Letter from Frances Hodgkins to Isabel Field
Date
17 Jun 1897
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Date
17 Jun 1897
Transcript
Cranmore Lodge Thursday
My dearest Sis
Your letter and parcel arrived this morning. I don’t know how to thank you for the handkercheifs [sic] it is good of you and a very generous present too. They are beautiful quality and ought to last me a long time and thank you for marking them so carefully. Father is very pleased with the photographs and handkercheif [sic] and says he is writing to thank you himself. I think some of the Chch views are splendid and the house with the ladder and the old huts I like especially. I think his portrait of the boy is quite up to professional excellence, he certainly is a magnificent child and so very bright looking. Mother wants you to send one to Willie, he has been enquiring several times lately for news of the Christening and wants to know when it is to take place! I broke it to him gently in my last letter that it had already taken place, and he thinks he ought to have been told, but I pacified him by telling him it was all done on the spur of the moment, the father himself only being present by a mere fluke. Now for a bit of news! We have notice to quite this house in a month, it being sold to a Mr Stephenson (Irvine & Stephenson) a gentleman with 10 children all young! Pleasant for the Scotts! It came as a great shock to me after all for I never really thought we would leave this house. Of course I am glad and Mother is delighted, but all the same there will be many regrets at leaving the old home, especially as I am afraid from the way the wind is blowing at present in the material mind that it will be a case of out of the frying pan etc. Mother as you know has a sneaking regard for Roslyn in general and for a house up there in particular and you know what Mother is once she takes an idea into her head & how quietly obstinate she is. I have a positive aversion to Roslyn and the very idea of going up there makes me shudder. I have been hoping to get nearer town for many reasons and the boys want to too so I only hope combined resistance will have the desired effect. Mother has been twice up to see a house up there and steadily refuses to see any good in any other place. Mind you write soon and express yourself strongly on the subject, and say you will never come down to Dunedin again if we perch ourselves up on a hill Roslyn especially. I wish you were here to give advice. Mother is so obstinate, but I think she might move nearer town if only for her children’s sake. She is so frightened of not getting a garden, but a garden should be made quite secondary to the house. However it is no use grumbling and I only hope it will pan out all right and to everybody’s satisfaction. One think I am very glad we are moving away from this house for Father’s sake. I think on the whole he is better tho’ he is really far from well. I wish Frank was a greater comfort to him. Frank is so anxious to please, yet office work seems to be so irksome to him. There are demands for the ink so I must resign in favour of a pencil Mother thinks I have used more than my share. If we are to turn out in a month we will have lots to do. I have already sorted all the magazines and sketches and am making a bundle of pictures up for you. You are to have the oak table at last you will be glad to hear. I have had a veritable fit of inspiration this week, & have painted no less than 3 pictures. Father seems much pleased and they are going to the man in Chch I told you about where they ought to have gone long ago. Will you ask Will if he happens to have any Maori snapshots or photos, & tell him I will be very grateful if he can give me some. He ought to have plenty of opportunities of getting photographs of them. Tell Will I met a girl in Timaru who asked after him, a Miss Hart, she said she used to know him in Wellington and she said with much feeling, “he was a beautiful dancer” Will must have been a gay dog in those days! You may well ask who Maudie Butterworth’s “young man” is; that last expression just describes him. I hear he is an awful scally wag but I don’t think they will ever get married or if they do I will be very much surprised. He has the reputation of being “fickle”. Talking of marriage I have read A Cathedral Courtship and like it tremendously. Knowing how you doted on “Mean Streets” I strongly recommend a ”Child of the Jago” by the same author, it abounds in horrors and bad language, and is thoroughly unwholesome, so get it if you dare! Mrs Finker is home again. While in Melbourne she consulted a “leading doctor” about the state of her health. He knowing his case advised a strict course of dieting and Melbourne being unbearable under such conditions she hurried home a month before she was expected and much inconvenienced Mr Finker who was teaching Dulce “How doth the little busy bee” as a surprise for her mother and in consequence there was an ignominious break down when Dulce stood forth to recite it. Duce cried & Irene laughed spitefully and Irene was smacked and put out of the room, and altogether the home coming was not a success.
Well, dear old Girl, I must say goodnight so with much love to you all and again thanking you for the handkercheifs [sic] Your loving sister Fanny.
My dearest Sis
Your letter and parcel arrived this morning. I don’t know how to thank you for the handkercheifs [sic] it is good of you and a very generous present too. They are beautiful quality and ought to last me a long time and thank you for marking them so carefully. Father is very pleased with the photographs and handkercheif [sic] and says he is writing to thank you himself. I think some of the Chch views are splendid and the house with the ladder and the old huts I like especially. I think his portrait of the boy is quite up to professional excellence, he certainly is a magnificent child and so very bright looking. Mother wants you to send one to Willie, he has been enquiring several times lately for news of the Christening and wants to know when it is to take place! I broke it to him gently in my last letter that it had already taken place, and he thinks he ought to have been told, but I pacified him by telling him it was all done on the spur of the moment, the father himself only being present by a mere fluke. Now for a bit of news! We have notice to quite this house in a month, it being sold to a Mr Stephenson (Irvine & Stephenson) a gentleman with 10 children all young! Pleasant for the Scotts! It came as a great shock to me after all for I never really thought we would leave this house. Of course I am glad and Mother is delighted, but all the same there will be many regrets at leaving the old home, especially as I am afraid from the way the wind is blowing at present in the material mind that it will be a case of out of the frying pan etc. Mother as you know has a sneaking regard for Roslyn in general and for a house up there in particular and you know what Mother is once she takes an idea into her head & how quietly obstinate she is. I have a positive aversion to Roslyn and the very idea of going up there makes me shudder. I have been hoping to get nearer town for many reasons and the boys want to too so I only hope combined resistance will have the desired effect. Mother has been twice up to see a house up there and steadily refuses to see any good in any other place. Mind you write soon and express yourself strongly on the subject, and say you will never come down to Dunedin again if we perch ourselves up on a hill Roslyn especially. I wish you were here to give advice. Mother is so obstinate, but I think she might move nearer town if only for her children’s sake. She is so frightened of not getting a garden, but a garden should be made quite secondary to the house. However it is no use grumbling and I only hope it will pan out all right and to everybody’s satisfaction. One think I am very glad we are moving away from this house for Father’s sake. I think on the whole he is better tho’ he is really far from well. I wish Frank was a greater comfort to him. Frank is so anxious to please, yet office work seems to be so irksome to him. There are demands for the ink so I must resign in favour of a pencil Mother thinks I have used more than my share. If we are to turn out in a month we will have lots to do. I have already sorted all the magazines and sketches and am making a bundle of pictures up for you. You are to have the oak table at last you will be glad to hear. I have had a veritable fit of inspiration this week, & have painted no less than 3 pictures. Father seems much pleased and they are going to the man in Chch I told you about where they ought to have gone long ago. Will you ask Will if he happens to have any Maori snapshots or photos, & tell him I will be very grateful if he can give me some. He ought to have plenty of opportunities of getting photographs of them. Tell Will I met a girl in Timaru who asked after him, a Miss Hart, she said she used to know him in Wellington and she said with much feeling, “he was a beautiful dancer” Will must have been a gay dog in those days! You may well ask who Maudie Butterworth’s “young man” is; that last expression just describes him. I hear he is an awful scally wag but I don’t think they will ever get married or if they do I will be very much surprised. He has the reputation of being “fickle”. Talking of marriage I have read A Cathedral Courtship and like it tremendously. Knowing how you doted on “Mean Streets” I strongly recommend a ”Child of the Jago” by the same author, it abounds in horrors and bad language, and is thoroughly unwholesome, so get it if you dare! Mrs Finker is home again. While in Melbourne she consulted a “leading doctor” about the state of her health. He knowing his case advised a strict course of dieting and Melbourne being unbearable under such conditions she hurried home a month before she was expected and much inconvenienced Mr Finker who was teaching Dulce “How doth the little busy bee” as a surprise for her mother and in consequence there was an ignominious break down when Dulce stood forth to recite it. Duce cried & Irene laughed spitefully and Irene was smacked and put out of the room, and altogether the home coming was not a success.
Well, dear old Girl, I must say goodnight so with much love to you all and again thanking you for the handkercheifs [sic] Your loving sister Fanny.
Pages
10 pages
Sender's address
Cranmore Lodge
Institutional No.
MS-Papers-0085-06
Credit Line
Letters
from
Frances
Hodgkins.
Field,
Isabel
Jane,
1867-1950
:
Correspondence
of
Frances
Hodgkins
and
family
/
collected
by
Isabel
Field.
Ref:
MS-Papers-0085-06.
Alexander
Turnbull
Library,
Wellington,
New
Zealand.
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22902955
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22902955