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18 W 32 N St, New York. - There was a slight error in the address of Procter's letter, so Sherwood has only just received it. Cannot immediately send Lord Houghton's last letter to his son, though she has always intended to do so; 'it is a most precious autograph, written but a short time before his lamented death saying that he hoped to assist at Westminster Abbey at the services in honour of General Grant'. Many of Lord Houghton's other letters contain 'gossiping details of great persons', which he wrote to her in confidence 'with permision to use them "after everybody was dead"'. Intends to leave them sealed and directed to the second Lord Houghton.

Lord Houghton always showed 'a curious literary and intellectual interest' in her; he told her 'many good stories' which she thinks he meant she should 'incorporate later in some sketch of himself'. Is very glad to have seen him with Lady Galway at Rome in the winter of 1884; 'her devotion was beautiful'. Glad Mrs Procter sees 'so much of Mr & Mrs Phelps, we are very proud of them'.

Torquay.

Tasner's address is given as Pest, with the instruction 'ask address at Casino'.

Eton College - ECH looks forward to seeing WW and Cordelia Whewell on the 18th of May. If Lord John Russell is not careful with regard to his investigations concerning the University, he will 'excite a spirit of extreme dislike to his government in a Body of very great and very just influence in this country'. ECH is delighted to hear that Sir James Stephen's lectures are so popular. He has just received a paper outlining a series of charges against JS's opinions on several mysterious points. 'Stephen is the best of men, and it is nothing but his boundless love for all that is good among men of various sects and opinions that has led him to assume a latitudinarianism in his Essays which, I believe, greatly exceed his private convictions'.

(Shanks’s article is headed, ‘Professor A. E. Housman Dies, Aged 77. Wrote “A Shropshire Lad”.’)

Letter from Jane Harrison dated 1 May 1896.

Manchester. - Houghton's offer to approach Sir Henry Storks about a position in the Control Department will be of great value; believes he has been bypassed owing to lack of influence; present post in the Pay Sub-Department was a temporary measure and never intended to exclude him from the Control Department.

90 Eaton Square. - Governor Mathew wrote in November that he understood Grattan wished to exchange his Consulate for another post; if so he suggested discussing the matter with Milnes.

2 Park Street - Could Mr Bancroft, the newly arrived American Minister, attend the celebrations surrounding the tercentenary of the foundation of Trinity College?

The White House, Tite Hill, Englefield Green.—Sends what she has done with 1 Henry VI, Act I. The queries need revision, but give an idea of her difficulties.

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Transcript

at The White House, Tite Hill,
Englefield Green. Surrey.
1 May 1936.

Dear Dr. McKerrow,

Herewith what I have done with I Henry VI Act I. I am not really satisfied with the result and if I had not said I would put it in the post this evening I would have kept it as I am quite sure that my list of queries and questions would be the better for revision. I have put down all my first impressions and the wheat still needs sifting from the chaff, so if any suggestions I have made seem to you, at first glance, silly please don’t try to find some sense in them—there mayn’t be any! My notes and queries may, however, give you some idea of the kind of difficulties I have met and if I get those which are likely to recur straightened out I don’t think I shall need to bother you for some time. I should be very glad if I might have these papers back some time so that I can revise them when I have a better sense of perspective and wider knowledge of analogous cases.

Yours sincerely,
Alice Walker.

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Typed, except the signature.

Sure SS was wise to give up farming, Spain "very much like India in all sorts of ways", wishes to visit Australia

Malaga.—Lucy has been seasick. Discusses the religious situation in France, and deplores the effect of the Church on the character of the Spanish people. They have no definite news about the war.

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Transcript

Malaga.—Saturday 15th July—1876

My dearest Fred—You can’t think how glad we were to get our letters the other night. I thought my poor child would have gone crazy when we were kept rolling about in mid mediterranean and missed the boat from Almeria here. She got so weak from want of food and sickness that she fancied all sorts of things, and dreamt she had to leave the baby at 3 minutes to 9 on the 7th of July. The only thing she would touch at last was a couple of boiled eggs, because it seemed improbable that the filthy Spaniards could have got at the insides. The Pall Mall budget {1} was a great boon, and now an Englishman who feeds at the hotel has got me into the Círculo Malagueño for 8 days; it is a decent club and has a good many papers. I was amused at Greenwood’s remarks about Clémenceau and the religious irreconcileables—they are the pink of propriety and circumspection. He is no doubt right so far as he goes in calling it an “exaggeration” to attribute all our misfortunes to the Catholic Church; one might as well say the whole of our mortality comes from small-pox. But he is wrong in thinking that French liberals in the country are still to be “frightened” by statements of that sort; they are made daily, with more force and circumstance, by at least one paper in every town which is large enough to have a paper at all, and the Church is associated even in the minds of women with intrigues and conspiracies not merely against abstractions like liberty and the rights of man but against very present and concrete freedoms and conveniences of life. The “ordre moral” made itself thoroughly hated in its 3 years. There is some law which I don’t understand requiring authorization by the mayor of dancing at private parties exceeding a certain number. This authorization was given in the villages to friends of the clergy but refused to Republicans—and similar inconceivably petty tyrannies were practised everywhere. Hence the importance of the new municipal law. I believe that of 12 million adult men in France, 8 at least would have felt personal pleasure in kicking M. Buffet. At Avignon, a centre of reaction, I was buying a paper and asked if it was republican. “Ça sent beaucoup le clergé” said the old woman with a wry face and a shrug. “On n’observe plus que les fêtes du peuple” said the waiter at Marseilles when I asked if the band would play on ascension-day. The same thing holds throughout Algeria, except at Oran which is more than half Spanish. As for this country, I think it requires to be colonized by the white man. The savages would gradually die out in his presence. One sees here how God makes man through the instrumentality of his Holy Church, when He gets him all to Himself for some centuries. And a sickening sight it is. The mark of a degraded race is clear upon their faces; only the children have a look of honesty and intelligence, a fact which is also observed in the case of the negro, and is a case of Von Bär’s law that the development of the individual is an epitome of that of the race. It is instructive also to contrast the politeness fossilized in their language with the brutal coarseness of their present manners—of which I may sometime tell you what I will not soil paper with. I think it possible that one Spaniard may have told me the truth: he had lost so many teeth that he left out all his consonants, and I could not understand a word he said. When we went on board the Rosario at 11 p.m. the boatmen stood in the way to keep us from the ladder, and threatened us for the sake of another peseta over the regular charge. The steward tried to cheat me over the passage-money, but I appealed to the authorities who came on board at Malaga and got the money back. (There are many strangers here). Then he made another grab in the matter of our breakfasts, in the face of a tariff hung up in the cabin. It is tiring to have to think that every man you meet is ready to be your enemy out of pure cussedness. I don’t understand why one is expected to be polite and reticent about the distinction between the mixture of Hebrew piety and Roman universalism attributed to Jesus and Paul, and the ecclesiastical system which is only powerful over men’s lives in Spain, the middle and south of Italy, and Greece—countries where the population consists chiefly of habitual thieves and liars who are willing opportunely to become assassins for a small sum. I suppose it frightens people to be told that historical Xtianity as a social system invariably makes men wicked where it has full swing. Then I think the sooner they are well frightened the better. {2} We have no definite news here about the war. How would it do to add Hungary and German Austria to Germany, and make Austria into a Slav state with capital at Constantinople? The Hungarian freethinkers would balance the Austrian ultramontanes, and Russia would be well out of it. There is an Arab proverb that “where the Turk has trod the grass never grows”—but a good deal of ploughing and irrigation might efface his footsteps. Best love to Georgie & the little kid. I am now convinced that we are really the same person. À la libertad.

Thy
Willi

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{1} The Pall Mall Budget was a weekly paper, founded on 3 October 1868, containing a selection of articles from the Pall Mall Gazette. Cf. CLIF A4/14.

{2} ‘As for this country . . . the better.’ This passage has been marked off in pencil, square brackets being placed around the two sentences ‘One sees here how God … sight it is.’

. Most of the book has been left blank.

B[owder?] Park. - Will bear Milnes' recommendation of Mr Lodge in mind.

Turks Islands. - Seeks recommendation for President Inglis' vacant office; personal service to this Colony has been publicly acknowledged. Rapid rise of Sir Charles MacCarthy, whose brother Felix is travelling to Europe to obtain promotion. Edward Everett's nomination as American Vice-President: 'He possesses almost too much ability for the office - for, strange to say, men of medium talents are preferred for the Executive chair in that great Republic'.

Coria del Rio.—Excuses himself for not writing. Is leaving [for England] tomorrow. Describes his situation and his feelings.

63 Berners St, W. - Describes circumstances in which she was certified mad and incarcerated owing to a delusion of her husband's; unjust treatment in law; was denied access to Common Law Courts as a married woman; encloses abstract of trial by Commissioners in Lunacy; asks if Houghton will take up her case. Enclosures: copy order for incarceration of Louisa Lowe, 23 Sept. 1870, with statement respecting her sanity, both signed by George Lowe [verso contains printed address of The Lunacy Law Reform Association, 63 Berners St, London, W.]; 'Improper Incarceration in Lunatic Asylums: ex parte Louisa Lowe': summary of rejected application for a rule nisi against Lunacy Commissioners, 22 Nov. 1872, containing affidavit of Dr William Rhys Williams of Bethlehem Hospital as to Louisa Lowe's sanity [printed with MS annotation concerning reference to spiritualism].

WW was disappointed at not seeing HJR in London. He was to have gone with Charles Babbage to Sir Joseph Banks on Sunday but was unwell. WW has been trying to improve his philology by studying Welsh: 'It is not a language wh. there is much temptation to learn'. WW does not believe that we owe much to our Celtic ancestors, and that the most valuable aspects of our manners and constitutions is derived from our gothic past. It has been a long time since WW has read Butler [Joseph Butler]: 'It is a book of negatives. Its object is not to prove, but to remove the presumptions against, natural & revealed religion...he claims the ground and then leaves revelation & other arguments to reset the building.' Did HJR see Jeremy Bentham? WW notes that his 'Church of Englandism' has come out again.

He 'never could abide' [the Japanese?]; suggests they meet sometime for dinner, but early, because of his diabetes. Closes with 'Remember Pearl Harbor!'