Item 54 - Letter from Emmeline Pethick to F. W. Lawrence

1 folded sheet

20 Somerset Terrace, Duke’s Road, W.C.—Sends him an article on the matter they have been discussing. Is sure they understand one another, and that he will make no decision that is not based on his own conviction.

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Transcript

20 Somerset Terrace | Dukes Rd WC.
9. July 1900

Dear Mr Laurence.

I am sending you the reprint of the article from the Investors Review {1} which deals with the side of the question under consideration, which is of special interest to you.

There is just one thing that I want to say. By some instinct, which amounts to assurance, I feel that you & I as two human beings understand one another. I, for instance[,] understand that you will arrive at no decision that is not the outcome of your own conviction, based on your own careful investigations & study. While you understand that the one thing I should deplore more than anything else on earth would be the possession of any undue influence on another.

It is for this very reason—as you will see—that I told you the whole issue at the outset: to set you free, free anyhow, whichever way you should decide to deal with the question.

At first as I told you it troubled me to introduce these disturbing forces into your life. But now I seem to realize that all this has happened on a plane not controlled by our own will & choice[,] so that any sort of anxiety or trouble is—irrelevant.

My thoughts are often with you

Yours sincerely,
Emmeline Pethick

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{1} Possibly ‘The “Martial Law” Goad in South Africa’, Investors’ Review, vol. v, no. 30 (30 June 1900), pp. 882–3.

This description was created by A. C. Green in 2020.