George Llewelyn Davies to Sylvia Llewelyn Davies -

Description

Letter from George (aged 10) to his mother Sylvia, still recovering from the birth of Nico.

[No original available)

Transcription

Kirkby Lonsdale
December 24th, 1903

Dear Mother,
I hope you are getting better. Thank you very much for the pen and pencille. We are having some fine sport here. This morning Jack and I went down to the Lune. We were having fine fun, when we took it into our heads to go on the part below the brow. So thither we bent our steps. We were getting on all right, sliding, about but getting on towards the steps when Jack begins to slide! Suddenly it became a precipice about 12 feet high. Jack did this part with great alacrity. He stopped however and came down sitting about two yards from the Lune. He seemed a bit uncomfortable on his sit-upon.

Well, we climbed up and went in. Afterwards Aunt Margaret reported that Jack’s behind was rather rum. At about half past eleven we started for Job's Dub, missing, however, Jack’s company, he being rather uncomfortable still. So Father and I set out alone. We arrived at Job's Dub. Father undressed and had....

[rest of letter missing]

Peter's comments:

I’m sorry I can't find the second sheet on which this excellent ten years old performance was completed. The humorously pedantic style is most effective, and may have been a subconscious reflection of the precise diction of the vicar [i.e. John Ll.D.]; just as the popular spelling of “pensille“ probably resulted from the tireless but vain efforts of Margaret Ll.D. to make us pronounce as little inelegantly as possible. “Not pensle, George dear, pen-cil, “etc.

“I hope you are getting better” – i.e. no doubt after the birth of Nico a month earlier.

Only two years now before Theodore Ll.D. will take his fatal dive into Job’s Dub.

Note that A. bathed in that ice cold water on Christmas Eve.