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Transcript

St Martin’s Lane
July 17. 1817

Dear Sir /

Mr Delahante left a female head by Greuze with a request I would pack it, and send you, I have this day forwarded it and hope you will receive it safe, hoping you and family are well concludes me

Dear Sir
ever Sincerely yours
W. S. Woodburn

P.S. I have got the fine sketch of Rubens (formerly Delahantes) the Triumph of Religion, you once had an inclination for it, if you have a wish to possess it, I should feel inclined to place it in your Collection on easy terms as I am going to Italy and wish to dispose of as many Pictures as possible previous to my Tour.

Laity Water, Torrington. - Thanks Bob for sending a second copy [of "From the Shiffolds", see 17/203]; has two friends he wants to lend it to 'in succession'. Bob is right to say it is a 'difficult time to feel creative in'; human live is a 'frightful and appauling [sic] prospect'. Asks if Bob has seen a book he recently read which 'throws a little light': "The Fear of Freedom" by Elrich [sic: Erich] Fromm, which he discusses in detail. It shows that 'the sado-masochistic symbiosis... is not only peculiar to Germans, but is lurking in all of us' and that 'further repression is not the cure for people who have lost their power to spontaneous action'; finds it most interesting that 'the Germans themselves have anticipated and lamented over the course of their national development', such as Holderlin, Heine and Nietzche; feels that 'super-human daimons are stirring, and like Saturn are devouring their own children'; asks Bob if he knows Rubens' picture on that theme. However, 'poets still write', and he often finds that old poems 'retain all the wonder' they had in his youth; thinks Meredith and Whitman 'just as charged with wisdom as ever they did', and that there are 'ways of real emancipation' for individuals. Would much like to see Bob's essays ["Windfalls"], and thanks him for offering to send them. Is sending the book to which his "The Leaves Return" is a sequel.

Cards featuring reproductions of paintings and drawings from his collection depicting Rubens' "The Beautiful Gate of the Temple", Ghirlandaio's painting of the Virgin and child, Bernardino Luini's "The Virgin & Child - with St John, St Francis & St Catherine of Siena."