Item 11 - Letter from Edward Clodd to J. G. Frazer

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Aldeburgh - Has been to Rome with his wife, went to the Mithraic Temple at San Clemente, had many talks with Father Delaney; writes of the state of religion: thinks the church is stagnating; thinks politicians should take a course in the study of anthropology, adding the study of heredity; thinks Dean Inge in his 'Outspoken Essays' understands the times, and admires his 'Idea of Progress'; Bury's book of the same name claims that 'the number of civilizations which have reached a given stage and gone under, is beyond compute'; agrees that Germany should pay for her 'brigandage' but thinks money should be advanced to pay the miners to dig the coal that France needs; Frazer writes of [Oliver] Lodge and [Arthur Conan] Doyle, and Clodd quotes Sir Bryan Donkin that he classes Doyle among the 'mentally defective'; he is publishing a book 'Magic in Names'; wonders if Frazer is going to supplement 'Folk-Lore in the Old Testament' as Frazer has said that it hung on the issue of a book by a French scholar on the early history of Christianity; asks if Frazer has examined the evidence advanced by Prof. Elliot Smith on the origin of Pre-Columbian civilization, backed by [W. H. R.] Rivers in [A. H.] Keane's Man Past and Present' and quotes [A.C.] Haddon; finds as he gets older the more he values an open mind; the servant problem not helped by the promising house maid who hid her pregnancy and gave birth in the middle of the night.