Item 14 - Letter from A. E. Housman to G. C. A. Jackson

1 folded sheet, 1 envelope

(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

Trinity College | Cambridge
15 Oct. 1930

My dear Gerald,

I am sorry that you do not expect to come here this term, and so will Nicholas be, to whom I mentioned that you were to be expected. Would you be able, and would it be worth your while, to pay me a visit for a week-end? I seem to remember that your week-ends in term time are very short.

It is great good news that the Company has made you a grant, and you ought to be pleased with yourself.

I did not know that your College was a college to the extent that it could be lived in; but as it is, I should think you would find it better than being by yourself.

The Virginia creeper which you ask after is quite at its best at present in St John’s, but both there and in Trinity a good deal of it has been removed in the last year or two to make room for other things.

Advice from a godfather. Don’t add ‘M.A.’ in addressing a letter. I don’t know why, but it is not the custom. Don’t say ‘I will have to work’ when you mean ‘I shall’. But I never could teach you your catechism.

Your affectionate though inefficient godfather
A. E. Housman.

[Direction on envelope:] Gerald Jackson Esq. | Dept. of Geology | Royal School of Mines | South Kensington | S. W. 7

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The envelope, which bears a 1½d. stamp, was postmarked at Cambridge at 10.15 p.m. on 15 October, and has been marked in pencil ‘15.10.30.’