Reference
X955/1/141
Title
To Mrs Sarah Colenutt
Date free text
23rd December 1903
Production date
From: 1903 To: 1903
Scope and Content
The Cottage,Groombridge, Kent
My dear friend
It is kind of you to remember me, cheering in these dark days. I have hardly seen the sun for a week.
I am much concerned about Charlie. If he really has diabetes, I suppose everything depends on diet. A friend of mine much younger than I am, but much older than Charlie has suffered for years from this disease but keeps it under control by regimen. The last attack was brought on by drinking some temperance liquor which was charged with sugar. He did not know it, for the sweet was disguised.
All my children are well. Willie went to Cornwall yesterday, I am thankful to say, for the fogs in London have been most trying. I have been fairly well, saving something like neuralgia over my head and face which bothers me a good deal.
I am glad you read the little book about Abbot Salmon (1) It was extraordinarily interesting to me as a picture of a time almost inconceivable, as well as a portrait of a remarkable person. Notice the strange incongruities of that century, or what we should think to be such, the really earnest piety, passionate piety in fact, and the oral shortcomings; lovely art and ferocity. Allen, the publisher, has sent me some Ruskin drawings this morning. Many of them are of mediaeval Italian architecture. Its grace and delicacy are exquisite, there is nothing in the woods in spring more tender. Yet what was the history of the Italian states and cities during times when these churches and houses were being built? How foolish it is to dogmatize about nations and men, or to attempt inclusion of them in neat little summaries!
Molly is busy with a plum pudding for an old woman (2) who lives in the cottage next door to us. She is 84, and I met her the day before yesterday without bonnet or cloak and with a pail on her arm. She was going up the hill to the spring to fetch water. She is always cheery and may be said to live alone, for the only other inmate of the cottage is a little grandson of whom she takes care. She never, of course, sees a newspaper. This perhaps, is the reason why she is in perfect health.
Best love from both of us.
W. Hale White
(1) The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond. A picture of monastic life in the days of Abbot Samson. Newly edited by Sir Ernest Clarke. Publisher/year pp. xliv. 285. 1903. Link note In : Gollancz (I.) The King.s Classics. 1902, etc. 8º.
(2) Mary Hyder, The Hill Cottage, Groombridge. Aged 82 in 1901 Census. Born Sussex.
Level of description
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