• Reference
    X955/1/105
  • Title
    To Mrs Sarah Colenutt
  • Date free text
    26 Dec 1897
  • Production date
    From: 1897 To: 1897
  • Scope and Content
    5 High Wickham, Hastings My dear friend. I do not think Annie could take such photographs as these. As works of art they are very good and the likeness of your husband is perfect. Of my own I am no judge. Molly has written to you for Annie’s address. When we get, I shall thank her. I have heard from Willie at Assouan.(1) The travelling – twenty-two days- was very tedious, and it is too soon tat present to expect any news about his health.It is so strange that any child of mine, of me born in such a town as Bedford, with no background that is not thoroughly English to any part of my existence, should be living on the edge of the Desert and drinking the water of the sacred River. The mayoralty of Annouan must be a less expensive office than that of Ryde. When the Mayor of Assouan entertains, his guests crawl through a hole into his mud hut: he then takes fowl, pulls it to pieces with his fingers and distributes it. Richard seems to have been acting on Roger's maxim – when ever a new book is published , read an old one. I hardly read anything but old books. I have devoted lately my mornings before breakfast to that very ancient volume of the Bible and am nearly at the end of Isaiah, edified and excited as I am sure I should not have been by anything advertised, piping hot, for many a year. What a cowardly compromise, by the way, the Revised Version is! When you use it, always, or at any rate almost always, stick to the margin. (1) Assouan – Southern Egypt.
  • Level of description
    item