Thurlby Hall, Newark - EB returns George Green's memoir - 'altered and freely cut down, as yourself and Mr Murphy were so obliging as to suggest'. EB considers WW 'our sole calm examiner' on Political Economy, but 'was disheartened by 'Definitions come last', yet this is merely to say, that analysis precedes synthesis'. Under the title of 'Heresies' EB gives two kinds of Rent - 1. Of consumption and 2. Rent from capital invested: 'The equation has two roots, like the two spheroids of equilibrium, one the active speculating Rent of high let land, and the other the passive slovenly Rent of land underlet - the conditions of the Labouring Class depends on the number of farms sufficiently large to employ labourers. Parishes split into pieces are always at war with the poor, as each man is sufficient to labour his own land, and does not employ a labourer without compulsion'. EB claims that the word capital should be replaced with 'Productive Power, land, labour, machinery, money etc, all having distinct 'Laws' - It is incorrect to think labour alone productive'.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Surrey - Now has the bark from Mr Honey which looks like Erythrophloeum, but is still waiting on the specimens from the others; re: Mondjo, they have failed to trace this name and speculates that it is 'Datura fastuosa' collected by the Swiss missionary [Henri] Junod for [Hans] Schinz.
9 [?] St James Sq. - Condolences on the death of Lady Houghton; ventures to write a note of recommendation for a young man who is 'the son of M. and Mad. Favre who saw Lady Houghton at Geneva...' as Houghton may 'like to be kind to people who took such a friendship for her on so short an acquaintance'; he can easily write that he is out of town if it is an inconvenience.
Postmarked Maidstone. - Sends 'a scribble' for correction; no need to send a proof as he does not return until Thursday.
'The Emotional Basis of a State'
'Providence'
'Platitudes'
Based on a lecture presented at EBD@50, the international meeting in Oxford to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the first publication on the Epstein-Barr virus by Sir Anthony, Bert Achong, and Yvonne Barr.
Bess Rosenthal died in 1971 but the family continued to write to 'dear Uncle G'. Bess Rosenthal was Stephanie Taylor's sister. and there are also letters from her sons Michael, m. Margaret, Mark and their children.
Short obituary, by 'a correspondent' [Frazer].
2 Fenchurch Avenue, London - Offers his congratulations as an old Larchfield boy who has followed Frazer's career; has a distinct memory of Frazer as the Doge of Venice in the Town Hall at Helensburgh.
Pensione Palumbo, Ravello, presso Amalfi. - Has not heard from Fry for a while: hopes Helen and Julian are well. Description of 'a Julian at the hotel': Julian Cotton of the Indian Civil Service, honeymooning with his Neapolitan wife [neé Gigia Riccardi Arlotta]. Other guests are Kershaw and his friend Perry, an ex-actor; 'the Lapchinski', who luckily only came for a week; and [William] Wyse of Trinity, an Apostle who has been forced by ill health to give up work for a year. Goes every day to the Cimbrone, passing Fry's old studio, and has overheard prayers there as if to 'rid the room of... some devil who has...haunted there since you painted him in your picture of St Antony'. Taking tea today with Mrs Read [sic: Mrs Reid, widow of Francis Nevile Reid of Villa Rufolo]. Bessie is learning Latin and Trevelyan is rewriting the old play 'which sent [Fry] and Helen to sleep once'. Has heard nothing from Johnson about "Polyphemus" and only seen two reviews. Bridges wrote him an appreciative letter, though he did not like the Faun's song or make much of the irregular metres. Will probably stay at Berenson's on the way north; asks if he and Fry might meet around Florence. Fry should read Defoe's "Moll Flanders", which is the best novel in English. Bessie is now reading "Robinson Crusoe" to him as a 'shaving book', which is also excellent.
18 Mansfield Street, Portland Place, W.—Is unable to lunch with him as she is going to a wedding, but invites him to see her later. Asks if he has remembered Sylvia. She enjoyed last night and admires his house.
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Transcript
18 Mansfield Street, Portland Place, W.
Friday
I stupidly forgot, when I asked you to lunch, that I was going to a wedding in the afternoon which starts at 1.45 {1}. I am so sorry. Will you come in the afternoon or to tea? Let me know if you will come. Have you remembered Sylvia?
What fun we had last night. I think your house quite lovely, you have been disappointingly successful and independant†.
Venetia
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{1} Probably the wedding of William Ormsby-Gore and Beatrice Cecil, which took place at Westminster Abbey on the afternoon of Saturday, 12 April 1913. Venetia attended both the ceremony and the reception afterwards at 20 Arlington Street. See The Times, 14 April, p. 8.
† Sic.
(Dated Friday.)
Peterborough Deanery. Requires him to have measured the frontage of a cottage in Harrow owned by him.
Turf Club, Cairo. Dennis [Robertson] visited DAW, deep-seated animosity between G H Hardy and G T Lapsley, Lapsley will make a good tutor.
The Manor House, Garsington, Oxford. - 'No, no! my dear Trevy, I'm shocked. Such / ribald verse as you sent us / Is alas! to [sic] often admired / For me to admire it....' Criticises Trevy for 'burlesquing.... a man of genius, in / his moment of sentimentality' and feels a 'sense of moral indignation'; 'desire to be read and / the need of appreciation' are very poor excuses. Turns from 'the parodist of today' to the Trevy he 'loved long ago, a grave / And traditional poet'.
Flora's postcard came when he was away for two months in the north, but he still should have replied sooner. Does indeed remember the 'expedition from Burrows Lea with the Russells to Leith Hill Tower'; he must have been about six, and chiefly remembers eating 'as many bilberries as [he] could' and being 'shamefully sick'. Would like to visit her soon, but they have guests at the moment; would much like to see Flora's French [lead] soldiers. She may have heard that Julian and Ursula have had a son, Philip, and all seems to be going well; Erasmus, his middle name, is a Darwin family name.
Newnham College, Cambridge. - It is not 'black ingratitude' which has kept her from thanking Trevelyan for the "New Parsifal"; she wanted to wait until re-reading it before writing, and 'simply hadn't a moment' until term ended. Then she re-read it with 'much delight'; thinks she enjoys it 'more read to herself', and hopes this is not 'rude!', since she has time to 'savour' it. Thinks she still likes the parodies of Yeats and Masefield best, as she senses Trevelyan enjoys writing them; hopes Masefield did not mint -'but he cldn't!'.
Witte Huis. - The mild weather has turned to an 'old fashioned winter' so Arend [her son] has gone skating at Vinkeveen. Jan [her husband] has not yet been skating, but will do so when it turns less cold. He has been for a short stay in Mürren and Lauterbrunnen [Switzerland] as chef d'équipe of the Dutch students skiing group. Julie Graffman [her daughter] is staying here at the moment with her youngest child Sture; Holger [Julie's husband] is coming in about four days and they will all then travel to America. Six architects have also been staying, one of them Lucia [another daughter]'s husband [Van Ginkel]. Two of the architects are English - John Voelcker, and Peter Smithson, who knows Julian and 'thinks highly of him' - they are leaving tomorrow. All the architects love the Paddestoel [Lucia Hubrecht's house] and also think the Witte Huis 'very charming': how her aunt Bramine and Alphonse Grandmont 'knew how to live!', though she herself would like to be in Sicily [where Bramine Hubrecht and Alphonse Hubrecht also had a house] now for the winter. Sends her own love and that of Jan, who is sitting by the fire downstairs reading to Julie, Lucia, and the wife of a friend of Arend who works at the United Nations in America. Tante Liesje [?] is 'the same & well looked after'.
Contains: poem, "October", by V. S. Wainwright; "Remembered Meals" by Max Beerbohm; poem. "After the War", by Christmas Humphreys; poems, "Can We No More" and "The Anatomists", by Denton Welch; "A Duel in Green Park" by S. S. [Sylvia Sprigge], about Count Vittorio Alfieri.
St Mary's Hall, 22 King's Parade, Cambridge - has a portrait of his mother over his desk, he is now treasurer and librarian of the Institute at St Mary's Hall, recommends Walter Pater's "Imaginary Portraits".
Typed copy. Shepheard's Hotel, Cairo. Pleased at fellowships for Neil Adam and John Burnaby, Cairo preferable to Alexandria, visit to a native village.