35 Lansdowne Rd, London, W.11 (using headed notepaper for 9 Stanhope Street, Hyde Park Gardens, W.). - Good of Trevelyan to remember him and send his poems for Christmas [this year's "From the Shiffolds"], which he has read 'with great interest & pleasure'. Sends best wishes for the New Year to Trevelyan and his family. They have not met for a long time and he wishes they could do so, 'but in war almost all good things are impossible'.
Letters from Oscar Browning, Sir Geoffrey Butler, H. M. Butler, Randall Davidson, Lord Durham, George W. E. Russell, G. P. Gooch, J. L. Hammond, R. G. Longman, Charlotte Lilas Ramsay, George Trevelyan and including a letter to Gordon Butler from A. W. R. D.
32 Aubrey Walk, London, W.8. - Very kind of Trevelyan to send his 'little book of Poems' [this year's "From the Shiffolds"?] which he has 'read & enjoyed... very much'; will put them on his bookshop with others of Trevelyan's, and 'besides many other works of [Trevelyan's] Family'. Sends best wishes to Mrs Trevelyan.
The Shiffolds, Holmbury St. Mary, Dorking. - Expects his father is currently alone at Wallington, unless Molly and her children are there. Bessie thought of coming north for a while next week, when his mother returns, but now the weather is cooler and Julian seems so well there is 'no need to do so', and they will all come up in September as originally planned. Julian 'walks about a good deal now, and seems to enjoy life'.
Tovey is coming to the Shiffolds at the end of the month, and 'hopes to finish the main part of the score of our opera [The Bride of Dionysus] while he is here in August; he has 'got on very well with it lately'. 'Young [Robert?] Longman' advises him to wait until next spring to publish his new book of short poems and translations, since it is 'rather late' now to get it ready for the autumn.
Bessie is about to take Julian to Dorking 'to get his curls cut'; Robert is 'rather sorry, but they seem to be too thick for this hot weather'. He and Bessie have now 'got into' the eighth volume of Frederick the Great, and will be sorry when it is finished - unlike Carlyle, who seems never to have enjoyed his task during any of the years he spent over it', or would not admit it if he did. Robert is reading 'the parallel years in Froude's Life and Letters'
Sends love to Molly and the children.
Longmans Green & Co Limited - In reply to hers, they are sending [J. D.?] Krige's book for Sir James; only two partners remain from the last generation of the family and they no longer work with them, only two members of staff remember those great days.