Trevelyan's address c/o G[ordon] Bottomley, The Sheiling, Silverdale, near Carnforth. - Strachey's article in last week's "Spectator" [see 26/12/5] gave Trevelyan much pleasure: it is a 'rare experience to be appreciated at once so generously and so understandingly'. Was very glad Strachey quoted the chorus on Man from the "Antigone", as he thinks his own 'somewhat dangerous experiment of trying to reproduce the Greek metre comes nearest to success' there. What Strachey says about his translation of Theocritus is also 'very gratifying': Trevelyan had worried that the 'expectations and the absence of rhyme in that metre would prove a stumbling block'. Expected that few people would agree with his comment about [Theocritus's] "Sorceress" being the 'greatest of love poems": perhaps he 'went too far', but did not intend to compare it with dramas, short lyrics and sonnets; even among long poems he admits Chaucer's "Troilus [and Criseyde]" and Marlowe's "Hero and Leander" could be argued to be 'greater'. Hoped to 'provoke dissent' but so far Strachey is the only critic to have challenged his assertion. Very pleased to find someone who understands and generally agrees with what he says about metre in "Thamyris"; thinks he could have been more convincing with more space for illustrations, and would also have liked to have given some examples of 'good and bad poetic rhetoric'. Has always thought Campion's ' "Rose-cheeked Laura" was a 'very remarkable invention"; Strachey may have noticed that he translated several Theocritean epigrams into it. Is himself 'no enemy of rhyme' but thinks there are 'great possibilities in unrhymed lyrical verse in English' which modern vers libre writers have not explored fully.
Note in pencil [in Nora Sidgwick's hand?]: 'By Henry Sidgwick according to [J] St Loe Strachey'.
Note in penci [in Nora Sidgwick's hand?]: 'Said by [J] St Loe Strachey to be by Henry Sidgwick'.
Copy letter from R. C. Trevelyan to John St. Loe Strachey about his review of "Thamyris", and Strachey's reply; two letters to Trevelyan from Gilbert Murray about "Thamyris", also mentioning Trevelyan's translation of Theocritus; press cuttings with reviews.
Note in pencil [in Nora Sidgwick's hand?]: 'Said by St Loe Strachey to be by H. Sidgwick.'
Refers to an article on Henry Sidgwick which appeared in the Spectator of 8 September, challenging the statement that Sidgwick 'carefully and conscientiously instructed', but that he did not inspire. The writer claims that he 'never heard, and can hardly imagine, a more inspiring teacher.'
Note in pencil [in Nora Sidgwick's hand?] that according to St Loe Strachey it was Henry Sidgwick who wrote the article.
Newlands Corner, Merrow Downs, Guildford; sent to Trevelyan c/o G[ordon] Bottomley, The Sheiling, Silverdale, near Carnforth. - Trevelyan's letter [26/12/1] gave Strachey 'infinite pleasure': likes nothing more than 'to do justice to a true scholar' like Trevelyan, and regrets true scholars 'get very little justice in the hurry and confusion of the Press'. Thinks Trevelyan was right to praise [Theocritus's] "Sorceress" so highly: it is a 'wonderful poem', and Strachey loves 'such challenges'. Would require a 'new symposium on the nature of Love' to respond properly, and suspects he and Trevelyan would really agree and 'cut the Sorceress out as leaning much to much to the merely animal side of the business'. Apologises for the 'trivial letter': he is going to America on Saturday so is busy with packing.
Refers to the letter to the Spectator of 15 September from 'M' [see 104/14], denying the accuracy of a claim in an article on Henry Sidgwick that appeared in 8 September, and suggests that the statements of the writer of the article and that of 'M.' both 'are true in one sense and false in another'. Claims that Sidgwick's genius was critical rather than constructive, and that his best sayings were amendments on the sayings of others. States also that he did not inspire, 'because his teaching was predominantly not the inculcation of any system - not even of utilitarian ethics - but the correction, limitation, co-ordination, or criticism of what had been more or less loosely said by others.' Adds that he did inspire many of those with whom he discussed the problems of philosophy, and especially on the philosophy of religious belief. Concludes that Sidgwick was inspiring as a philosopher, but as the exponent of a system he was not in the least inspiring. States, however, that 'the ethos exhibited in his own methods of inquiry and criticism, one it became fully apparent, was most inspiring.'
Wallington, Cambo, Morpeth. - Returns Strachey's 'fine article' [John St. Loe Strachey, "The Art of Poetry, Precept and Example", "Spectator", 5 Sept 1925, p 18, including discussion of Robert's "Thamyris, or Is There a Future For Poetry?"]; will read the three pieces he mentions from Theocritus again in Robert's translation. Aunt Anna [Philips] was here and read the article too; he and Caroline are both 'ailing enough to be much comforted by her presence'.
Newspaper cuttings with reviews, most sent to Trevelyan by Durrant's Press Cuttings Agency from: the Daily Herald; Birmingham Post; Scotsman; Observer [by J. C. Squire, also reviewing a book on poetry by Lascelles Abercrombie]; Glasgow Herald; Daily Express; North Eastern Daily Gazette; Daily Telegraph; Cambria Daily Leader; Nation and Athenaeum [by Vita Sackville-West]; Daily News; Saturday Review; Nottingham Guardian; Spectator [also reviewing Trevelyan's translations of Theocritus and Sophocles' Antigone and mentioning a republication of works on poetry by Samuel Daniel and Thomas Campion; see 26/12/1-2 for correspondence about this review]; Manchester Guardian; Times Literary Supplement [also discussion of works by Daniel, Campion and Sonnenschein]; Poetry Review [by Arthur Hood]; Outlook; Calendar; Adelphi; Clarion [by Thomas Moult]; Western Daily Press; Christian Science Monitor; Nation; Time and Tide [by Thomas Moult]; Nature; New Statesman [also discussing essays on poetry by Edith Sitwell and Robert Graves, by 'Affable Hawk' - Desmond MacCarthy, as is noted in an annotation]; Saturday Review of Literature; New Leader [by C. Henry Warren, also discussing works by Sitwell, Graves, and Abercrombie]; Fortnightly Review [by Robert Graves, on The Future of English Poetry]; Women's Leader & Common Cause; Glasgow Herald [re Graves' 'interesting reply to Mr Robert Trevelyan...']; Nottingham Guardian [also on the debate between Graves and Trevelyan]; New Age; and Richmond and Twickenham Times.
6 Oxford Terrace, Edinburgh. Dated 1st Nov. 1905 - Thanks him for the copy of 'Kingship'; enjoyed his visit to Oxford, is still thinking of reviving Bretschneider in some modernised edition; visited [Hope W.] Hogg in Manchester at Victoria University, which seems prosperous; has a note from [Joseph Shield?] Nicholson asking him to dine to meet [John St Loe] Strachey who is going to contest the University seat; has been golfing on the Braid Hills course; will send back the Bretschneider books soon; has to address a 'Literary Society' on the subject of Jupiter and asks for early literary references.
6 Oxford Terrace, Edinburgh. Dated 21st Oct. 1907 - Thanks him for the copy of 'Folk-Lore in the Old Testament' [in 'Anthropological Essays Presented to Edward Burnett Tylor']; he has enjoyed it and sends several suggestions for improvement, hopes it will be its own stand alone book; thanks him for his letter and hopes Herculaneum is being attended to; shares news of travels in the summer. With MS note at bottom, 'part of Anthropological Essays presented to Edward Burnett Tylor'.
Note in pencil [by Nora Sidgwick?]: 'Said by [John] St Loe Strachey to be by Henry Sidgwick'.