Reference
X955/1/69
Title
To Mrs Sarah Colenutt
Date free text
8 August 1891
Production date
From: 1891 To: 1891
Scope and Content
Street Farm,Ashtead, Epsom
My dear friend,
Your note was very welcome, and your husband's visit and your own were most welcome. You diverted me for a time. I do not know if I will be myself again, but at present the outlook is as unhappy as it has been. In addition to the actual loss, I suppose the shock and excitement affected me, for my nerves are all in disorder night and day. It is difficult for an outsider to comprehend how this should be. He sees of course nothing but the death of a woman to whom death was a release. I think of five and thirty years ago, and think too that this history has ended as all things end. Furthermore you can hardly imagine what it is to be at once deprived of an outlet for what you feel most intimately. Much as children are loved, it is impossible to impart to them all one hopes or fears. My poor wife daily heard from me what nobody now can hear, and offered a sympathy that no one else can give. The world, aware of so small a portion of what was in her shy, unpretending soul, would have been astonished perhaps that she could be of such service to me, but she was for me not for the world. The lesson of her heroic patience and perfect unselfishness was obvious to everybody, and that daily teaching has also departed. However, no more on this topic. I wish that this Saturday was last Saturday, so far as your presence in concerned. I have no friends either so old or so close to me as your husband and yourself.
Molly sends her best love and so do I to both of you.
Ever affectionately
W. Hale White
Level of description
item