Letter from Frances Hodgkins to Alex Reid
Date
18 Jul 1940
See transcription
Catalogue number
FHL313
Date
18 Jul 1940
Transcript
Croft Thursday
Dear Mr Reid
My head is in the dust. I know all the things you said on receiving no answer to your letter but forgive me. I am ill again that rheumatism. I really have to take it seriously & do a cure. Am in bed for at least another 2 weeks enduring an intensive treatment & diet. It is monstrous hard luck. So ill timed & inconvenient, but I have someone to look after me & carry out doctors orders.
No doubt I shall soon be leaping from my bed & making masterpieces. In that hope please tell Miss Raymond she may yet get something with a little “magic” in it if she will be patient with me & keep hoping. I had already made 4 motifs based on the “Mimosa” theme when I was struck down. They may still be finished & sent you.
Thank you very much for lightening the burden of my liabilities to the gallery & for writing off my debt so generously. I am sure it is wise to thus end a contract that had become irksome to both of us, as Mr Macdonald once said “the worst of a contract is that it can last too long”.
I shall be very happy to let both you & the Leicester Galleries have my new work to sell on commission. It is cheering to hear you are keeping so calm & carrying on in spite of your anxiety. I consider you have had a great, very great personal triumph and are doing the right sort of thing, whatever you are going to do on Sundays. I read your letter in D Telegraph so I know!
I hope the next few weeks will not be as bad as we fear they may be. I hope & believe that we will all meet again and in peace. Till then I hope you will keep well & calm & carry on as well as you possibly can and I thank you & Mr Macdonald for all you did to make life pleasant & successful for me.
The nicest letter I have had from Lily & would like you to thank her for it when you write & say I shall be writing v. soon.
Excuse this pencil scribble
Yours sincerely Frances Hodgkins
P.S. Since writing this I have had a letter from Miss Raymond. I will write & explain the reason of the delay.
Dear Mr Reid
My head is in the dust. I know all the things you said on receiving no answer to your letter but forgive me. I am ill again that rheumatism. I really have to take it seriously & do a cure. Am in bed for at least another 2 weeks enduring an intensive treatment & diet. It is monstrous hard luck. So ill timed & inconvenient, but I have someone to look after me & carry out doctors orders.
No doubt I shall soon be leaping from my bed & making masterpieces. In that hope please tell Miss Raymond she may yet get something with a little “magic” in it if she will be patient with me & keep hoping. I had already made 4 motifs based on the “Mimosa” theme when I was struck down. They may still be finished & sent you.
Thank you very much for lightening the burden of my liabilities to the gallery & for writing off my debt so generously. I am sure it is wise to thus end a contract that had become irksome to both of us, as Mr Macdonald once said “the worst of a contract is that it can last too long”.
I shall be very happy to let both you & the Leicester Galleries have my new work to sell on commission. It is cheering to hear you are keeping so calm & carrying on in spite of your anxiety. I consider you have had a great, very great personal triumph and are doing the right sort of thing, whatever you are going to do on Sundays. I read your letter in D Telegraph so I know!
I hope the next few weeks will not be as bad as we fear they may be. I hope & believe that we will all meet again and in peace. Till then I hope you will keep well & calm & carry on as well as you possibly can and I thank you & Mr Macdonald for all you did to make life pleasant & successful for me.
The nicest letter I have had from Lily & would like you to thank her for it when you write & say I shall be writing v. soon.
Excuse this pencil scribble
Yours sincerely Frances Hodgkins
P.S. Since writing this I have had a letter from Miss Raymond. I will write & explain the reason of the delay.
Sender's address
Croft
Credit Line
E
H
McCormick
Archive
of
Frances
Hodgkins'
Letters,
E
H
McCormick
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Library,
Auckland
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Gallery
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