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Written from Fosdyke, Spalding, Lincolnshire.

107 Barcombe Avenue, Streatham Hill, S.W.2 - Two letters seeking a chance to meet and get advice on research fellowships in the field of folklore. Asks him to attend a social at the London Folklore Club before Frazer's lecture at King's College, Strand.

Contents of Synge's envelope so inscribed divided into three for ease of reference:
A/119: 'Living Stuff', 6pp typescript of lecture by F.G. Hopkins; typescript and duplicated typescript notes on isolation of organic compounds
A/120-121: Manuscript and typescript notes on the literature, latest bibliographical reference 1932.

199: 10 Aug 1910, containing copies of Hon. V. A. Bruce's school reports from Eton (dated 'Dec 1910' - actually 1909?).
223: 10 Nov 1912, with Henry Babington Smith's draft telegraphic reply
224: 12 Nov 1912, enclosing copy of letter from the Earl of Elgin to L. V. V. Harcourt

Announces that he thinks he need not dine at the Savile Club on Wednesday, and that he has arranged with [Charles Kegan?] Paul to 'drop in there about 6.15, see O[ ], and ask him to one séance', after which they can decide if they will go on with him. Tells Myers to arrange for him as he finds fitting.

Presented to H. M. Butler. Photograph by Maull & Fox, London

Park Lodge, Wimbledon, S.W.—Transmits Nichol Smith’s reply.

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Transcript

Park Lodge, Wimbledon, S.W.
9 Jan. 1924

Dear McKerrow

I enclose Nicol† Smith’s reply. {1} I have written to him that I was forwarding it to you with the suggestion that you should write direct if you saw fit.

I expect to be home again about Tuesday. {2}

Yrs
W.W.G.

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{1} MCKW A3/11b.

{2} 15th. Cf. MCKW A3/12.

† Sic.

Title written by hand below. Reference number '13' included in print at bottom right.

Her name is mis-spelled as 'Edith' in the label beneath the photograph,

Lee House, Montreal, Canada - The Rev. William Leach has requested WL to recommend to WW an application contained in the accompanying letter [see WL to WW, 5 March 1859]. Dr Leach is a canon of WL's Cathedral and Professor of Logic and Moral Philosophy in McGill College.

Oakley House, Caversham Hill, near Reading.—Thanks her for her kind letter, and asks whether she might pay her a visit on Saturday.

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Transcript

Oakley House, Caversham Hill, nr Reading

My dear Mrs Clifford,

So many thanks for your dear, kind letter. May I come in and see you very early next Saturday? Will ten be too early. There are so many calls to be made that it is difficult to fix on a more convenient time. But if my coming, for an hour at that time would put you out at all please send me a card by return, and kindly say what hour that morning is the earliest that will suit you.

Pray do not trouble to write if I may come at ten.

With much love,
Ever yours affectionately,
Ellen M. Watson

The British Academy, Burlington Gardens, W.1.—The Council of the Academy have resolved to propose McKerrow for election as a Fellow. Asks if he is willing to become one and observe the regulations.

(A printed form, filled up by hand; with an envelope.)

Washington Irving Hotel, Granada.—Modifies his previous remarks about the Spanish people. Describes a case of murder at Granada, and refers to the prevalence of violence in the province as a whole. It is expected that there will be a revolution soon. Gives a brief opinion of the Alhambra. Asks about Pollock’s work, and suggests he translate Spinoza.

(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

Washington Irving Hotel. Granada. Thursday Aug 3.

You are quite right, and one ought not to despair of the republic. These folk are kind and rather pleasant when one is en rapport with them and they have a deal of small talk. We found a jolly old couple one morning when we were coming back from a hot walk in the Vega of Almeria (vega = cultivated plain surrounding a town, which feeds it); we asked for some milk which they had not, but they gave us a rifresco of syrup and cold water, not at all bad, and the old woman showed Lucy all over her house while the man smoked a cigarette with me. Lucy’s passport is the baby’s portrait, with which she gains the hearts of all the women and most of the men. What made it more surprising was that they took us for Jews. Wilkinson, our consul at Malaga, who has been here with his wife and daughter (awfully nice people and cheered us up no end), says that the country people are better than those in the towns. But although we have been nearly a fortnight at Granada, only one murder has been even attempted, so far as I know, within 100 yards of the hotel. A had been making love to B’s wife, and so she was instructed to walk with him one evening under these lovely trees. She took occasion to borrow his swordstick and stuck him in the back with it while her husband fired at his head with a revolver. One ball grazed his temple, and another went in at his cheek and out of his mouth carrying away some teeth & lip. He came round to the spanish hotel opposite and was tied up on the doorstep; they dared not let him come in because the police are so troublesome about these affairs. The defence was that A was a republican and had been a Protestant; so you see B’s love of order was such that he did not think jealousy a sufficient justification. Wilkinson had just received a report of the last quarter of /75; in those three months there had been only a few more than 400 murder cases in the whole province of Granada. The hot weather seems to try them; a paragraph in the Malaga paper, headed Estadístics de Domingo 30, gives 15 cases of shooting and stabbing last Sunday in Malaga, but only 5 appear to have been fatal. This is not assassination, but is merely an accompaniment of their somewhat boisterous conviviality; they get drunk together and then draw their knives and go in for a hacking match. It is not even quarrelling in all cases; in Granada the other day three men shut themselves up and fought till they were all dead. They may, to be sure, have disliked each other mutually all round, but I am inclined to think it was a party of pleasure rather than of business. They do not attack strangers in this way (i.e. with knives and revolvers) unless, of course, there is a reason for it; but when anything offends their delicate sense of propriety one cannot expect them not to shew it a little. Thus they threw stones in Seville & Cordova at a lady who is now staying here, because she went into the street by herself, and they do not approve of that. I am afraid my Norfolk jacket hurts their feelings in some way, but they have been very forbearing, and have only stoned me once, and then did not hit me. Another time a shopkeeper set his dog at me, but although this was rather alarming with temp. 92° in the shade, it must have been meant as a joke, for Spanish dogs only bite cripples of their own species—except, indeed, the great mastiffs that are kept to bait bulls that won’t fight. Of course one is not so insular as to think there is only one way of giving a hearty welcome to the stranger; and the “’eave ’arf a brick at ’im” method is improved by variety. What generally happens is this; the grown people stop suddenly at the sight of you, and wheel round, staring with open mouths until you are out of sight; while the children, less weighted with the cares of this world, form a merry party and follow at your heels. When you go into a shop to buy anything, they crowd round the door so that it is rather difficult to get out. The beggars come inside and pull you by the arm while you are talking to the shopman. I have invented a mode of dealing with the crowd of children; it is to sit on a chair in the shop door and tickle their noses with the end of my cane. I fear that universal sense of personal dignity which is so characteristic of this country is in some way injured by my familiarity; the more so as it cannot be resented, for the other end of my cane is leaded, and I do not try it on in a macadamized street. Anyhow they go a little way off. In Malaga the people seemed more accustomed to the sight of strangers, and contented themselves with shouting abusive epithets. {1} It seems our dear Castelar will have another chance soon; everybody says that there will be a revolution before long, as the Queen will be at Santander before you get this, so that Alfonso may be shot before we are out of the country. If so, the Barcelona papers will be amusing. No doubt the whores of Seville are making ready to give a right royal welcome to the veteran head of their profession; the question is, will she get so far? If Castelar returns to power, I hope among other little reforms that he will prevent the post-office officials from stealing letters for the sake of the stamps on them; it is a great interruption to correspondence and must be a laborious way of earning money. One of them was caught in Malaga because a packet of letters which he had thrown into the sea was accidentally fished up; but he was shielded from punishment by the authorities.

We are very happy here, with a Swiss cook and an Italian land-lord; there are some English, Germans, and Italians staying over the way, and in a few minutes we can be among the memorials of a better time. I am too tired now to talk about the Alhambra, but it seems to me to want that touch of barbarism which hangs about all Gothic buildings. One thinks in a Cathedral that since somebody has chosen to make it, it is no doubt a very fine thing in its way; but that being a sane man one would not build anything like it for any reasonable purpose. But the Alhambra gives one the feeling that one would wish to build something very like it, mutatis mutandis, and the more like it the more reasonable the purpose was. Moreover I think it must be beautiful, if anything ever was; but then I have no taste.

Will Marcus Aurelius be out in September? {2} I wish you had been going to lecture for Domville on Spinoza. Why not make a new CCenary {3} English translation, and let me put in a short dissertation on modes and on modern ontology? I think MacM. would like it much, and philosophy is popular just now. Best love & kisses to Georgie & Alice. I am very glad you are going to Devonshire; my small sisters have become thorough connoisseuses of babies.

Thy
Willi

[Direction on envelope:] F. Pollock Esqr | 12 Bryanston Street | W. | London. | [In the top left-hand corner:] [Inglate]rra {4}
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The envelope was postmarked at Alhambra, Hotel Washington Irving, Granada; at Granada on 3 Aug. 1876; at Estafeta de Cambio, Madrid, on 7 Aug.; and at London, W., on 9 Aug.

{1} ‘But although we have been … epithets.’ This passage has been marked off in pencil.

{2} An article by Pollock entitled ‘Marcus Aurelius and the Stoic Philosophy’ was published in Mind in January 1879, but the connection between that article and the work mentioned here is unclear.

{3} i.e. bicentenary. Spinoza died in 1677.

{4} Parts of the envelope have been torn off, including part of this word and the stamp.

(Sheffield?)—Sends further notes on Nashe.

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Transcript

Dear McKerrow,

I am reading Nashe again.

Some of these ideas probably occurred to me before—& were communicated to you—I must apologize if so.

GCMS.

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This brief letter and the accompanying notes (MCKW A2/11b) were probably written not long before 20 October 1912, when Moore Smith referred to their contents in a postcard (MCKW A2/15), clearly expecting them to be easily identified. But as the statement with which the letter begins appears to indicate that Moore Smith had begun reading Nashe again after a break, it presumably precedes his letter of 28 September (MCKW A2/12), which also contains notes on that author.

Labelled 'Professor Grote'. Ink and wash sketch of Trumpington Church drawn directly onto the album page above.

Translated by Alan George Ferrers Howell, and transcribed by his wife Anne, 'with Additions, alterations & corrections in his own handwriting', as recorded by a note on the title page, first volume. Contents page at front of each volume.

Bound by Whitelaw and Fensham, Tudor Street, E.C.

With elaborate title page: 'La Villeggiatura di Maiano, Ossia l'Illustrazione della medesima e delle sue adiacenze insieme con lo schiarimento d'alcuni punti d'Istoria di quel Paese e della Città di Firenze, e con annotazioni topografiche, ed altre riguardanti le opere e la persona di M. Giovanni di Boccaccio da Certaldo'. Index of contents, with page numbers, on pp. 3-7.

Note at end of manuscript: 'Copia estratta da un Manoscritto esistente in Casa Gherardi, favorito dal Sacerdote Francesco Mencheraglia'.