Item 55 - 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
5 Dec. 1935

My dear Gerald,

I am two letters in your debt, and I do not quite know at what point your knowledge of my history breaks off. I am now in ground-floor rooms, B 2 Great Court, which are exceedingly comfortable, and the bathroom, which the College has equipped at its own expense, strikes the beholder dumb with admiration. I have no separate dining-room, but the study is larger than the old one, and so is the bedroom. The rooms are rather dark, and in hot weather there is likely to be some lack of air, as the wistaria interferes with opening the windows wide. The situation is very convenient for Hall, and I have a lecture room in the diagonally opposite corner of the court. My walking is weak and slow, and for getting to sleep I am using diminishing doses of a bromide, supplemented with champagne; but I still wake too early in the morning and pass a disagreeable hour or two. The clock does not annoy me at all.

I am glad to hear of your progress, and will hope for your success in the great examination. If you fail this time I shall nevertheless be sure that you have done your best. I must tell you again not to worry yourself about the expense, which I can quite well support; and I do not want you to go taking some geological post which is not good enough. As your mind runs so much on Fortnum & Mason perhaps you might send me a smoked ox tongue. Space here is rather cramped, and keeping potted fish cool might not be easy.

Your affectionate godfather
A. E. Housman.

[Direction on envelope:] G. C. A. Jackson Esq. | St Thomas’s Hospital | London S. E. 1

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The envelope, which bears a 1½d. stamp, was postmarked at Cambridge at 11.30 p.m. on 5 December.