Item 48 - Letter from Robert Oswald Sickert to R. C. Trevelyan

1 item.

12 Pembroke Gardens, Kensington. - It is very good of Trevelyan to let him [and Stanley Makower] use his poem [in their anthology, "The Bird In Song", see 6/47]; feels as if 'the minor anthropologist were a sort of well intentioned hyaena'. Not sure of the length of Trevelyan's peacock poem but is sure there will be room; liked his bat poem too and is prepared to say 'for the poet's purpose - he is a bird' as a whale can be called a fish. Grant Richards and Macmillam are 'not on telephoning terms' at present, but if Trevelyan informs them of his permission, Sickert expects no difficulty. Thinking of a suitable name for the series: perhaps "Halcyon Series". Oswald still busy 'holding up the Times Book Club'; if the paper became 'decently Liberal' it would not 'need all these young genii to keep it alive'. Does not know Leopardi's work, as he has no Italian; read [Thomson's] "City of Dreadful Night" years ago. Stanley also involved with a 'rival literary scheme'.