Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 23 Sept 1945 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
2 sheets
Context area
Name of creator
Repository
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
W[est] H[ackhurst]. - Is signing the card 'After some indecision... with a slight modification of its text'; though there are 'some weighty arguments against it', he feels it is 'a good thing to testify to the possession of compassion and a heart, when one has or things one has them. Everyone is or is pretending to be so hard'.
After he visited Bessie, 'a cloud, then no bigger than a man's hand, turned into the shape of an aeroplane', and now it really seems he will fly to India in ten days for a [P.E.N. ] conference of writers at Jaipur. Can 'hardly believe it, and of course there may be last minute hitches'. Hsiao Ch'ien has lent him a 'wonderful cane suitcase', which he can 'carry with one finger' when empty. Is only meant to be away for two months, and the household 'hopes to limp through' in his absence, with the help of Florence [Barger], Aunt Rosalie and others. Agnes [Dowland] 'has been very sweet about it, her only objection being that I am sure to crash'.
His only companion will be Ould, the secretary of P.E.N., who is 'pleasant and easy to get on with'; they hope to fly via Karachi to Delhi, where Forster will stay with friends [including Ahmed Ali], then to Jaipur for the conference, then he thinks to Calcutta and Bombay. He may of course 'be turned off the plane at the last moment if a V.I.P. (official phrase for Very Important Person) wants my seat'. Looks forward to going, 'despite the unhappiness and the politics which I am certain to find there'; will be 'such a change', though he fears he will be 'in a daze for at least a fortnight, and lose Chi'en's suitcase during it, with all my clothes therein'.
[No signature - incomplete?]
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Notes area
Note
Written on the back of two pieces of a printed letter from the secretary of the Royal Horticultural Society, F. R. Durham, regarding subscription renewal for 1946.
Alternative identifier(s)
Access points
Subject access points
Place access points
Name access points
- Forster, Edward Morgan (1879-1970), novelist and essayist (Subject)
- Trevelyan, Elizabeth (1875-1957), musician (Subject)
- Xiao Qian (1910-1999) essayist, editor, journalist and translator (Subject)
- Barger, Florence Emily (1879-1960), inspector of schools (Subject)
- Alford, Rosalie (1866-1957), aunt of E. M. Forster (Subject)
- Dowland, Agnes J. (c 1876-1956), maid to E. M. Forster and his mother (Subject)
- Ould, Hermon (1885-1951) poet, journalist and playwright (Subject)
- Ali, Ahmed (1910-1994), writer and diplomat (Subject)