Partie 1 - Letter from M. F. Latham to Nora Sidgwick

1 doc

She and her family 'always considered Mr Sidgwick, when [they] were all young together, as the most lively, interested talker' they knew. Remembers a visit he made to them as an undergraduate [in 1858], when he stayed some time, 'joined in everything the family did, and... made everything he joined in more amusing'. He suggested they 'should get up Tableau vivants'', proposing 'Sleeping Beauty' for her, and saying that Miss Tawney - her sister-in-law - 'would do excellently for the beauty.'

Relates another incident during the same visit in which she went to the drawing room to help her mother receive some callers 'and saw at the other end of the room Mr. Sidgwick asleep in an easy chair, dressed in an Afghan costume of white felt belonging to [her] father, and wearing the fur cap belonging to it', with a sleeping kitten asleep on top. Declares that he was such a charming visitor, 'always amusing and always making himself at home with [them].'

Part transcription in Sidgwick, Arthur, and Sidgwick, E. M, 'Henry Sidgwick'. London: Macmillan, 1906, p 366-367.