Letter fragment — reflections on temperament and the 'Philistine,' undated (page 2)
Book 1, Page 500 ·1900–1950
Transcription
[Continued from page 499.]
I do sometimes think of you with a most sensitive nature and a genuine feeling for “the better things” as suffering perhaps more from being shut off from those who understand than you even suffer from physical causes. I think of myself as finding it interesting to analyse and speculate from a distance, while you have actually to feel the hardness of it all. At the same time as I have indicated, I dont [sic] want to be condemning. I know that I have not been tested, that I have not had to feel that steady trying pressure which demands the making allowances, imagination, sympathy and forbearance. Miss J. had it to a remarkable degree, though even she like most mortals can break down and be “nasty,” but my life has evaded the test.
The H’s, those dreadful people, interest me greatly, and being one, my inclination is to find considerable good in them, and good of a kind I (being one of them) am incapable of wanting to exchange for any other kind. It is certainly true that they have not showed themselves very often as practical. I am sure they are Celts; they are said to come from Wales, and it is a Welsh nature
AI Notes
A second sheet of the same letter as page 499, in the same hand and ink. The writer continues philosophical reflections, addressing the recipient as ‘you’ and praising her sensitive nature. References ‘Miss J.’ (possibly Miss Jenkins or Miss Johnston) and asserts that the people under discussion are Celts said to come from Wales. Page is creased and stained. Continued on page 502. ‘shut off’ confirmed; ‘than you even suffer from physical causes’ (not ‘than you have actually to feel the hardness’) — restoring the missing clause about physical suffering; ‘I think of myself as finding it / interesting to analyse and speculate from a / distance, while you have actually to feel the hardness of it all’ (this paragraph reads as the writer reflecting on her own remote / analytical stance vs. the addressee’s lived hardship); ‘making allowances, imagination, sympathy and forbearance’ (not ‘inequities sympathies’); ‘The H’s’ — opening of a sentence about a family-with-initial-H (possibly the Hugers, Hutsons, or another Welsh-descended Charleston family); ‘being one of them’ (not ‘being one again’); ‘they are said to come from Wales’ (not ‘they are well to come’).
Continues on page 502.