Showing 4 results

The Shiffolds. - Still having fine weather, 'after just enough rain to keep us from being quite dried up'. Julian is well, 'enjoying his holidays, and also looking forward to his journey North'; Robert thinks him 'both stronger and less nervous than last year'. Bessie is currently reading him Gulliver's Travels, which 'he enjoys a great deal'. In the evening they read Emma, as Johannes Röntgen and his fiancée Miss [Julia] Fentener van Vlissingen know enough English to understand most of it'; they have just reached 'Mr Elton's declaration, which is a supreme piece of comedy'.

On Sunday Austin Smyth, 'the House of Commons librarian', is visiting; he is a 'first rate Aeschylean scholar', and Robert is going to discuss 'various difficulties in the choruses of the Choephoroe with him'. Has now finished his translation, apart from 'these choric passages, where the text is despairingly corrupt'. Hopes to come to Wallington a few days later than Bessie and Julian, on the Tuesday.

The Shiffolds. - Hopes his parents had a comfortable journey to Wallington. Bessie's nephew Johannes Röntgen has now gone to Geneva to see his fiancée; they will both come to the Shiffolds in August for a visit before the Trevelyans go north. Robert and Bessie are therefore 'mostly alone for some time', until Julian returns from school, where he now seems 'quite happy'. Bessie intends to visit him at the end of next week.

Asks if his father has 'ever looked into the fragments of Euripides'; says they are 'more extensive and interesting than those of the other two [Aeschylus and Sophocles]', mentioning Phaethon and Hypsipyle. Can 'understand the Orestes being so popular. The characters, however unpleasant, are wonderfully drawn, and there is a good deal of grim humour'; it also 'must have been very splendid and effective on the stage'. He and Bessie have just finished Pride and Prejudice; likes Elizabeth [Bennett] 'as much as any of [Austen's] heroines. She is certainly the wittiest'; suspects she is 'more like Jane Austen herself than any of the others'. If he remembers correctly, Milton 'preferred Euripides to the other tragedians'.

They are 'anxiously waiting for the rain, which is badly wanted', as it is elsewhere. Sends love to his mother.

The Shiffolds. - Thanks his mother for her letter; Bessie had to go to London on Tuesday as her tooth-ache worsened, but has not been troubled with it since. They are going to London on Tuesday with Johannes [Röntgen], who is going to see his fiancée [Julia Fentener van Vlissingen]; they will go to the Russian Ballet in the evening with Oswald Sickert and his wife, who are back from Spain. As Julian seems to be 'quite happy and getting on well [at school]' she will not visit him this week.

Hopes his mother's journey to Wallington will not be 'too uncomfortable'. Will write to his father soon. Bessie sends thanks for her letter, and 'for the French book, which she will read'. The weather is 'very lovely... not too hot. But the Country wants rain very badly'. Johannes' visit has been 'very pleasant, and it has been good for Bessie to have someone to talk Dutch to, and to play music with'. He returns with his fiancée in August. Donald Tovey has 'not appeared again', nor have they heard 'how things are with him'.

Merton College, Oxford. - Notes in the address that he is at the Congress of Universities, 'all incontrovertible talk & academic millinery'; his hired gown is 'a most appetising strawberries-&-cream affair'. Is 'very unsettled in plans and mind'. Unlikely that he will be able to get to the Shiffolds again this summer, and is going to try to organise time abroad from which he could come back at once if necessary. Dr Haydn Brown is sure he can cure Grettie if she will see him, and Tovey must do what he can to accomplish this; her relatives are 'quietly behaving in the most abominable way'. Has got a letter from her aunt Mary which will justify him 'in the most drastic measures which may be necessary' to keep the family away if Grettie ever returns. They deny she has been ill, except as a consequence of Tovey 'being impossible to live with' and claim that he is trying to 'get her shut up on false imputation of insanity'. However, all documentary evidence shows only his 'loyalty and care for her reputation as well as her health'. They support 'poor G.'s ravings', which alarmed the Principal's wife so much that she did not invite him to a recent lunch of Deans of Faculties, and told Mrs Morley Fletcher why. Tovey feels the 'only salvation' for his wife is to spread the story that what she says is 'the delusions of a fever' so it will be forgotten when she is cured, whether she comes back to Tovey or not. Asks if Johannes [Röntgen] has gone to Switzerland; he may possibly go there himself, and if so hopes to see Johannes and 'the future Mrs J.R.'.