Helen
Hunt Jackson 2-2-22 transcription
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Helen Hunt Jackson Papers, Part 2, Ms 0156, Box 2, Folder 22, letter
from Helena deKay to HHJ, 1872?
Dear Mrs. Hunt I stop sewing on my wedding dress to write! Doesn't that seem as impossible to you as to me? And when I count only fourteen days between me & the dark unknown land - for every land is dark if it is unknown - light is behind beyond - wherever is the foot of the rainbow - it is too strange - How little after all is anything except experience - words & sighs & even works are quite powerless to tell us realities. I have wanted to write to you ever since I read your lovely "congratulation." I think it is one of the most charming of your beautiful verses - but to me it is more touching than anything I have read or felt - it fills me with pain that you should be sad - & gladness that you should care so much for us. Thank you a thousand times. Think of my having you write about me three times. Isn't it an honor! When you come North we will be installed at No 103 E 15th St. A house all to ourselves to be sure but having been made out of a coach house. Consists of 2 big rooms & a unused stable below! 4 stalls in front is a border of flowers which the barber who lives on the corner takes care of & he always waters. An objection as to size convenience etc worth that - hence the enclosed ditty composed by R.W.G. That angel looks ill & worries me to death with eating & sleeping as if he were a goodsized [Java?] sparrow - I hope by a judicious course of nagging to reduce him to hygiene principles & the use of phosphates! Really our little place it is such a nice place & had - or rather is such a lovely studio that the traditional clam will be left high and dry - come & see us & lunch with us (I cant ask you to stay all night rules, the barber should I volunteer to take care of you - We propose to enjoy life - or perish. I'm awfully frightened about the 3rd of June. Pray for us & think of us all day long but especially at midday - it is not natural to either us to be so public. It will be a hard day - for it begins like a child - birth a whole life. Goodaye & love us always as you do now I am still Helena deKay
And they asked them such questions as: "Can II. Then their friends became sad and perplexed For although when the weather is hot "Though we breakfast on marmalade tea, Though absent are camel's hair shawls, May 1872 |
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