Reference
X955/1/1
Title
To Mrs Sarah Colenutt
Date free text
23 Jan 1870
Production date
From: 1870 To: 1870
Scope and Content
Carshalton
My dear Mrs Colenutt
The cuffs which you have sent me are exactly the thing that I wanted; in fact they are so exactly what I wanted that I felt ashamed when I got them because I was shameless enough to beg for them when Mary was here. They are a very sweet present. Every time when the cold bites of course I must think of you. The mittens will warm me and so will the thought. Is there not something peculiarly just-the-thing- if I may make an adjective of the phrase- in your gift?
My two babies are quite well and Mrs White is as well as can be expected seeing that a night with twins, who will not cry together but have separate performances is rather wearisome. Tell Mary that she is now godmother to the girl, that is to say as much so as she can be, seeing that the little heretic has not been baptised nor ever will be. Their names are Mary Theodora & Ernest Theodore. My best wish for the girl is that she may be as much like her godmother as she can be. The child has really been named after yours.
We were very grieved to hear of your poor boys accident. It was doubly unfortunate that it should happen to him of all children. You tell him how we all thought of him. Jack and Willie (1) burst upon me when I came in and told me the news as if there had been a great fire or some other dreadful calamity. It must have frightened you too terribly. Kindest regards to Mr Colenutt. Ask him to look at the Pall Mall Gazette of Saturday and read the report of Professor Tyndall’s lecture on “Haze and Dust”(2). It is most wonderful. Ask him what he would give if he could hear such a sermon as that in George Street once a month. Tell him to note the fact that all light even of the most piercingly brilliant kind is utterly invisible without something to reflect it. One looking out into the sky at night of course if the suns rays in themselves were visible we should see them streaming past us through space. In reality we do not see them strike the moon or planets. This intervening darkness is the “stellar darkness” to which Professor Tyndall alludes.
What I say will be intelligible when you see what he says.
Best love from us all to you and the dear children
Most affectionately
W. Hale White
(1) The elder sons.
(2) Tyndall, John (1820–1893), physicist and mountaineer
Level of description
item