Stuk 2 - Letter from Lucy Clifford to Frederick Pollock

2 folded sheets, 1 envelope

11 Portsea Place, Connaught Square, W.—Has sent for a copy of Little People, and will copy out the ‘lily song’ (see A2/7). Refers to aspects of her husband’s personality she would Pollock to bring out in his memoir. Has been trying to comfort herself with ideas of a future consciousness. Mrs Deffell is concerned that the Pollocks are not enjoying their holiday.

(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

11 Portsea Place. Connaught Square. W.
Weds night 16th Ap[ri]l

My dear Fred

I have sent for my copy of Little People {1}. Meanwhile I will copy out the lily song in case you want if from the MS copy he gave me because it has a little note which was too late to include in the book. I hope you are not working too hard. I am convinced I shall be the death of you because I keep thinking of more & more sides which I am anxious you shall bring out. I have been thinking now of how merry he was, how he liked to see his friends about him (he was always arranging little dinners & asking if we could not afford “a little party” & you remember his bachelor parties.) And how simple & how happy he was & what a ringing laugh he had with a little shout at the end. There was such a wonderful light & life & brightness ab[ou]t him.

I often think of his glee when he came home from the Metaph: {2} if it had been a good night & the Bishops had appeared & he had been in good form how he w[oul]d not only tell me everything everybody had said but mimic the manner in which it was said. We have sat over the fire & shouted with laughter when he added ridiculous little tags of his own on to what had been really said. The last time he ever went he spent all the money he had on the way (he dined at the club first) & when he was at the station coming home found to his dismay he had’nt† a penny. Lord Arthur Russell turned up so he borrowed a 1/– took a ticket & “paid back 6d on account”.1 It will be good for people to see his brightness & spice of wickedness. I should be so sorry if they thought he always lived at high pressure like a prophet—it w[oul]d spoil his humanity.

It seems as if one could say too much ab[ou]t him—too many things that were good. I have been thinking such wild things lately and—supposing for a moment there is after consciousness—wondering if it could be possible for many forms of intellect & beauty to take refuge in one physical frame until they made up a perfect whole worthy of standing alone; so that Willi represented the former consciousness of many & is after all living still or carrying on in some other world what is first going on in this—the survival of the fittest. You see this differs from the old transmigration idea (the Buddhist &c.) because it makes only the best & greatest, i e the strongest, survive, & even these are grouped after the fashion of the atom & molecule theory—it is that over again until the higher type is formed. It would quite account for his many sidedness, his many forms of greatness imperfect only from accident or physical restraint.

I think I shall set up as having invented a new religion. You cannot think how well it works in many ways. It would account for the dim remembrance of things we have never consciously seen which sometimes flickers across us. What a comfort the flicker would be a sign we were working upwards. Then (in old days) the population question frightened me so when I thought of the people that had been pouring into the unseen world since we first became me. It gets rid of this—the weak & useless & so the majority die out, are lost in the struggle for existence yet we sh[oul]d all believe our own people immortal—is it not Darwinian? It gives no excuse for persecution or priesthood and has many other sides all of which I have arranged most carefully. I don’t know where my unknown world is to be because I know nothing about Space or what my immortals (they need not even be immortal) are to do, the higher type would find the higher worlds—which of course would still be progressive. Of course I know it is all nonsense & I know it all ceases with the circulation & that the brain & nerves & grey matter & all that makes our consciousness dries up and there is no more life left than in spoilt quicksilver or mercury, but one tries to comfort oneself with any madness.

Mrs Deffell came yesterday. She said Georgie had sent her “a charming letter” but she (Mrs D.) seemed much concerned ab[ou]t your holiday & drew a tragic picture of you writing & Georgie sewing & the rain raining & nothing going on but the bill. I wonder if Jack’s toes are visible yet. I fear the poor little chicks are not getting much good out of the country in this wretched weather.

Now I will take my chloral which I have reduced from 22 to 16 grains as an experiment & go to bed. Goodnight my dearest Georgie & Fred

Y[ou]r loving
Lucy Clifford

Willi often used to say “be free” at the end of his letters, he said it was an old form & much better than goodbye which was full of superstition.

[Direction on envelope:] F. Pollock Esq | Royal Ascot Hotel | Ascot

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Black-edged paper and envelope. The envelope was postmarked at London, W., and at Staines and Sunninghill, on 17 April 1879. Letters missing from words abbreviated by superscript letters have been supplied in square brackets.

{1} The Little People, and Other Tales (London: Chapman and Hall, 1874), a collection of fairy stories by Lady Pollock, W. K. Clifford, and W. H. Pollock.

{2} The Metaphysical Society.

† Sic.