Item 210 - Letter from Robin Mayor to R. C. Trevelyan

26 Addison Avenue, W.11. - Thanks Bob for his Christmas gift "From the Shiffolds", which he and Beatrice have much enjoyed. They both particularly like "Old Aeschylus" and "Two Hundred Years Hence", which he remembers Bob reading to them when he saw them in October; mentions others he liked; supposes "Pusska" was written for Julian when he was small. Bob's recent manner of writing sometimes reminds him of the Chinese poets, particularly Po Chui [Bai Juyi]; does not find it 'at all artificial or exotic', but 'a kind of natural English counterpart to the Chinese way of looking at things, with something of its directness & detachment & coolness'. Feels Bob has thereby developed a style of his own, which he himself finds 'more satisfying than almost anything written today'.