to distort their reflection. The value in art is beauty--not this horrible stuff."
Hopkins, perhaps resenting that this letter came from someone not affiliated with Dartmouth, and also perhaps succumbing his gender bias, responded with curt furor:
I can reply very briefly and very definitely to the inquiries of your letter, that it is based on personal prejudice and unjustified presumptions. In view of the fact that I concede none of your premises upon which you base your argument, I naturally cannot have any interest in your conclusion.He then jauntily signed off, "Yours truly."
To see the letters, ask for DP-11, Box 6928, Folder 14 (you'll find other critical letters there, with much friendlier replies).