Reference
X955/1/107
Title
To Mrs Sarah Colenutt
Scope and Content
5 High Wickham, Hastings
My dear friend
I wish you would send me a word of news about yourself, your husband and all belonging to you. I have nothing particular to tell you about ourselves, save that Molly and I are pretty well and that Willie, my chief anxiety, is no worse. He will go abroad again however next winter. Ernest, my youngest boy, in trouble. He was engaged to a girl at Gateshead but they have parted. I never saw her and am not quite clear as to the reason why the engagement came to an end, but I believe he found out he was mistaken. He seems very wretched, and all I can say to him is that many poor miserable creatures do not discover their blunders till it is too late. We are not going north this year. I had thought of a visit to Cumberland to see Jack, but it came to nothing. I should like few weeks in London in October if possible in order that I may have a little time with Willie and a few friends and perhaps I shall make up my mind to adventure, but it is all uncertain. I do hate travelling and strange houses. When I was last in town I had an interesting day with
Mrs. Lewes, widow of George Eliot’s stepson. I sat at the desk where the novels were written, read her letters, and, what was still better worth reading, he little memorandum books in which she jotted down the things that came into her head. What a picture they gave of her strenuousness, of her keen, constant endeavour! I was driven when I came back to begin upon her again, and am glad to find that my love for her after so long an absence from her is unchanged. Mrs. Lewes also showed me some letters of Charlotte Bronte to her father-in-law. This was the first time I had ever handled anything she had touched, and the paper seemed to shoot something electrical through my fingers to my brain.
I hear a rumour that Polly Chignell has left Exmouth but can learn no particulars. I think I told you she called here a few months ago. She seemed unsettled but I did not imagine she was going to give up her school. I have not heard from William for more than a year: in fact he has completely given up writing. Polly said he was beginning to anticipate the end of active work and dreaded it. I do not wonder.
My sister Henrietta has had to undergo a sore trial. Her husband has failed. The goods he made have gone out of fashion. For three years he struggled on, borrowing money from his friends, but the end came about six months ago with a crash; the business was sold and he has to live in a little house in Norwood, mainly dependent on others. It is very sad. I always think it particularly sad to be borne down in old age. The children are very good – that is a mercy – and one of them, Beatrice – who is at the Girl’s Public Day School at Winchester is a woman of much strength and character.
Farewell for the present. Be sure you say how Mary is, and, when you see her, give her my best love and tell her that I am always thinking about her, not as any fixed Mary, but see Mary in long clothes, then in short clothes, then as a beautiful girl of one-and-twenty, and then as a mother. It is like unwinding a succession of lovely pictures. I pray and trust that she still finds life endurable, with here and there sunshine,
notwithstanding all the shadow. Best love also, of course, to your dear self and your dear husband.
Yours affectionately
W.Hale White August 1898
Level of description
item