Item 24 - Letter from E. M. Forster to Elizabeth Trevelyan

W[est] H[ackhurst]. - Was in London for two days and rang her up several times, but the line was always engaged. Perhaps she has already had her operation. He and his mother are ‘both so distressed to hear about it’. Will be glad to have a line when Bessie can send one. Will be in London again next week, and will ring again then.

Hopes that ‘the ‘Service’ [for Clifford Allen?] will be fixed up without strain’; does not go to such things himself, but knows they bring comfort to many. Is sure that ‘no one will mind the Goldie poem [Robert Trevelyan’s poem about Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson] being used if it is J. A.’s [Joan Allen's] wish [’, except as Bessie says Dickinson’s sister May, and it is ‘most unlikely she will hear of it’.

Is ‘trying to get up the Laws of Libel’, being as she knows ‘on this Committee which is to look into it’. Dined with [Denis?] Pritt last night in the House of Commons, who ‘tried to instruct me, not with signal success’. Sends love, and is ‘so very sorry’.