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Yewbarrow, Grange over Sands. - Very glad to hear the "Annual [of New Poetry]" seems likely 'to be a going concern'; the suggested date makes it possible that Abercrombie may be able to write something, but he is going to Leeds to try and get munitions work which may 'hamper [his] fictive faculties'. Asks whether Bob has read Hume's "Treatise on Human Nature"; it is a 'great book' which he himself is in the middle of. The question of whether [Edward] Thomas will be included in the "Annual" remains: Abercrombie is seeing Gordon [Bottomley] this afternoon and will 'extract from him his definite opinion'; Abercrombie himself thinks that Thomas should be included, as his poems are certainly good enough, and he is apparently having difficulty getting them published elsewhere. Is also writing to Wilfrid [Gibson] to get his opinion; will tell him to send his own poems to Bob, and get [H. O.] Meredith and [Robert] Frost to send theirs too. Hopes [Henry?] Ainley will 'do his bit properly about Mrs Lear' [Gordon Bottomley's play "King Lear's Wife"]; appears he likes the play, but supposes he is 'water to rely on'.

(Place of writing not indicated.)—Relates an amusing anecdote of Oscar Asche ‘to illustrate the uselessness of trying to explain everything to the general reader’.

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Transcript

An anecdote to illustrate the uselessness of trying to explain everything to the general reader.

[I hesitate to pass this on—but the story has a moral. I can’t vouch for its veracity but it comes (at one remove) from a convalescent home in which a friend of mine was recently staying and was told there by Henry Ainley, also convalescing—I should add, in case you leap to the conclusion that I have very intemperate friends, that it was a gland operation my friend was recovering from.]

Scene: a theatre during rehearsals.

S.D. enter Oscar Asche {1} waving a copy of a play of Shakespeare’s.

Asche (in a loud voice)—I say Benson, there are a lot of words in this play I don’t understand. There’s this word ‘cuckold’ that keeps cropping up—what does it mean?

Benson (with memories of the precincts) If you will come to my room later I will explain it.

This sounds too good to be true, but it should warn you that you may not be able to explain evrything! Would you have foreseen and provided for this?

[Added on the back:] Something to read in the train which should show you that although I am not getting on very fast with 2 Henry VI, I am in excellent spirits!

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Typed, except the note on the back. The square brackets are original.

{1} Asche had died just a few weeks previously, on 23 March.