Letter from Frances Hodgkins to Jane Saunders and Hannah Ritchie
Date
05 Sep 1922
See transcription
Catalogue number
FHL022
Date
05 Sep 1922
Transcript
Studio St Lawrence’s Street, Burford Oxon Tuesday
The bonnie heather sprig & yr two nice cheery letters has just come & I must send you a line while the morning is fresh & before the business of the day gets its clutch on me. It is difficult to stand clear of things & get detachment for either work or letters.
I have been up all night ? battling with a bat. It wouldn’t depart by the window nor the door – neither would it lie down (or up) & sleep & let me sleep. It got among the rafters. Well! Day dawned & it is still here but invisible. It has been an awful night. The white heather has come like balm of gilead. I will treasure it & I like to think it will turn my luck. Many thanks.
I am sorry you are having such abandoned weather. Well it is pretty unbridled everywhere as far as I can hear even down to the Spanish frontier. Sept has set in well with us & I hope with you. You want some scorching suns on yr moors to tone you up for the winter.
Don’t worry not painting – run wild on the moors & fill lungs with great breaths of that lovely clean strong air. It will put force & life into you worth more than gold. I read the Walenski article with much interest. He is far & away a more enfranchised critic than Roger Fry. He wrote for the Athenaum, but was possibly too strong a personality for the Editor’s taste (so I was told) & he was turned down & Roger Fry took his place. I met him once – a turbulent young Jew. He has said a few polite things about my work & one or two very rude ones about my hat. Still I don’t bear malice. He is an independent & iconoclast.
No time for a second sheet. This is just a warm greeting to you both. I am sorry that little sister cannot come but next year I will hope for her.
I have put someone in yr late room. There were enquiries for the 2 “sweetest ladies”.
So glad about Manchester – a promising start anway & very kind of Miss Burstah (?). Please thank her. Yrs affectionately F Hodgkins
The bonnie heather sprig & yr two nice cheery letters has just come & I must send you a line while the morning is fresh & before the business of the day gets its clutch on me. It is difficult to stand clear of things & get detachment for either work or letters.
I have been up all night ? battling with a bat. It wouldn’t depart by the window nor the door – neither would it lie down (or up) & sleep & let me sleep. It got among the rafters. Well! Day dawned & it is still here but invisible. It has been an awful night. The white heather has come like balm of gilead. I will treasure it & I like to think it will turn my luck. Many thanks.
I am sorry you are having such abandoned weather. Well it is pretty unbridled everywhere as far as I can hear even down to the Spanish frontier. Sept has set in well with us & I hope with you. You want some scorching suns on yr moors to tone you up for the winter.
Don’t worry not painting – run wild on the moors & fill lungs with great breaths of that lovely clean strong air. It will put force & life into you worth more than gold. I read the Walenski article with much interest. He is far & away a more enfranchised critic than Roger Fry. He wrote for the Athenaum, but was possibly too strong a personality for the Editor’s taste (so I was told) & he was turned down & Roger Fry took his place. I met him once – a turbulent young Jew. He has said a few polite things about my work & one or two very rude ones about my hat. Still I don’t bear malice. He is an independent & iconoclast.
No time for a second sheet. This is just a warm greeting to you both. I am sorry that little sister cannot come but next year I will hope for her.
I have put someone in yr late room. There were enquiries for the 2 “sweetest ladies”.
So glad about Manchester – a promising start anway & very kind of Miss Burstah (?). Please thank her. Yrs affectionately F Hodgkins
Sender's address
Studio, St. Lawrence's Street, Burford, Oxon
Credit Line
E
H
McCormick
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