Reference
X955/1/157
Title
To Mrs Sarah Colenutt
Date free text
23rd Dec 1905
Production date
From: 1905 To: 1905
Scope and Content
The Cottage, Groombridge, Kent
My dear friend
My best love to you. 74 was I yesterday!
We are both well, if my small troubles be excepted. Two stumps extracted, two broken bits of bone removed, and the end is not yet.
I have had the Christmas Carol given me, but I have not yet looked at it. I read, however, Swinburne's contribution in the newspaper (1) and thought it a good specimen of his miraculous gift.
With regard to Charlie I would have you not despair – I have told you before that as friend of mine older than Charlie has recovered by strict attention the diet. If he is careless an attack is certain. I wish William could return altogether – that would be best, but I suppose there are difficulties in the way. I have not heard from him since my sister’s death.
I am now a very idle creature, that is to say I do no work, but just in proportion as the work dwindles to nothing, all kinds of little things demand attention. However, I have read again a book which is one of the
truest, and in some respects one of the saddest, bits of human experience - I mean Sir Walter Scott’s Journal. It is profoundly interesting and touching. Nobody without reading it can have any notion of what
Sir Walter really was. I remember the effect it produced on me soon after it came out fifteen or sixteen years ago, and age has increased my sympathy.
Our sincerest good wishes for the new year. At 74 a new year looks misty and doubtful.
Ever affectionately
W.Hale White
My grandson Leonard has just passed twelfth out of the Britannia
1) A Carol for Charity, in The Times, 16 December 1905, reprinted in The Queen's Carol 1905.
Level of description
item