Pièce 205 - Letter from R. C. Trevelyan to Sir George Trevelyan

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The Shiffolds. - He and Bessie are very glad to hear his mother is 'so much better, and... will now be able to get out again'; hopes the weather will not be too cold. They are all very well, and their 'invalid guest, Mr [Gordon] Bottomley, is fairly well too'. Will be getting the proofs of his new comedy [The New Parsifal: An Operatic Fable] soon. Asks his father to tell his mother that their nurse, who said last month that she did not want to stay, has now changed her mind; she 'had felt lonely, as most nurses do so far in the country'. Since she is 'in many ways quite good, and as Julian is fond of her', they will at least keep her for the next few months and see if she suits them; it is a 'great relief for Bessie not to have to look for a new nurse at once'. They are probably taking Julian to London at the end of the month 'to go for a time to an infants' school, as he sees too little of other children'.

Interesting that his father's 'American friend [the Secretary of the American Legation in Rome, see 12/207, possibly Arthur Frazier] should put [Rolland's] Jean Christophe on a par with Balzac and the great Russian novelists'; does not think he could ever do so himself, since though he 'admire[s] parts of Jean Christophe a good deal', on the whole it seems to him 'inorganic and often dull, with very little narrative interest'. It is however 'very typical in many respects of modern intellectual and artistic tendencies'.