Item 133 - Letter from Sophie Weisse to Elizabeth Trevelyan

1 item: letter with envelope.

18 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh, At the Sign of the Edinburgh Review. - Finds it increasingly hard to write about Donald [Tovey]'s death, and her 'sense of wrong' grows increasingly bitter. Was 'hardly ever alone with him', except when people came to see Lady Tovey; she found him once, near the end, 'alone with [Beethoven's] Missa Solemnis on his lap - weeping', looking at his hands and hoping that they would sing it for him at Edinburgh. He could not hold a pencil, but kept saying that he had 'a Violin Concerto quite ready in his head'; the 'dear boys', Robert Bruce and another, tried to take it down for him but it was impossible. On his last day, she aw him for a short time on the morning of his last day, but could not return until the evening since as usual Lady Tovey slept from two till five in his bedroom; that morning when she asked him what she should bring him he replied 'quite clearly and distinctly: "Something wonderful and beautiful". When she returned in the evening, they told her he had died. Asks if Bessie knows where young Nurse Monks is, since she would very much like to know exactly what Donald's death was like. The copy of the "Missa Solemnis" [by Beethoven? see 8/132] was one she gave him when he was thirteen. Funeral service in St Giles 'very beautiful and moving', and the church was crowded. Is agonised to think of 'these desolate years' in which she 'saw the inevitable ruin coming and could do nothing... to try and save him'. One of Donald's colleagues, the Professor of Astrophysics [William Greaves?] said that he 'could have filled a chair of astronomy perfectly'. She got Frank Newall to procure a telescope for Donald [as a boy]; wishes she had it 'in some worthy place', but unfortunately it is at Hedenham.

Note on envelope - in Elizabeth Trevelyan's hand? - reads 'Donald's death reported by Miss Weisse and The Nurse [Jean Monks]. Envelope found with 8/146, but addressed in Sophie Weisse's hand with postmark matching this letter.