letters of note
george harrison
antonia white
30 Dec
Likes
Clean clothes… Being out of debt… Sitting at café tables… Starting a relationship… Decorating rooms… Nice surprises… Sound of crockery when someone is getting tea for me… Receiving love letters… Summer and summer clothes…
Hates
Feeling fat… Dirt, especially in my clothes… My mother’s sweetish corruption… Cold and draughts… The hours between lunch and tea… Meeting people in the street unexpectedly… Being pregnant… Crossing roads… Cheery people… Cold tea… People who gush at me and don’t really like me… Finding people out when I phone them… People who automatically ask first ‘How are the children?’ Talking politics…
WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO HAPPEN
Tom to fall in love with me… To be clear once and for all of the Catholic Church…
..........
2/16/1820
essayist sydney smith to lady georgiana morpeth
Nobody has suffered more from low spirits than I have done—so I feel for you.
1st. Live as well as you dare.
2nd. Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold, 75° or 80°.
3rd. Amusing books.
4th. Short views of human life—not further than dinner or tea.
5th. Be as busy as you can.
6th. See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you.
7th. And of those acquaintances who amuse you.
8th. Make no secret of low spirits to your friends, but talk of them freely—they are always worse for dignified concealment.
9th. Attend to the effects tea and coffee produce upon you.
10th. Compare your lot with that of other people.
11th. Don’t expect too much from human life—a sorry business at the best.
12th. Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholy sentimental people, and every thing likely to excite feeling or emotion not ending in active benevolence.
13th. Do good, and endeavour to please everybody of every degree.
14th. Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue.
15th. Make the room where you commonly sit, gay and pleasant . 16th. Struggle by little and little against idleness.
17th. Don’t be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice.
18th. Keep good blazing fires.
19th. Be firm and constant in the exercise of rational religion.
20th. Believe me, dear Georgiana, your devoted servant, Sydney Smith