Item 272 - Letter from R. C. Trevelyan to Edward Marsh

1 item

Wallington, Cambo, Northumberland. - Edward will be 'sitting on the top of a carriage' watching cricket 'like Apollo beholding the strife of the centaurs and the Lapithae'; wishes he was there himself to make Edward realise that the game is not 'play' but 'tragedy of the most intense nature', much less a game 'than the comedy which is just beginning through the country [the General Election]'. They are 'very hopeful' in Newcastle; heard [John] Morley make a 'fine speech' recently. He himself 'regret[s] a thousand times every day that [he is] not strong enough and bold enough and eloquent enough to take [his] place in the ranks, and strike a blow against these sons of Amalek and Belial'. Enjoyed his and Marsh's 'tour' 'immensely', if he looks at it in the right way, considering 'only the most perfect moments' - wonders in passing whether outsiders which of them would judge his and Marsh's 'religion' by, for which they are 'sole priests, founders, proselites [sic], apostles, and the whole army of saints and martyrs' - by which principle Marsh must forget their last evening at the Dun bull [Inn, at Mardale in the Lake Distict?], where Bob was 'as bad as any snuffling Puritan holder-forth'. He should however remember the evening's 'one bright feature', the 'face of the Irish girl looking down on you from the top of a bookshelf in the Lincoln's Inn Library'. Is sure Edward will 'find [his] wife at the top of a bookshelf' and that it was 'an instinctive consciousness of this that impelled [him] to climb Parry's shelves on that dreadful occasion'. Men often find their wives in strange place: Adam 'found his in himself'; many find theirs 'in other peoples beds'; a relation of Bob 'found his in his cook, selecting upon phrenological principles' [possibly a reference to Arthur Trevelyan, said to have married 'a housemaid from an Edinburgh hotel' Trevelyan, Raleigh, "A Pre-Raphaelite Circle]". Bob himself is 'in love with several girls in pictures' and claims that 'a statute must be passed making it legal for girls in pictures to marry'. Hopes Edward finds [Arthur?] Shipley well.