Robin Ghyll, Langdale, Ambleside. - As he and Janet have 'hoped and expected' for a while, Mary has got engaged to John Moorman, who came to Hallington for a week in August; they met in June, at the Cornfords' musical parties in Cambridge. He left Cambridge this year, having stayed after his degree to train as a clergyman, and is now a curate in Leeds; he studied under [George Gordon] Coulton, who 'thinks highly of him'. He is 'liberal-minded', and George has discussed religion and history with him 'with much agreement and no feeling of barrier'. Moorman is also a 'fine walker' and is 'small but wiry'; his father was Professor of English at Leeds, and his mother is 'much respected in academic circles', and matron of a University hall in Leeds; their closest family friend is [Arthur] Grant, recently retired from the History Professorship there, a 'first-rate man'. Moorman's 'most intimate older and younger friends are Bishop Wyld [sic: Herbert Wild, Bishop of Newcastle], who conducted George and Bob's parents' funerals, and his son [John?]; in fact his 'whole entourage and atmosphere is about equally academic and clerical'. Thinks he will suit Mary very well, though 'not many people would', so he and Janet are much pleased.
Aldeburgh - Shares his thoughts on reading 'The Worship of Nature': muses on the universe in his breakfast egg, refers to Barcroft’s lecture on the mystery of how eggs came into being; quotes the 'Punch' Einstein limerick; refers to Dr Gann’s discovery in the Yucatan, and Sir Aurel Stein’s excavations in Central Asia; doesn’t think they will strengthen Elliot Smith and Perry’s diffusion theory; refers to the festival of Ucharal as described in [Edgar] Thurston’s 'Omens and Superstitions of Southern India' and ‘droit du Seigneur’ in Coulton’s 'Medieval Village'. Mentions a fierce storm in November and subsequent flooding in Aldeburgh.
201 Chesterton Road, Cambridge.—Declines to contribute to the Review at present. Comments on McKerrow’s proposal to publish an aid to reading medieval Latin.
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Transcript
201 Chesterton Road, Cambridge
Nov. 27/24.
Dear Sir.
I am ashamed to have no better answer to your courteous letter than that I am overwhelmed with unavoidable work at present, & see no daylight. I have five volumes, the least advanced of them half-written, & the most advanced I am struggling to get into the Press before this term ends. That compels me to avoid all avoidable work until Easter next, at the very earliest, for I have promised two articles before Easter to two other publications. Otherwise I need hardly say that I would have done what I could for a Review which starts under the auspices you indicate. Believe me
Yours regretfully
G. G. Coulton
Dr R. B. McKerrow.
[Added at the head:] I strongly sympathise with the subject you suggest: but perhaps you have not noted that the S.P.C.K. published, about 5 years ago, a little handbook on Med. Latin in that cheap series of Aids to Students, or some such title.
St John’s College, Cambridge.—The earliest use of an Arabic ‘4’ he can trace occurs on a medal of 1417.
St John’s College, Cambridge.—A. C. Moule has discovered an Arabic ‘4’ in manuscript written at Padua in 1401.