Arthur Llewelyn Davies to Margaret Llewelyn Davies

Description

Letter from Arthur Llewelyn Davies to his sister Margaret, 27 March 1890

[No original available]

Transcription

34, Craven Terrace. Wednesday.
27 March, 1890

My Dear Margaret,
I must send you a line to thank you for your most kind and delightful letter.
Sylvia was very much moved by all the letters that came this morning. I don't know what her answers were, but she says they were very stupid and did not at all express what she feels. She reads Mother's through again and again, and speaks of her in a way that would satisfy Mother's children - even Crompton could hardly beat it. It is her greatest wish to please all of you.
As time goes on I feel more and more that my proposal was a leap in the dark, only justified accidentally by the qualities I have since discovered in her. Sylvia shows always a tenderness and fearlessness and obstinacy that delight me, especially as they are so full of cheerful, self-deprecatory humour. I have not yet persuaded her to do anything she does not wish either by persuasion or by vehemence or by any kind of artifice that I can command. She absolutely refuses - for some reason which I don't understand - to come with me to Kirby, but undertakes to follow on the next day. So I think it will be Monday or Tuesday.
I seem to have fallen in love with her since we got engaged.
I don't think she would care for a vote.
We take the situation cheerfully as a rule, and are at one about outward demonstrations in public.
Your affect. brother,
A.Ll.D
I met Haldane at dinner tonight, and we compared notes.

Peter's comment in his family "Morgue":

The delightful little vignette of Sylvia which this letter contains makes one regret all more that there is so little that is at all detailed about her in any of his letters which survive.
I believe I am right in saying that one of the things Sylvia would not be persuaded by any artifice to do, was to accompany Arthur to Liverpool, or to contemplate for a second setting up married life there.