Letter from W H Field to Frances Hodgkins
Date
19 Mar 1892
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Object Detail
Date
19 Mar 1892
Transcript
Wellington 19 Mch 1892
Dear Fanny
I am rather an idiot at letter writing at any time, but never I think have I felt more awkward than I do at the very thought of attempting to convey to you my feelings of gratitude for the lovely picture you have sent me. I at once give up all thoughts of finding adequate words and simply say Fanny that I do truly and earnestly thank you from the bottom of my heart. I need hardly say that nothing you could have given me would have been more valued than this gift. I would not of course attempt for if you do there must surely be a brilliant future before you.
I wrote Isabel on the day Miss Holmes returned and said that I purposed looking round to see the old lady after dinner. My feelings were too strong for me however and I called at about 5.30 in the afternoon. It appears that your last words to Miss Holmes were something to this effect. ‘Oh well Miss Holmes if he does not like it you can have it’. She did not tell me this till after I had seen it and had expressed my opinion of it; but my exclamations on the first glance must have shown her most distinctly that all chance of her getting it was at an end. Between you and me, Fanny, I really believe [s]he had some hopes of [annexing?] it; though it seemed to me that the landscape by Gully which your father gave her ought to have more than satisfied her. What a generous creature he must be to have parted with that.
Well I must close this up and get on with one to my sweetheart. This I fear is a very lame sort of an epistle and it certainly cannot give you any notion how deeply grateful I am to you. You will have to try and consider as said a lot of pretty sentences that I should have said.
I was almost forgetting to tell you that as a kind of compromise I have allowed Miss Holmes to keep the picture in her drawing room for a time. Even this is giving up a great deal. She informs me today that she has already written you and Isabel. Accept my love and thanks and believe me to be your appreciative brother in future. W.H. Field
Dear Fanny
I am rather an idiot at letter writing at any time, but never I think have I felt more awkward than I do at the very thought of attempting to convey to you my feelings of gratitude for the lovely picture you have sent me. I at once give up all thoughts of finding adequate words and simply say Fanny that I do truly and earnestly thank you from the bottom of my heart. I need hardly say that nothing you could have given me would have been more valued than this gift. I would not of course attempt for if you do there must surely be a brilliant future before you.
I wrote Isabel on the day Miss Holmes returned and said that I purposed looking round to see the old lady after dinner. My feelings were too strong for me however and I called at about 5.30 in the afternoon. It appears that your last words to Miss Holmes were something to this effect. ‘Oh well Miss Holmes if he does not like it you can have it’. She did not tell me this till after I had seen it and had expressed my opinion of it; but my exclamations on the first glance must have shown her most distinctly that all chance of her getting it was at an end. Between you and me, Fanny, I really believe [s]he had some hopes of [annexing?] it; though it seemed to me that the landscape by Gully which your father gave her ought to have more than satisfied her. What a generous creature he must be to have parted with that.
Well I must close this up and get on with one to my sweetheart. This I fear is a very lame sort of an epistle and it certainly cannot give you any notion how deeply grateful I am to you. You will have to try and consider as said a lot of pretty sentences that I should have said.
I was almost forgetting to tell you that as a kind of compromise I have allowed Miss Holmes to keep the picture in her drawing room for a time. Even this is giving up a great deal. She informs me today that she has already written you and Isabel. Accept my love and thanks and believe me to be your appreciative brother in future. W.H. Field
Pages
4 pages
Institutional No.
MS-Papers-0085-47
Credit Line
Letters
to
Frances
Hodgkins.
Field,
Isabel
Jane,
1867-1950
:
Correspondence
of
Frances
Hodgkins
and
family
/
collected
by
Isabel
Field.
Ref:
MS-Papers-0085-47.
Alexander
Turnbull
Library,
Wellington,
New
Zealand.
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/23057236
https://natlib.govt.nz/records/23057236