Reference
X955/1/99
Title
To Mrs Sarah Colenutt
Date free text
26 Oct 1896
Production date
From: 1896 To: 1896
Scope and Content
5 High Wickham, Hastings
My dear friend
I should like a line or two from you to tell me how Gunnell goes on, how Mary is and what the children are doing. I should also like news of all the rest. How does Fabian relish the change: what is the
increased advantage: how is W. Wright & of course how are you two dear selves. Alas that I should have to enquire by letter. I have not slept out of my own bed since last September twelvemonth. It is very wrong of me, and every time I yield the fetters, of course, become more closely riveted. Molly has been away, but I stayed at home. She is now busy with bicycling, University Extension lectures and goodness knows what. I object to nothing she proposes, if it is not too extravagantly costly; convinced that the one thing incumbent on a father is to let his daughters – within limits do just what they like.
Of myself I have little to say. My poor grandson, who bears my name, is as much myself just now as I am. He is one of the most wonderful children I know and it is he who has been smitten. He will I believe never regain the use of his leg. The nerves were fatally lacerated; sensation has not completely returned; the circulation in inactive and the least wound or abrasive of the skin will not heal. The other three
grandchildren, one at Brighton and two at Harley St. are all well.
We had some thoughts of going to live near Brigham a few weeks ago. A beautiful old house, high up above the Derwent, was offered me at a very low rent. It was entered by old wrought iron gates, had a large garden and orchard, broad sweeping stairs, panelled rooms; and, curiously enough, was the very house which Molly and I had often admired and coveted. For a little while I was eager to go: it is within four miles of Jack: it was in the land I love, and the reasons why we came here have partly or mostly disappeared, for Willie finds it increasingly difficult to give us even a few hours from Saturday to Sunday night; but at last prudence prevailed. The paradise is a mile and a half from Cockermouth town; the isolation would be strict unless we were to keep a chaise, which I cannot now afford, and the exile from London would be complete. So I gave it up, but do you know I am so silly that I never can, like a well regulated person, give up finally what I know to be wrong. I hanker after things which my reason has condemned a thousand times, and sometimes curse it for being so dictatorial.
Morris's death made me sad. (1) One by one everybody who has made the Victorian age pleasant and worth living in is going. Never since the Dark Ages – this is a literal fact – has there been a prospect so barren as that now before us. Hardly a man of letters or artist of the smallest consequence will be alive in a very few years. Morris was not one of my gods, but he was a most gifted creature. All the circumstances of
his death were pathetic. The love of life was strong in him: he enjoyed it as few people did, and did not want to die (2). What he began cannot be continued, for it entirely depended on hid own personality. The Kelmscott press is to be closed as soon as the books in hand are printed, and his shop will become an ordinary Oxford St. establishment.
Another depression is roaming around the house to-night. Oh, me! About three weeks ago up here on the cliff! My bed literally shook, and I was afraid I should be sick with the vibration.
Best love from us both to yourself, father & and all who belong to you.
Yours ever afftly
W. Hale White
(1) William Morris died 3rd October 1896.
(2) Philip Webb emphaizes the same characteristic. He writes to his friend in March 1888: I can always read Morris… partly because he enjoys doing his verse, as he does in doing a piece of dyeing, or
handweaving - and all just like a child…Now, don’t laugh, I am most surely of a melancholy temperament, and I have found for more than thirty years it has been good corrective to rub shoulders with Morris.s
hearty love-of-lifeness.
Level of description
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