Letter from Hattie to Clara, October 25, 1889

Letter from Hattie to Clara, October 25, 1889

Letter writing; Extended family; Scrapbooks; Heaven; Women authors

Harriet has been busy writing letters trying to get through ten a day. She writes some to their family: Uncle Wheeler, Aunt Mary, cousin Sarah, Aunt Mason and Aunt Noyes. Miss Butler and Miss Lewis are making scrapbooks and coming across old newspaper articles. Miss Bulter read something of Frances Willard's pen about the afterlife and the value of human life.

Noyes, Harriet Newell

The College of Wooster, Special Collections, Noyes Collection, Box #4

Unpublished

1889-10-25

Council on Library and Information Resources Hidden Special Collections Grant

PDF

eng (English)

Text

noyes_c_cor_441

Macao China
Oct 25th 1889.
My dear Clara -
I have succeeded
in grinding out four letters
to-day and now it is half
past three .I wanted
to write ten letters every day,
while I was down here
and then I should begin
to feel a little written up.
I have just been writing to
Uncle Wheeler + Aunt Mary
and to Cousin Sarah . I
would like so much to
hear from them all but
do not expect that they
will write to China. But
I hope that you will hear
from them occasionally +
that so I may learn of
their welfare. I suppose
little Aunt Mary is living on

all the same growing thinner
and thinner. I must
try and write to Aunt
Mason and Aunt Noyes.
How soon the three that
are left of the generation
before us will be gone .
I commenced letters to
the Westmoreland cousins
Sept 16th and I will finish
them . More than a year
they have lived without
Uncle . Miss Butler and
Miss Lewis are looking over
a great quantity of old
newspapers and cutting out
articles for their scrap books
and one or other of them
finds some thing every few
minutes to read aloud. Miss
Butler read this morning some
thing from Frances Willard's
pen . It seems of a family

circle of five only she and
her mother eighty-four years
old still remain and she
commenced the article
"How strange it seems with so
much gone . Of life and love
to still live on". and then
wrote that although the
light heartedness of earlier
years was gone . they were
"blessedly content to await
the developments of time
and eternity". that is the
frame of mine in which
I trust we all are .Henry
spoke the other evening when
we called there of Pres Culter
who had gone to take change
of Biddle University and said
that he Pres Cutler said that
he saw so clearly now that,
all that life is of value for is
to do what good we can to others.

I often think almost with wonder
how one by one we travel over
the same roads and arrive at
the same conclusions . How soon
it will be three years since Mother
went home .I wonder how it seems
to you now. I was thinking this
afternoon how as the years go by
you will grow accustomed to the
home without Father and Mother
perhaps to some extent but to me
it will seem as it did when I
left always till I come home
again . and then I shall feel
set back to that time .I am
knitting a shawl for Miss Butler
and thinking all the time of the
one I meant to knit for Mother
and did not . What a satisfaction
it would have been to me during
all the years that remain if I
had only done for her all that
was in my heart to do during those
few months that include all
the opportunity I had .But
it is comforting to think how happy
she has been during all these months.

[Note: Letter concludes sideways on page one]
It is after
four o clock
and I must
stop writing
and change
my dress.
Is is a
rainy afternoon
but I
always like
the rainy
days -
With much
love ever
your aff
[u]Hattie[/u]-



中国澳门
1889 年 10 月 25 日。
亲爱的克拉拉——我今天成功地写了四封信，
现在已经三点半了。
我想每天写十封信，
而我在这的时候，
我应该开始感觉到写了一点。
我刚刚写信给惠勒叔叔、玛丽阿姨和莎拉表妹。
我很想听到他们所有人的消息，
但不要指望他们会写信给中国。
但我希望你能偶尔听到他们的消息，
这样我就可以了解他们的福利。
我想玛丽小姨妈的生活还是一样，
越来越瘦。
我必须试着写信给梅森姨妈和诺伊斯姨妈。
我们前一代剩下的三个人多久会消失。
我从 9 月 16 日开始写信给威斯特摩兰的表兄弟，
我会写完的。
他们已经一年多没有舅舅了。
巴特勒小姐和刘易斯小姐正在翻阅大量的旧报纸，
并为他们的剪贴簿剪下文章，
他们中的一个或另一个每隔几分钟就会找到一些东西可以大声朗读。
巴特勒小姐今天早上从弗朗西斯·威拉德的笔里读到了一些东西。
似乎一个五口之家的圈子里只有她和她八十四岁的母亲还活着，
她开始写一篇文章“这么多的人走了，
这看起来多么奇怪。
生活和爱情还活着”。
然后写道，
虽然早年的轻松愉快已经一去不复返了。
他们“欣然满足于等待时间和永恒的发展”。
这就是我相信我们所有人的框架。
那天晚上，
当我们打电话给那里的时候，
亨利谈到了Culter总统，
他去 Biddle 大学换了班，
他说Cutler总统 说他现在看得这么清楚，
生命的价值在于尽我们所能做的好事给别人。
我常常想几乎想知道我们是如何一个接一个地走在相同的道路上并得出相同的结论。
母亲回家多久了。
我想知道你现在感觉如何。
今天下午我在想，
随着岁月的流逝，
也许在某种程度上，
你会逐渐习惯没有父亲和母亲的家，
但对我来说，
这似乎就像我总是离开时一样，
直到我再次回家。
然后我会感到回到那个时候。
我正在为巴特勒小姐织一条披肩，
并一直在想我打算为母亲织的那条，
但没有。
如果我在这几个月里为她做了所有我心中想做的事情，
包括我拥有的所有机会，
那么在剩下的所有岁月里，
我会感到多么满足。
这几个月她一直在。
[注：信在第一页横着结束]现在是四点多，
我必须停止写作，
换衣服。
是一个下雨的下午，
但我总是喜欢下雨天 -
非常爱你
海蒂 -

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