Item 93 - Letter from Hilary Steuert to James Smith

Downside Abbey, near Bath.—Is glad things have improved at Caracas and is impressed by the news that Smith has founded an institute. Despite getting a first in Part II [of the English Tripos] and the Stoll studentship [at Christ’s College] he is dissatisfied with his work, though he has appreciated Leavis’s supervision. Will miss his visits to Smith’s family. Father Grant has promised to call on Smith’s aunt. Has decided not to return to Cambridge but to research his chosen subject, the devotional prose of the Catholic recusants, at Downside; the subject of his Stoll paper, the medieval tradition in Shakespeare, deserves to be pursued by Smith himself. The boy he coached for a scholarship is not doing well at Cambridge but Dom Gerard [Hayes] has got a first; Brother Sebastian [Moore?] is also going to read English at Cambridge. Kenelm Foster, a Dante scholar, has come [to the Dominican friary] to take the place of Father Elrington, who has died. Relates an anecdote about Father Reeves, relating to a bust of Edward Bullough. Now that Edward Wilson is engaged elsewhere Moreno must find someone else to translate his thesis. Gives an account of the Corpus Christi procession.