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Welcombe, Stratford on Avon. - Will be glad if Bob sends on the "Unità" [Italian journal edited by Gaetano Salvemini]; read the leaders in the first two numbers with 'great interest' and shared the point of view. Grateful to Miss [Violet?] Paget. Looking forward to Mary [his daughter]'s visit to the Shiffolds.

2 Cheyne Gardens, S.W. - Thanks Bob for "The Bride of Dionysus": has read it with 'the greatest delight' and thinks it easily the strongest thing he has published, except perhaps "Sisyphus" which was very different. Also likes the short poems and the [translations] of Lucretius and "Attys" [Catullus 63]. The "Bride" is the 'only good libretto' he has ever read. Thinks Bob's conception of Dionysus is 'right, certainly legitimate and successful'; Will A[rnold] F[orster] says that Bob and Vernon Lee 'had a royal row over it'; as far as he can tell Bob is perfectly entitled to portray the god as 'more dignified and fundamental than Titian's Bacchus'. Very much hopes that the opera can be performed.

Basset Down, Wroughton, Wilts. - Thanks Bob for the book ["The Bride of Dionysus"], and wishes he could have stayed in London to do so in person; thinks it 'so fine'. The 'operatic convention' has made it very concentrated - 'every line tells' - and the 'long delay' in preparation has given it 'that last "trade-finish"', so as George was saying recently it is the only libretto ever 'that was moving by itself'. Comments on 'what stuff Vernon Lee did talk about the Dionysus business'. Thinks it will be a 'tremendous climax', with the audience so excited that they 'forget to fuss about opera cloaks and all that'. Asks how everyone is, and how Bob's new book is going; hopes the British public will 'play up'. Is going back to Monte Fiano for a year from 1 June, so has been 'having a rampage and seeing lots of people before retiring to [his] wonderful hermitage'. Asks whether Bob will be in London on 20 or 23 May. Wonders if Bob got his last letter and call at 2 Cheyne Gardens; left a parcel for him there.