Item 2 - Letter from Bernard Berenson to R. C. Trevelyan

1 item

c/o Kidder, Peabody & Co., 56 Wall Street, New York; on printed notepaper for Tuxedo Park, P.)., New York. - Has read "Sisyphus" in print with 'much interest & some pleasure'; thinks this is the best thing Trevy has yet done, that he has attained an 'expressive' verse form, and from now on it will be 'a question of temperament and mind'. Has given his copy to the poet George Cabot Lodge, son of the Senator [Henry Cabot Lodge]: Trevy can have no idea how 'far away one is here from everything but the most sensational products of Europe', and even a 'cultivated fellow like Lodge' knows little of modern poetry in England, having 'never read a word of Sturge Moore's, or even Noyes'; 'happily' they agreed about those Lodge had read, such as 'Yates [sic: Yeats] etc'. Lodge had heard about Trevy and was 'eager' to read him, having himself recently published a 'quasi-drama', "Herakles", which Berenson will send Trevy in a couple of days. Following Trevy's advice, has got the Tolstoi edition published in England, and expects he will enjoy it; meanwhile is spending any 'serious time... for reading' in American history, particularly by Henry Adams, which he praises; Trevy must read Adams' autobiography, of which his father has a copy, one day. Saw [Hamilton Easter] Field two days ago in his 'watchtower' looking out over 'one of the most fascinatingly fantastically picturesque' views possible, 'New York in all its sublime monstrosity'; not surprising that Field loves it'. Hard to find a 'better cell' if one wanted a 'hermit's life', but as Berenson cares for 'contact [with his] fellow creatures' will not settle here: [Goldsworthy Lowes] Dickinson probably more right than he knew when he said 'the one thing Americans lived for was "acceleration" and as Berenson though no longer wants to get to places half as much as he enjoys getting to them, this can 'never again be [his] home'. Is longing to return; expects they will be back in March and will let Trevy know in case there is a chance of meeting.