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8, Grosvenor Crescent, S.W. Lord's exeat. - Harrow were 'licked yesterday' [in the cricket match against Eton]. Spirits kept up by a 'very good lunch' with the Yates Thompsons; 'impossible to be depressed in the company of Dolly'. Went to the Royal Academy after the match, then went to see 'the Bastille taken' at Earl's Court; there were plenty of very pretty women, but he did not 'see any Turks'; he then took a 'water-toboggan' ride and went home. Wants to sends his pictures to Cambridge at the end of the term; asks what address at Trinity he should use; asks if Bob could put him up in Cambridge at the beginning of August to 'arrange business'; will go on 4 August to see Aunt Annie at Tunbridge Wells, and then to Wallington on Monday.

13 Hanover Terrace. - Glad that Trevelyan and [Gordon] Bottomley have 'managed to get some fun out of the No play'; it is not a good one, and he translated it only as an appendix to his book on Po Chu-I; this may get written now, as he has just been rejected again byy the army and hopes he will have a 'quiet six months'; will also translate some more No plays. Went to hear [Thomas] Sturge Moore read his Viking play [Tyrfing] yesterday; thought it 'very well done' and intellectually judged it 'a fine thing', but 'somehow' was not interested by it; this may have been because Sturge Moore's reading was 'downright bad', as he thinks it 'would act rather well'. Read the 'magnificent exordium' to the seventh book of Pliny's "Natural History" recently and quotes in Latin at length from the passage about man. Does not want Hakurakuten at present. Looks forward to seeing Trevelyan, perhaps in June. Hears Mr Ch'eng [see 17/3, 17/5?] 'made a great oration' recently at the Japan Society 'rather mocking at the self-satisfaction of the Japanese', which people say was a 'great success'. Asks whether Trevelyan has seen [Roger] Fry's exhibition of "Copies and Translations" from the old masters; some of those he saw in his studio were 'great fun'.

Returns to the letter on 11 June: has 'just discovered the later parts of Piers Ploughman [sic: Plowman]"; it is 'brilliant' from canto 16 onwards, but 'the beginning is so boring that no one ever gets as far'. The best canto is 18; expects Trevelyan 'found that out long ago'. Has translated a short, slight No play called "Hatsu-yuki, or Early Snow", about 'a court lady who loses a pet bird'; has not had time to do a longer one as he has been 'so immersed in exploring (in books) the Gobi Desert on behalf of Sir Aurel Stein'. Adds a handwritten postscript to say he would like to come for a weekend visit, if the Trevelyans could have him.

Welcombe, Stratford upon Avon. - Amused by Elizabeth's letter, and glad Robert is returning so soon. Both Lord Welby and Lord Davey are 'very good talkers', and Lady Davey is 'charming' so their visit has been very pleasant; she tells Caroline that there is a house to be let at Fernhurst called "Ropes"; just built, by a Miss Coats, who now thinks there is 'not enough view & is going to build another'. Lady Davey also says that Blackdown Cottage is very damp and has no foundations; Mrs Frederic Harrison [Ethel Harrison] was 'very ill there with Rheumatic gout' and two people died in the house while they lived there. Likes to think of Elizabeth and Robert both at home again, 'with the good Enticknaps'. S[idney?] Colvin is not coming; she is glad as the 'row in Stratford seems to be growing, & he is in it' while they wish to keep out of it. Was very good to have Elizabeth to visit them; Sir George sends his love, and 'much appreciated' the letter from Robert.

MS draft, probably for a lecture, giving solutions to various problems and examples. Written while at Manchester.

Declining the offer of Public Orator of the University of Cambridge.

[Trinity Lodge]. 30th anniversary of the death of H M Butler's mother

(i) Suggests that the redrafted telegram [A2/23/9] will better suit his views.

(ii) ‘Yes thanks.’

Taken on the terrace at Wallington. 'Mollie Janet Elizabeth & Children at Wallington' written on back in pencil.

Lund. - Thanks Duff for his letter of 2 Apr.; is grateful for the interest shown in his lecture. Discussion of the definition of the word 'fact', and of the 'concept of "performative utterances"'. The days he spent in Cambridge a year ago 'remain as one of the most pleasant memories of my life'. Sends Duff his 'little book on "The Problem of the Monetary Unit"'.

Explains that she heard from [James] Bryce that Nora would like to have part of Henry Sidgwick's correspondence with her father [Arthur John Patterson]. Reports that she has spoken to her mother, who will be happy for Nora to have the letter as soon as they get back to town, which will be in the early part of September.

Notebook entitled 'EM (Electron Micrograph) Specimen Preparation', including a page of notes from 18 February 1964 on the first discovery of the Epstein-Barr virus via a micrograph.

To AS's great sorrow he was unable to attend EA's party last night. His cold has got worse.

Embarked for India: off Portsmouth

This sub-series contains Sir Anthony's professional and formal correspondence from his career as a researcher and academic.

New College, Oxford - Welcomes him as a new Fellow of New College following his election to the Savilian Chair of Geometry.

(Place of writing not indicated.)—Has been working with Lockyer on molecules and talking metaphysics with Huxley. Refers to his (own) talk on ‘the right and wrong of admitting the results of the scientific method in certain ground which it has already occupied’.

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Transcript

Dear Fred—Very sorry I can’t come to be wound up on Wednesday but we are going to the play. I am so tired, having spent the day at work with Lockyer at a paper on molecules, and the evening in talking metaphysics with Huxley. I think we have got out satisfactorily that the force between 2 molecules cannot be entirely in the line joining their centres as everybody has hitherto supposed, and this suits admirably my guess that they are small magnets.

As to my sermon, {1} I suppose it may be called so because the tag {2} dealt with the right and wrong of admitting the results of the scientific method in certain ground which it has already occupied. Now this point, that it is right to use the scientific method even on this ground, and that it is wrong to resist the evidence because the results are unpleasing, is to me a point of infinitely more importance to get people to feel, than without that to make them gently believe any amount of unorthodox doctrine. A question of right and wrong knows neither time, place, nor expediency. I think we have made a mistake in our laissez faire. It is not an intellectual revolution that has to be accomplished. The opinion of cultivated people goes of itself at an enormous rate; but the control of the feelings of the masses is falling more and more into the hands of the medicine-man, and he is awake to his true vocation and preaches social sedition. I am afraid for my civilization if we do not make an effort to discredit him, and to get people to recognize what they have hitherto acted on, that the right is an affair of plain open dealing and not of ghosts and conjuring tricks. They can be talked out of that here and now as they have been before in other places; and the clergy of all denominations are doing their worst with no small success.

Thine ever
Willi.

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{1} Possibly 'Right and Wrong’ or ‘The Ethics of Belief’.