Transcription
Prime Minister’s Office
Melbourn
Tuesday 11 July 1905
Dear Old Joe/
You will no doubt be surprised
to hear from me after such a long interval. Just
a scrawl from one of your brat chick or
even kittens from the farm in good old Lock Street.
Well Joe first of all I owe you a thousand pardons
which I tender unconditionally. I am a rotten
tempered brute & I know it, but I am a worse
corespondent. But when I tell you that I have been
ill, very ill, given up three times that I have
suffered much & that I still suffer much & am but
a wreck of my former self without a chance of ever
quite recovering perhaps in the softness of your heart
you will be able to forgive me even. Could you have asked
me to tell you about my illness. I first got distention &
dilation of the bowels. Then lesions holding the lower
bowel gave way. This necessitated my going into a private
hospital. Here my Sympathetic nerve center collapsed. You
will have to ask a medical friend or consult a medical
dictionary to tell you what all this means unless Quinken
knows. Then they discovered I have an abscess on the prostate
that meant two operations without chloroform. Pleasant
it was Joe I can assure. I had however absorbed some
of the puss meanwhile they then found I had septic
poisoning. Then much medicine drugs [?] &
other undesirables. However it landed me in for
fourteen more weeks of hospital. When I at last got up I couldn’t
walk or use one arm. This they I only have four doctors
ascribes to weakness & bed loss of [power?]. Then when it
didn’t wear off I was sent away. While away I lost the
complete use of my legs & one arm partially. I was brought
back treated first for nerve & fibrous rheumatism & then
neurotic gout. I followed this treatment for week was
then quite helpless. Used to fall [?] down attimes &
lose some of speech & sometimes sight. Like a drowning
man I was ready to clutch to anything when told of
a French doctor-called him in. He couldn’t at first tell me
anything but put me under a course of treatment & then
delighted me by telling me I had partial paralysis,
that it will take him six months to give me relief &
18 months at least to quite fix me up if even he could.
Well Joe after seven months of it I have just came back to
work. Instead of weighting 13 stone I scale 10.3 & can
walk with difficult with just about enough strength to
lift a box of matches. They tell me now I can never be
quite well again & that it will be hard to say when I will or will
not have a paralytic stroke. Well Joe sometimes I say For Job’s sake
let it come soon & finish me, for suffer I do try as I may I
can’t rouse myself a bit. I am always down at the mouth
and have [?] the Spirit of a fly left. I just feel burden
to everyone & a greater one to myself. Generally a broken
down just a wreck.
Well Joe that is enough of that. Things otherwise
go one here much the same. It would take a
Japanese fleet or Russian Force to infuse any
life into the place. I doesn’t worry me anymore as I
can’t & don’t go anywhere. I moved back from St. Rida
to the United Service Club Hotel in [?] to
my surprised Charles followed soon after. He has
not changed any. His last outlet for himself is
physical culture, developing his biceps taking
lessons in horse riding. He goes to a school every
day & I think today was the first time he had been out
in the street. He remains the same dry old schick
Ever threatening to go Jay but)always without the
pluck to the requirements to venture.
May Beatty was here with Lauri & the other
members of Stepeuson’s Company recently for a four
weeks season. They didn’t do much. They played
Rose of Riviera [?] Bill Adauis & The
Skirt Dancers. They have just for the Cherish
Honeymoon from [?]. They opened with it in
Beudy’s on Thursday night. I saw Teddy in the
street also [?] just a word. Charles tells me that
May is fretting on account of Edward’s disloyalty
Still men were ever polygamists were they Joe
Don’t you think women are too?
Miss Crosely apparently was & is annoyed with me
She was living at the hotel when I went there, but never
saw or knew me. Still I survived it.
I have seen Berbie Griffith lately. He is much
the same still speaks kind of you. Well Josey
I am sorry you have been struck better luck
in the wonderful land. Still you say [?] have
booked up lake & I do sincerely hope you will
secure [shit?] better enjoyments as a result of the
opportunity. Do you think there is much chance that
Joe for getting off [?] written sketches & one
act plays. I am thinking of trying them in my
quiet moments to occupy my mind a bit. A man
who has just came out tells me Chippie is still in
America. The same informant told me Pringle’s
wife either had or was going to divorce him. That the
domestic house is quite broken up. I suppose you
know that Piddock sent for his girl & that she went
across to open a flower shop or cigar shop or some-
thing of the sort. “Calluis” is just as erratic as ever
some days pleasing some days cross. I should
just like to have that flying machine we used to chat
about & take myself over to you their is much I could
say to you & much more I would to ask you about
[?] write. Well Joe here is news for you. Perhaps
You will condemn me doing such a thing in my present
physical state. I am engaged to be married to a widow
with three children. She hasn’t [?] written have J.
just joined Stepheason’s Company in the chorus to start.
She has a good voice & a cultured musician. She insists
upon remaining on after we are married. We feel in love
at first sight months ago & neither was game to say so
until one day she came to see me in the hospital. I don’t
like her being with that company a bit, she isn’t exactly
pretty but has a charm of maners that is all her own
I don’t say this because she owns me but everyone she
comes in contact with says so. I wish you could meet
her. Who knows someday we may I hope so [?] more
now my old fat. God bless you both & may He send
you the best of luck. I’ll tell you one thing more.
I have reformed quite. Two thin have done it. First
my little woman- she is 32 & secondly my illness.
I believe now Joe there is a Omipotent One who
cares for us all. I am not going to preach. An [?]
now Best wishes to quiken & that you [?] both
strike prosperity, much happiness & all health is
the work [?]
Your cherub,
Hal Lewis