Incomplete letter from Gertrude Bell believed to be to her father, Hugh Bell. Estimated to have been written in 1889.
About this item
51.495762, -0.158953
Transcription
[Letter incomplete] ….Friday to see her, but before Mother would come and see her on Sunday. On Wednesday evening Mother and I went to see the Doll’s House. We were very much struck by it. It is extremely good in some places and extremely bad in others, ludicrously and crushingly bad. But above all it is original, one had seen nothing the least like it before and I feel about plays that it is such a comfort to get out of the stereotyped [?] of plot – the husband and the wife, the [?] and the other young lady and all the other people who grace the English stage. The mere fact that the Doll’s House was new made it rather impossible to form a just criticism of it in one’s mind; one felt that one’s [?] of comparison was swept away.
Yesterday afternoon Mother and I payed [sic] a lot of visits; only Mrs Ward was at home and we stayed some time. I had a long talk with Gertrude Ward who is rather a nice little person.
I dined with Miss Croudace and was rather amused for she had asked my little Westminster boy to meet me – do you remember about him. He is now 16 and is certainly one of the most extraordinary people I have ever come across. He was very full of 16th and 17th century literature which he has been reading in the intervals of his work and which he really knows a very great deal about.
Mr Cornish was there to whom I talked about Turkey, Oxford and many other things. It is so odd to talk to someone who has been through the same wild[?]. One feels that quite involuntarily one’s mind works in the same way; [?]’s aphorisms, and Greek political philosophy coming silently to the front in all discussions on [?] and governments.
Miss Ward came in afterwards – that was delightful! Mother would like to come home for the first Sunday. Grandpapa goes [?] on the first I think so she proposes that you should go to Rounton together on that day, then you can arrange about the children. She is very busy writing a play for
letter incomplete]
Enhanced transcription
Evolving Hands is a collaborative digital scholarship project between Newcastle University and Bucknell University which explores the use of Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) and Text Encoded Initiative (TEI XML) to enhance cultural heritage material. In this project, we have applied these methods to a selection of letters from the Gertrude Bell Archive.