3 Hare Court, Inner Temple:- Is setting off tomorrow morning 'by the train de luxe', and will reach Florence on Friday evening; his address will be c/o B[ernard] Berenson, Via Camerata. Expects he will stay there over Christmas. Went to tea with Mrs [Helen] Fry last Sunday: she was 'still better than last time', and will 'leave Roehampton quite soon, possibly has already'. Will see Roger Fry this afternoon at Fry's lecture. Mrs Russell Barrington and her 'majority on the committee have behave[d] abominably to him in the matter of payment'; his solicitors say he has an 'absolutely safe case' if he choose to fight it but he 'does not want to have a row'.
Is glad his mother 'liked the wood-cuts'; thinks the 'round Shannons were the best on the whole' and bought two of them, the Pegasus and the Diver. Some of Robert's friend [T.S.] Moore's Bacchantes and Centaurs and his Wordworths [illustrations] were 'very charming in quite another way, and of course he is not so accomplished an engraver as the others'.
[Robert] Binyon, who 'should know as well as anyone' recommends Dyer of Mount Street, who 'looks after the National Gallery pictures' to 'varnish the Holl'. Supposes his parents are 'sure it wants varnishing': pictures are 'so often over-varnished now', but Binyon says Dyer 'would be quite certain not to over varnish it'. Will however ask '[G. L.] Dickinson's father' whom he will see later today and 'ought to know best, as he is a good portrait painter of long experience'; Robert also thinks he 'knew Holl himself'. Will let her know in a few days.
Encloses a review [of his book Mallow and Asphodel] from the Speaker, which is 'quite favorable'; is 'still waiting for a real criticism, favorable or the opposite', but supposes he is 'asking too much of Reviewers'. Hopes his parents are well.