Item 31 - Letter from A. E. Housman to W. H. Semple

1 folded sheet, 1 envelope

(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

Trinity College | Cambridge
22 Nov. 1935

Dear Semple,

Your letter found me in a nursing home, whence I issued forth three or four days ago. My heart can no longer sustain the 44 steps to my rooms in Whewell’s Court, and I have had to descend to the ground floor in the Great Court. Ever since June I have been very weak. I have lectured however all this term, motoring in from the Home.

I was sorry that you had missed the award, though the ladies will probably be smitten with Onians {1}. I have no distinct idea of his work, and I am afraid that I had never been conscious of Williamson’s existence.

Yours sincerely
A. E. Housman.

[Direction on envelope:] W. H. Semple Esq | 29 Upper Redlands Road | Reading

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The envelope, which bears a 1½d. stamp, was postmarked at Cambridge at 8 p.m. on 22 Nov.

{1} The chair of Latin at Bedford College, a women’s college in the University of London, had fallen vacant on the death of the incumbent, Harold Williamson, on 7 June. Semple evidently applied for the post, but it was awarded to R. B. Onians.