LAST LOVE LETTER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22391, 11 April 1936, Page 5 (Supplement)

LAST LOVE LETTER

f POETESS TO HUSBAND A poetress lay dying. She knew it, and decided to write a last love letter to her husband, to whom she had been married for more than twenty-seven years. The poetess was Mrs. Charlotte author of sixteen books and famed for her .travelling exploits. She died at her home in Tulse Hill, London, recently. / . Here is part of the love letter, a moving document, many pages long. It was dictated to Mrs. Mansfield's nurse, Miss Trusler, who cared for her devotedly during her last long illness: My dearest "Wladi" — I wanted to write a letter full of thanks for all your love and kindness, but 1 feel that I have left it too late. I appreciate your day and night attention and devotion. It all proves that we have always been greater pals than most married people. I can't say these things—tho emotion is so bad for me —but I should like every one to know that such love is wonderful and ever-lasting—until after death. I cannot talk more. Nurse has set down what I am telling her. . . .

Lieutenant-Colonel W. R. Mansfield, to whom tho letter was addressed —his wife was' too weak to sign it —stated to an interviewer: "She was a wonderful. woman. Brave, generous and unfailingly kind."