Pièce 27 - Letter from Roger Fry to R. C. Trevelyan

Hotel Prinz Heinrich, Dorothea Strasse, Berlin. - He and Helen have just returned from an excellent concert: Beethoven and Mozart. Describes their stay at Ede with the family of Trevelyan's friend Elizabeth van der Hoeven [soon to become his fiancée]: they liked the 'old people' very much - the old man [Paul François Hubrecht] reminded Fry of Mr Behrens; gives his impression of Elizabeth who was 'rather shy and inaccessible'. A sister [Maria Hubrecht?] of Madame Grandmont was also there: the Frys thought her paintings (canvas painted to look like tapestry) were dreadful. M. [Alphonse] Grandmont read some of his French translation of Browning's "Pippa Passes"; thinks Trevelyan is wrong about him and that he has more artistic sensibility than his wife, whose 'Ruskinian idealism' has 'deadened her sensations' and who follows the modern trend Fry deplores of always looking for 'meanings & messages' in art. Heard the Biebers [sic: a work by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber]: Elizabeth is 'most accomplished' but the piece was too modernized; and Handel. Came to Berlin yesterday and the art collection is splendid; comment on German taste.