Letter from Frances Hodgkins to Isabel Hughes Field
Date
06 Jan 1914
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Object Detail
Date
06 Jan 1914
Transcript
Hotel & Pension Faraglioni Capri Epiphany Jan 6th
My Dearest Girl
I am sending you a little lace collar which I think will look very sweetly on you. It is made here & is called Irish Crochet! The Queen of Italy encourages the peasants in lace making & they do a lot of it here also the Filet work, do you know it, & it is so cheap I don’t think the poor creatures can make a very fat living out of it. One man told me he had sold 4000 similar collars to the one I am sending you in one year. I hope none of them will turn up in N.Z. I am looking forward to a nice long letter one day. I know you are a busy pair you & Lydia but do try & write once in a way my dears. Remember how much I want to hear the family news & it is so easy to slip out of touch if we never write. Just write a scrap. I don’t mind how short it is & say what you are doing & how you all are and how behaving & how Granny is, very especially & if Mother is planning to come to Europe & lots of little bits of news like this.
Are you working in the Studio-Cellar now? I hope you are. We are expecting snow any minute now – it is very cold & the sky lead & yellow. A new young man has arrived an artist of quite the nutty style, black hair thrown backwards grey sombrero & melancholy face. He has gone forth to paint this morning. From my window I can see the corner of Ischia rising out of the sea, dead black on the horizon. Ischia is Capri’s rival in beauty.
The great event of the day is the arrival of the mail boat at midday. It brings us our letters & our milk. The latter is very bad & doesn’t do any one any good judging from the look of the babies. They are such little miseries & when they cry it is like a penny rattle so wooden & squeaky is their poor little vocal apparatus. The women, the babies who do manage to live & grow up are beautiful strong creatures & carry great weights on their heads. To see them with the fat green bottles of wine poised on coils of their thick black hair is wonderful – but what a nasty jar it would be if they fell which they never seem to do. No more now – lunch time. Many big hugs & love. From your Auntie. Tell Lydia when I have saved some more sous I will buy her a collar if she likes it.
My Dearest Girl
I am sending you a little lace collar which I think will look very sweetly on you. It is made here & is called Irish Crochet! The Queen of Italy encourages the peasants in lace making & they do a lot of it here also the Filet work, do you know it, & it is so cheap I don’t think the poor creatures can make a very fat living out of it. One man told me he had sold 4000 similar collars to the one I am sending you in one year. I hope none of them will turn up in N.Z. I am looking forward to a nice long letter one day. I know you are a busy pair you & Lydia but do try & write once in a way my dears. Remember how much I want to hear the family news & it is so easy to slip out of touch if we never write. Just write a scrap. I don’t mind how short it is & say what you are doing & how you all are and how behaving & how Granny is, very especially & if Mother is planning to come to Europe & lots of little bits of news like this.
Are you working in the Studio-Cellar now? I hope you are. We are expecting snow any minute now – it is very cold & the sky lead & yellow. A new young man has arrived an artist of quite the nutty style, black hair thrown backwards grey sombrero & melancholy face. He has gone forth to paint this morning. From my window I can see the corner of Ischia rising out of the sea, dead black on the horizon. Ischia is Capri’s rival in beauty.
The great event of the day is the arrival of the mail boat at midday. It brings us our letters & our milk. The latter is very bad & doesn’t do any one any good judging from the look of the babies. They are such little miseries & when they cry it is like a penny rattle so wooden & squeaky is their poor little vocal apparatus. The women, the babies who do manage to live & grow up are beautiful strong creatures & carry great weights on their heads. To see them with the fat green bottles of wine poised on coils of their thick black hair is wonderful – but what a nasty jar it would be if they fell which they never seem to do. No more now – lunch time. Many big hugs & love. From your Auntie. Tell Lydia when I have saved some more sous I will buy her a collar if she likes it.
Pages
4 pages
Sender's address
Hotel and Pension Faraglioni, Capri
Institutional No.
MS-Papers-0085-27
Credit Line
Letters
from
Frances
Hodgkins
to
Rachel
Hodgkins
and
Isabel
Field.
Field,
Isabel
Jane,
1867-1950
:
Correspondence
of
Frances
Hodgkins
and
family
/
collected
by
Isabel
Field.
Ref:
MS-Papers-0085-27.
Alexander
Turnbull
Library,
Wellington,
New
Zealand.
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22786579
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22786579