Item 2 - Notebook

'Museum Note Book' by Clarke & Davies, 38 Museum Street WC1, 32ff, lined pages, cover torn and spine binding loose; contents mostly in pencil though some entries in ink.

Account by Trevelyan of a 'young man of good intellect and studious habits' in love, whom he first names Antonio and then Coryat, and his encounter, after going swimming at night, with a 'Phantom' who wishes to offer him death and attempts to persuade him of its virtues. Towards the end of the account, this is written as a dramatic dialogue.

Exercise book also written in from the other end: account of Coryat 'strolling through the country fields near his home' with his friends 'R. H.', a dialectician/philosopher, and D./Desmond a 'man of letters' (more than one version); another version of Coryat by the sea (beginning only); draft address to the Soul [perhaps a translation?]; a scene set on 'One lovely afternoon of May' in which Coryat and his two friends decry the modern world - the top of this page is headed 'May 17, 1934' but this is then crossed out; Coryat has a dream, while lying ill in Rome with typhoid fever, and on recovering tells his friend Lendrum about it: it is another dialogue with Death.

31/1: notebook including dialogue between 'P.' and 'D.' regarding D. and R.H.'s recent conversation with Coryat.

If the 'Coryat' pieces are autobiographical, Desmond/Lendrum is likely to be a version of Desmond MacCarthy; R. H. might be G. E. Moore or possibly Bertrand Russell.