Item 179 - Letter from Sir George Trevelyan to R. C. Trevelyan

Wallington, Cambo, Northumberland. - Happy to be expecting Elizabeth and Julian today. Interested to hear about the castle [at Aulla, owned by Aubrey and Lina Waterfield?], and envies Robert's chance of 'a fine fortnight near Florence' [with the Berensons]. Caroline has just finished reading Colonel Young's book on the Medicis, which pleased her greatly, and Sir George intends to try it. Young appears to be 'an old Indian officer', and his work to be 'free from that sort of canting way in which people think it is necessary to write about Italy... like Symonds, Hare, and in some sort Ruskin' and 'hundreds' of other lesser writers. There was a 'glorious eclipse of the moon' last night, and 'much distress of politicians for it to portend'. They are going to read Forster's novel ["Howards End"] aloud, having finished [Arnold Bennett's] "Clayhanger" which was 'admirable'. Adds in a postscript that Major Dobbin [in Thackeray's "Vanity Fair"] might have written Colonel Young's book, 'instead of his history of the Sikhs'; it has 'the honesty and thoroughness of [Sir George's] Colonel Gerald Boyle" [who composed a manuscript "Notes on the War of the American Revolution"?].