Item 253 - Letter from R. C. Trevelyan to Sir George Trevelyan

1 doc

The Shiffolds, Holmbury St. Mary, Dorking. - It is a 'great pleasure' to be home from Spain, and to find Bessie and Julian well; Julian has 'improved in many ways since the summer, and is much stronger, and also more vigorous mentally'. His current 'chief interests' are astronomy and 'making architectural plans'; therefore, he is much looking forward to the visit next week Bessie's cousin Jan Hubrecht, who 'will tell him all about sun-spots'; also to the visit of Robert's friend [Kenneth] Croos tomorrow, who 'was one of the architect of the Mission des Amis' in France. Bessie reads Wells' new Outline of History to Julian in the evenings, which 'seems quite well done'; so far however, they have 'only reached the beginning of the Pleistocene or thereabouts'.

It has been a 'great pleasure' for them to read [Theodore Roosevelt's] correspondence in Scribner's [Magazine]; thinks the 'strongest feeling' he got from Roosevelt's letters is what 'for what of a better word [Robert] would call his charm'; that indeed is his 'chief memory' of Roosevelt from when he met him at Welcombe. Roosevelt's 'wide reading and interest in everything would have made him interesting in any case', but it is 'something more personal than that, something which made any difference of opinion or point of view seem of little importance.

Had a good time in Madrid: got to know 'some quite interesting young men, and laid the foundation of at least a literary knowledge of Spanish'. Is preparing a 'book of translations from Lucretius', which will in total come to 'rather more than a third of the De Rerum Natura. Sends ;ove to his mother.