Item 228 - Letter from Henry Sidgwick to F. W. H. Myers

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Announces that Stirling is not to stand [for the post of Knightsbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy], and that therefore he shall; predicts that if either Venn or Pearson are elected, his days in Cambridge 'will be brief', if he can believe 'sufficiently' in himself or his work - 'Otherwise Cambridge is a comfortable hospital for maimed intellects and carrières manquées'.

Tells Myers to write and give him 'the next chapter of the romance.' [Note in Myers' hand suggests that this could be a reference to The Fair Tasmanian ]. Reports that '[p]oor Jebb is in influenza in Ireland.' Reports that Miss Thackeray was very hospitable to them at Freshwater, and describes how she acted in her role as hostess. Adds that 'as the immortal Swinburne said to [him], a man's Best is his real Self and it is only a Philistine who judges him by anything else'.

ADD.MS.c.100/229: - MS parody of Tennyson, entitled The Modern Ulysses, which may well have been sent with this letter.

Part transcription in Sidgwick, Arthur, and Sidgwick, E. M, 'Henry Sidgwick'. London: Macmillan, 1906, p 262.