| Description | 2 Holland Park Road
Dear Signor
I am very much disappointed by the account you give of yourself. I had hoped that this further spell of Brighton air would have set you up & restored your spirits as well as your general condition. I will take care that it is as you wish about your work in Paris (which by the bye looks uncommonly well). Nothing is yet settled about the Juries or the section as a whole complete. Meanwhile our show is very satisfactory & is much app[-]rated. Now I want you to ask Mrs Mary something from me. There is at this moment a movement in contemplation in which many well known women take an active interest. Women like Mrs Lynn Linton, Lady Alwyn Compton, Mrs Humphrey Ward, Miss Beatrice Patte, & which opposes itself to the attempt to obtain the suffrage for women - thereby drawing them out of the natural sphere in which they exercise such enormous & beneficial influence; a very temperate article in this sense is about to be published in the 19th C[en]t[ur]y and my sister, amongst others, is endeavouring to obtain signatures to it. Does the Signora sympathize with this view? If so my sister would send her a copy of the article so that she might see whether she was inclined to add her name to those already secured - of whom I have named a few. Knowles does not wish for many signatures at present but they should be representative - & if she is in sympathy would she, think you, enlist Lady Tennyson & Mrs Hallam Tennyson? The matter is pressing as all signatures have to go in by Sat'y & there are only very few copies of the article, as Knowles is most anxious that it should be seen by none but those immediately appealed to. If, I repeat, the Signora (to whom give my love please), is favorable perhaps she[-] would kindly to save time, send a postcard to Mrs Sutherland Orr 11 Kensington Park Gardens saying 'send article'.
In much haste
I am affec'ly
Fred Leighton |