Item 89 - Copy letter from Virginia Woolf to R.C. Trevelyan

Monk's House, Rodmell, Lewes. - Returns Percy Lubbock ["Earlham", see 17/88] with thanks. Cannot make out why 'in spite of every appearance to the contrary' and Logan [Pearsall Smith?]'s recommendation, she thinks it 'a thoroughly bad book'. Percy is 'obviously intelligent, scrupulous [a long list of his virtues follows]' and his style is 'by no means despicable [another list of virtues follows]'. Suspects there is 'something hopelessly prosaic, timid, tepid, in his goal. The spirit of Earlham is undoubtedly the family butler'; detects a 'conspiracy to misrepresent the human soul in the interests of respectability and... of the defunct Henry James' and wonders why Percy, 'who is comparatively young' has ended it; it makes her 'long for glaring suburbs, brass bands - Brighton Piers'. Acknowledges she exaggerates, but it is strange how good and bad the book is; wonders whether 'Percy himself is corrupt'; has just met him. She and Leonard return to Richmond on Monday, and hopes Bob and Bessie will soon visit; wants to discuss his Aeschylus [translation of the "Oresteia"]; accepts his spelling of 'quire'. Would not 'yield to Logan. If he thinks "Earlham" a masterpiece, he is not to be trusted about the letter K'. Hopes Robert is writing a poem; is 'dipping into "Georgian Poetry [1920-] 1922"' [edited by Eddie Marsh] and getting 'bored to death with apple trees and acorns'. Notes in a postscript that she and 'Bertha Ruck' are now 'great friends' [Berta Ruck was offended by Virginia's near-use of her name on a tombstone in "Jacob's Room"]; 'Tom Gaze [a typing error for Tom Gage, another tombstone name?] turned out to be Lytton [Strachey]-Carrington'.