Item 80 - Letter from Lady Evelyn Lister to R. C. Trevelyan

1 item

98 Grenfell Road, Maidenhead, Berks. - Thanks Trevelyan for the 'kind letter' and poems ["From the Shiffolds"]; mentions the 'fortunate little dear boy' [Trevelyan's grandson Philip, addressee of a poem']. Wonders whether he knows Lord de Tabley's poetry; thinks de Tabley would have liked some of the poems. Her father's first wife was Meriel Leicester Warren, de Tabley's sister. De Tabley's poetry has not sufficiently appreciated, either in his lifetime or afterwards; quotes descriptions of him by Tennyson and Sir Edmund Gosse. Describes the 'very drab & dusty grey little interior' of the house with no heating, electric, gas or hot water where she lives; a 'real little cottage of despair' where she and her companion Mrs Hill needed to 'take refuge, from far worse'. The small back yard holds a 'dread ful little party of evil looking, grinning deformed, gnomes' who resemble the 'little jailors' of [George du Maurier's] "Peter Ibbotson"