Item 55 - Letter from Clive Bell to R. C. Trevelyan

1 letter

Charleston, Firle, Sussex. - Bob's poems [this year's "From the Shiffolds?"] gave him, and Duncan Grant, 'great pleasure, as they always do'. This is not just a 'Christmas compliment'; thinks these translations are, in their way, as good as anything Bob has done. Regrets that he was beforehand 'quite unaware of [the Latin] poem' "Moretum"'; that is his favourite piece, though some of the extracts from the dramatists, as well as the [Homeric?] hymn are 'more beautiful and give wider scope' to Bob's poetic powers; he 'grow[s] old, and bucholic [sic]'. Is also getting 'cold', and his fingers can no longer hold the pen; they are 'enjoying one of those intervals which must not be called "cuts" - mere easements of the pay-load'. Curses Mr Shinwell [Minister of Fuel and Power].