Item 233 - Letter from Henry Sidgwick to F. W. H. Myers

1 doc

Announces his intended movements over the following days, which include remaining in Margate until the following Tuesday, lunching in London, travelling to Harrow, staying with [Auberon?] Herbert in London, travelling to Wellington College [to see the Bensons], staying with Trevelyan at Weybridge, and travelling to Roden Noel. States that after 24 [June] he heads for Cambridge. Asks Myers if he intends to go to Miss Bonham Carter, and hopes that they [Sidgwick and Myers] shall meet.

Hopes that his ['____'] was effective, and states that he 'found it a pleasant Summer Beverage.' [Note in Myers' hand states that he cannot remember to whom Sidgwick refers]. Claims that Myers' 'emotional dissipation' fills him with 'entertainment, envy, amazement and certain sympathetic gloomy forebodings...' In relation to his work on philosophy, states that he thinks he has 'made a point or two about Justice', but that the relation of the s[exes] still puzzles him. Asks if the permanent movement of civilised man is 'towards the Socialism of force, or the Socialism of persuasion (Comte), or individualism (H. Spencer)?'. Quotes in Greek from Euripides' Bacchae 333-336: 'εἰ μὴ γὰρ ἔστιν ὁ θεὸς οὗτος, ὡς σὺ φῄς/παρὰ σοὶ λεγέσθω...' [Even if he is not a god, as you say, call him one...], adding 'This is not what the Devil says now, but something much subtler in the same style'.

Part transcription in Sidgwick, Arthur, and Sidgwick, E. M, 'Henry Sidgwick'. London: Macmillan, 1906, p 268-269.