MS West Devon Record Office Acc No 308: 13/12/44
My dear Anne
I know I ought to have written to you weeks ago, but really I cannot tell how to write, and I do not think you feel as if you could either, I am afraid there will not be the same freedom about our letters till we have met once more and as it were come to a little more understanding of each other as is only done by speaking.1 I can hardly enter into all you say about thinking it wrong to return to your former pursuits, for fear of weakening the impression you feel at present, for I should have thought the change of resuming them- as you must do some time or other, was more likely to weaken that feeling in the end, than beginning them now so that they would seem for ever to be linked with your present sorrow, the revulsion or change would be avoided then perhaps, but remember, I am speaking as knowing not at all by experience , and I am not at all sure that the best course in such a case might not be to do exactly what you would prefer not doing, to keep to reading and solemn pursuits if you felt inclined to the contrary, and in some degree to turn your attention to other things if you did not like doing so. One thing is that I dare say your letter gives one the impression of your being so much more so than you really are, and it was some time ago that it was written. However I should not wonder if I had much better have left alone all I have said as you have so many wise guides who can feel really with you at hand, only you know as I was answering your letter, I could not but in our old way tell you the impression it made upon me. Julian came home on Tuesday, looking very well and really grown, he hopes to go and see Charles on Tuesday. 2 I hope you are getting some nice long walks in this famous frost. Julian and I have had some fine ones already, and he has had some skaiting [sic]. One of the farmers here lost his wife a young woman of thirty six from a violent fever which one of the boys brought home from school, and the same week an old widow, the woman the Austrian rose belonged to, died suddenly when she was out walking. We are still very anxious about a little girl with very bad whooping cough, she caught cold in the midst and has been very ill these six weeks or more.
Mrs More has set the school up in warm shawls for the winter, does the winter fall very hard upon your poor people, ours are so well off as to have no one out of work. You should read Formby’s visit to the East in the Englishman’s library to compare it with John’s journal.
your affectionate cousin
CMY