Reference
X955/1/149
Title
To Mrs Sarah Colenutt
Date free text
11 Dec 1904
Production date
From: 1904 To: 1904
Scope and Content
The Cottage, Groombridge, Kent
My dear friend
I am glad to hear that you are well and that Charlie is better, but do make him see Dr. Pavy again. I have been in bed with a bad cold, but am now up again. It has left behind aches in my limbs which torment me at night so that I cannot lie still. I had a letter a few days ago from James Hill giving me particulars of his brother Harry’s death. He was ill for a day only and died in his sleep of heart failure. The heart had been
damaged in his youth by athleticism. The loss in every way to my cousin in Exeter will be great. I am glad to hear that Molly Hill, the only child by the first wife, loves her stepmother and that the stepmother loves Molly.
Like you I have been re-reading Swinburne in the new edition, and much of the poetry is in a new light to me. When he was young and I was young I was repelled by what are obvious defects. They are still defects
to me, but the balance on the other side is so great that I let them alone.
It is pleasant to know that there is anything in the little Bunyan book (1) which interests you. At first I refused to undertake the task, for I thought it was one for which I was unfit, but on pressure I yielded.
Complaint has been made that I have given too much of Bunyan and too little of myself, but this is no reproach. If a biographer really is in earnest about his subject, his object will be to present him and not to use him as a peg on which to hang matter of no consequence to the world whatever.
Willie ought to have been here today but he has been summoned to Exeter to see Dr. Davy’s wife who is seriously ill. He goes to Cornwall for his winter holiday next week.
Our very best love to you.
Most affectionately
W. Hale White
I should have sent you a copy of the Bunyan if my dislike to offer anything of my own had not prevented.
(1) John Bunyan. Hodder & Stoughton, 1905.
Level of description
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