Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1427

Carbon of a letter to Mrs. Cyril J. Lycett, Beausale, Warwick, England

March 3, 1945

Dear Nellie:

     Such a long, long time since we parted by the park gate of the old Chamberlain place in Birmingham. We were such good friends — had been such good friends on two hemispheres — and it had been so good to know you. We both felt a sadness, not easy to express, that we might never meet again. Yet I knew that should we do so we could go on just as though there had been no break — a great warm satisfying friendship would spring into action again.

     I think we came easily to know of each other’s innate character and disposition, even more than real friends usually do. So I have felt pleasure without surprise, a kind of gratitude for having known you, each time I had news of the fine womanly and humanly creditable part you have played, in time of peace and in time of war. Few people have the fine emotional and artistic bents and at the same time an abundance of energy and strength to carry them out and the good brains to make them effective. In all the simple relationships that make up the fabric of life and foundation of all its beauty, my interior eyes have seen you playing your part simply and nobly and in the joy of your abundance of giving and doing in every situation you sought or that came to your hand. Whether as daughter, wife, mother (and more than most mothers to the many young whose minds and hearts you have nourished and inspired) or as steadfast friend, you have been a com­fort and a blessing, a fine example of human nature at its unpretending and worthwhile best. In time of peace no burden was too great and in the vast tragedy of war not all its terrors have dismayed you.

     So now that your earliest and oldest — perhaps the strongest — tie of your heart has gently and peacefully withered away, I know your moist eyes are still shining with the light of a love that flows on and on and will at last outlive you in the many lives who have caught its gleam and wonder from your own. There is a unity of spirit that makes all loving, all happy serving, all creative doing, one. We see it but fitfully, now here, now there, glowing in the commonplaces of the every-day and shining often brightest through the dark and gloom. Yet we know this silent bond that holds us firm united across the lands and seas can be no lesser tie between the seen and unseen worlds.

     These are my greetings to you, Nellie, in your time of sorrow — the benediction, best saying, of my heart to yours.