2110-2-2-5

[ST: Lady Mary wife of Gilbert Murray our wedding day was July 13]

[postscript:] I hope the Southwold tray is pretty.

Private

Brackland Hindhead

July 14. 09.

My dear Susie

I think your wedding-day is tomorrow and I am so sorry that neither of us can well be there. Will you give your Husband (of tomorrow] our warmest greetings & congratulations and our most affectionate good wishes?

And, tho' I know you so little -

may I assume the privilege of a friend of his boyhood, & of the mother of a nearly grown up daughter (!), and say to our friend's Bride how happy we feel sure so loyal and strong & imaginitive a man will make her, and how much we hope - I hope as a woman - that she will feel the things that matter and the things that don't matter and be always a loving & an understanding wife to him.

Things won't always go straight! You will have pain physical & mental to bear, & you will often need patience & perhaps he will need patience, & perhaps you will even make each other jealous & not always want the same things - and, most of all, the love that comes with the years won't be the same as the love of today & tomorrow, but if you are both wise & patient

& always full of sympathy & always looking at your life together in the light of its shortness and, as I said before, of the things that matter, then I am sure the happiness & the trust and the understanding will grow always more & not less. That is my sincerest wish for you, dear young friends - It is taking a liberty to write to you so, but, amidst the gladness of preparations for a wedding there

is so much that, to me, rings hollow. It is not all merrymaking & congratulation one needs, but also the grave "God-speeds" of older people who know that this new life - of all others - needs the self-control and wisdom & thought which only the years well lived can wholly bring. I hope very, very much, that all happiness will be yours -

Yrs affectionately

Mary Murray.