Item 156 - Letter from Thomas Tettrell Phelps to R. C. Trevelyan

1 item

62, Onslow Gardens, S.W. - Expects this letter will not reach Trevy, but 'be used to light some fat Italian's cigar'. Trevy's news [of his engagement] 'fairly bowled [Phelps's] middle stump' and he has not quite 'recovered from the shock'. Trevy is a 'sly dog', and Phelps's 'shaft of jest shot at random found a great bullseye in [his] heart'. Had always thought Trevy would support him in his 'old batchelorhood' and 'appreciate the charms of a single existence to the end'. Greatly congratulates him and envies him for finding someone he knows he wants to be his wife; thinks she is 'a very lucky person too' as Trevy has 'about as big a heart as any one' he knows. Looks forward to meeting her, and hopes they will be friends, as he and Trevy have 'a good many memories of "auld lang syne"' which he would be 'sorry to forget'. Vondel [of whose poetry Trevy and Elizabeth have been working on an English translation] must be a 'dangerous person', with 'sweet poison' in his words. Says in a postscript that he withdraws his 'previous remarks about Hollanders' completely, 'the logic of ignorance'.

9/95: letter, 19 Dec-20 Dec 1899, from R. C. Trevelyan to Elizabeth des Amorie van der Hoeven, sent with Phelps's letter as an enclosure