1928-04-03 English Autobiography; Biography; Journals; Correspondence nonfiction prose masculine 27 January 2005 corrector Kelly Lambert Changed dates in TEI Header 21:18:06, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCText-proofing of a sample of the text21:18:06, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCConversion to TEI.2-conformat markup21:18:06, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAdding scripted markup21:18:06, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAddition of encodingDesc21:18:06, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAddition of bibls21:18:06, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAssembled all images21:18:06, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCCreation of derivative images21:18:06, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCValidation of TEI21:18:06, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCValidation of names21:18:06, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCConversion to Unicode (utf-8)21:18:06, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCPromotion to production21:18:06, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAddition of text to access control21:18:06, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCHarvest into Topic Map21:18:06, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCChecking of text using browser21:18:06, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAddition of text to corpus21:18:06, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAddition of text to Library Catalogue14:47:44, Tuesday 23 September 2008editorialNZETCMake text available on NZETC website 21 Brunswick Square London W.C.1 3/4/28 My Dear Mummy,

Another month ? & still another month! However if every month brings you along as you seem to have been going lately, it will be all right. You certainly look in your photographs as if you had got back to the land, & had had a long spell cols close to the bosom of Nature, to pinch a few words from our rav. cobber Jas Shaw Brown. You seem pretty concerned about the exact shade of your hair; but it looks all right to me anyhow: I daresay another reason for its being so white is in contrast with your face. As you say you have been walking around the lawn I don’t doubt that by the time you get this you will have been doing fandangos. If not a cachuca. I must say that you look as if you enjoyed being a grand- mother, though Ern, with his accustomed accuracy & artistic taste, gets you out of focus. The picture of Daddy is very good too, though moving in the elevated circles as I do I have to explain that no respectable grandfather wears a collar in N.Z. on Saturday afternoons. Still his shirt seems to be clean, so I am safe enough in that respect at least, & I can always say that he was a bushman in his youth. My Fen What’s her name doesn’t look like a S.A. bird, & she is evidently dreaming about her Lad from the way her eyes are closed & the beatific look on her face; or it may be that she is just modestly showing off the superior attraction of you & Anne Mary. I gather that the lady next to Auntie is Theo, & that Auntie is herself as of yore; looking down her nose in her usual sidelong way. As for this kid, I understood it was growing up very attractive; but it seems to be getting too much like Geoffrey for true beauty. It would have done better on the whole to have stuck like me, & cultivated a genteel attractiveness. Still it’s no business of mine, & I dare say that if she looks after herself carefully she will get over the wrong stages by the time she gets into her twenties & starts going to college dances. Or perhaps if she goes to college dances before she gets into the twenties. But I must say she’s no great shakes at present. You had better reserve any pictures of this unmarried product of Keith & Frannie till she looks fairly attractive, because an uncle can’t stand too much. This uncle isn’t the same as Auntie — she apparently can greet any- thing with enthusiasm as long as it’s young enough, but I have got to draw a line somewhere. I don’t think it’s necessary to give Frannie any advice — if you look up a letter of mine in the archives, about this date last year, you will find some very sound words on the subject of the education of A.M. & the same applies mutatis mutandis, to this new ’un. Truby King, Feeding & Care of Baby, is a good appendix to the remarks I may have made.

I can’t make out how I came to leave a coat home that was fit for Keith to wor wear; but I dare say he left it out on purpose when he closed that trunk of mine, at the same time as he lost the key. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to have it cleaned & send it over to me, if it’s a light coat; K. might pay for that, as he has had the use of it; that coat of Daddy’s I had cleaned just before I came away must have had the waterproofing taken out of it in the process, because the rain comes straight through it now — however it’s good enough for light showers, on the infrequent occasions on which we get light showers in this country. — As for the name Beagle, K. or Frannie, hasn’t got any copyright in that — old Joe Firth used to call me that at W’gton College. However as I told Frannie, I don’t approve of a wife addressing her husband in that way; God forbid that any wife of mine should ever call me either Beagle or sweet. But they seem to be a terribly sickly couple. However I suppose she will be starting to call him Father now. — No use Frannie being disappointed at the act of God in giving her a girl — she evidently didn’t know her business properly. I think it’s up to Ern now to take a hand & turn out a few good he-men. After having the brat of Ada the maid squalling round for a few days I prefer to remain as an observer only. Tell Auntie lest she should form any rash hopes of looking after my kids while I am away for a holiday. — Well, well, fancy Auntie Win coming along to nurse you! I gather from this that she is in the pink herself, so she had better not be too energetic with you or she will be running you off your feet before you have had a chance to settle down on them, as it were; they’re dangerous, these energetic people. — I was glad to hear you had a visit from Elsie Holmes; a charming girl, I think; one of the best I knew at V.U.C. I suppose you really know her better now than I do, as you had French lessons from her & so forth, & appear to have got along together pretty well; but I shall be glad to see her & her cobber all the same. We might possibly be able to manage one or two tramps in the summer, what with Bill Jolliffe & Lovie R. & so forth all over here. It’s a pity one or two more of those girls can’t get over here; it would suit Mar- jorie Wiren down to the ground to leave Bach behind for a bit & be taken round by a dashing cove like me. In fact if I am here much longer I might arrange for a personally conducted tour of eligible young ladies, under the most approved & moral auspices. Might take on Auntie & Auntie Win too, & show them a few of the high spots in Paris. Or London — you don’t need to go to Paris. — I was surprised to hear that you’ve taken to reading history at last. You had better go on to the Town labourer now & have your blood boil a bit more; there are some piquent pages about eliminating chimney sweepers. But can’t such things be repeated? Don’t you believe it — what about the coal-mines? The English miners are working longer hours now (those of them that can get any work) than any other miners in Europe, & a fat lot of good they can do. The English lower classes aren’t the revolting kind — they haven’t got the sense — Kick them, & they say Thank you, sir, with their hat in their hands. To kick back would be (a) a thing they would never think of (b) unconstitutional, so in either case impossible. Duncan's brother came over here to Birmingham on a job like Keith's in some rail show; he had a complete indifference to politics when he left Australia, but before he had been a couple of months in Birmingham he was wolfing Shaw & turning the air livid with his views on English industrialism — & the English character as concerned therein. What’s the use of even talking to them, he said, or asking them to come out on strike? — you’ve only got to wave a Union Jack & sing God Save the King, or send the Prince of Wales down; & the men rush go back to work 12 hours a day & the women go home & breed like rabbits. Some women up there, a sort of miracle, got it into their hands heads that under such conditions there might be something in birth- control — that unlimited babies didn’t help to clean up dirt & overcrowding & low wages & slum areas. So they asked for a little bit of information. On which a Bishop (not Barnes) got up & blasted them backwards & forwards & sky-high for their indecent & immoral curiosity. There have just been three articles in the Times in the last week about the coal industry in Wales, & it isn’t very pretty. Depression of course isn’t the owner’s fault; but it sort of makes a man bitter, as you might say, when out of a total weekly income of 16/- for himself & family, he has to fork out 6/- rent to the owners of the colliery, who also own his house. But bless your soul, there’ll never be a revolution in this country. They simply haven’t got the guts. During an argument with Duncan on this point he says that some blanky historian has pointed out that when the Englishman does get aroused he is more ruthless than the Frenchman, & that in about 200 years he may be aroused. Per- haps 200 years is a short space of time, historically speaking, & there may be a revolution around 2100. D now says that the historian (who he know now thinks was Chesterton) was talking about political revolutions & not economic revolutions, so that alters the case considerably. — Thank you for hints on books to read, both of you. Messer Marco Polo I have read, got it indeed from Challis as a Xmas present, but none of the others. I have read some of Davidson’s poems somewhere though. Thank you also for cuttings — we always get the Literary Supplement, so you needn’t bother to chop anything out of that. I of course heard about Ern from Jaynt, but I was interested to see that a lot of hopeless duds I had a slight acquaintance with had got through in history. I am glad to know that Daddy is all right again after throw- ing himself around, Thanks for posting Trevelyan; it has not yet turned up but will come by a slower mail, I suppose. I think if I stay any longer I had better come back & collect all my books & buy a house here for them. Thank you also for what you say about the S.A. job & helping me. I think on the whole I did the best thing in turning it down — my thesis is a devil to write — so many things to work in together smoothly that I won’t be able to get it finished for June — & if I can get a Rockefeller I shall be all right for a couple of years. I don’t know what the chances are for this, & I am not banking on it very much — The cows want a a terrible lot of information, including my religion, & whether I speak English well & so forth. Also I have to supply a mental & dental certificate, which did me in for 25/- together. However it will gratify you no doubt to learn that I am free from Organce Disease. I have to send a photograph too, & had to be took again this morning for that purpose: however if it turns out all right it will be cheap enough, 6 postcards for 3/6 — I already have two applications for copies; get in early if you want one. It was one of those Tottenham Court Road joints where I went, with a cove in the real photographer’s tradition, with a professional & the most unctuous- ly caressing manner — using to calming down excited nerves, I suppose. I saw J.R.M. Butter, the Rockefeller agent over here last week, too : he is a pleasant cove, a fellow of Trinity, & did not seem to be discouraging — he has the 147 pages of my thesis that I have done so far at present, & I can only hope he will be as impressed with the lot as Laski was with the Introduction. But of course the Yanks have the final word. I am trusting that Laski’s letter will have more of an effect than anything else — he is a pretty big name over there — But you had better take all this as very much up in the air — nothing at all may come of it, & I may be sniffing around for a job again at the end of the year. In other words, don’t de be disappointed if I get no further on the road to academic fame, such as it is. Talking of such, I had a note from Fay, saying nothing about my proofs beyond the fact that he had received them & that they would go to the printer forthwith, & that the job would be finished by about the end of April. So I suppose that with luck, you may be let in on the ground floor, by the end of June. I am getting about £3 worth of the darn things for free distribution — I only hope they will enhance my reputation. Well, I think that’s about all in answer to your letter; except that I’m sorry that winter has broken out again with you. Of course over here I am still waiting for summer.

Of news here there isn’t much to tell you. I haven’t been to any concerts that I can remember. I did get to the last part of Back to Methuselah, though, last Saturday afternoon, after trying in vain the Wednesday night before. It is first-rate fantasy. What beats me is the way Shaw can put up a crowd of characters & make them give speeches on evolution & biology, & yet on the whole keep you interested, & even excited, all the while. Both Gwen Frangcon Davies & Edith Evans were very good in this — EE. as an Ancient — very different from Millament. This same crowd is now doing Harold, by the late Alf Tennyson, Not a bad play, says the Times this morning, but he don’t really get into the battle; you’re interested but not really moved. Well, I dare say I shall get along to have a squiz some time. I read in the Evening Standard also that Messrs John Drinkwater & Humbert Wolfe, the eminent poets, went to Harold, with due piety; but that Mr Arnold Bennett & Mr H.G. Wells were seen seated side by side the same night at the première of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The Evening Standard (this is Low’s paper — I must send out some of his cartoons some time, just to encourage Alan) has also to report two infernal stupidities — Commander Daniel found guilty on all charges in this Royal Oak case, & Alice in Wonderland MS sold to Rosenbach for £14,500. My oath! in both cases. This Admiral Collard seems to be about the prize boor of the post–war epoch. — However to get back to my plays. I have been also to two Ibsen matinées, The Doll’s House & The Wild Duck. Hedda Gabler was on for about a fortnight, but I could’t go. This is the only way they are celebrating the Ibsen centenary here, bar articles. The Wild Duck was much the better done of the two, & a much better play; but both are very interesting, the D’s-H more so historically than dramatically. Ghosts & The W.D. are to be put on for a series of matinées now, so I shall have a chance to see Mrs Patrick Campbell in the former. Can’t cram too much into one week these days; have to waste too much time in fiddling round with notes & getting nowhere. I have got a good many things in perspect. in- cluding Charlie Chaplin. Oh, I also went to the Beggar’s Opera last week, on being unable to get into the Shaw — a very excellent performance it was too, full of snap, sparkle, punch, piquancy, jollity, & most melodious into the bargain. It was a great shame Lovat Fraser died do early, the settings & the dresses & the drop curtain (of 18th century London) were about the best I have seen. Of course I saw the thing in N.Z., but it didn’t have anything like the same pungency & finish there.

I have picked up a few interesting secondhand books lately — a beautifully printed little Pickering edition 1849 of Thoughts & Opinions of Statesmen, i.e.Humboldt — not very profound so far as I have read, but it is a be charming little book. Also Posthumous Works in Prose & Verse &c &c of Mr Samuel Butler, Author of Hudibras &c &c c/15, with a lot of amusing tripe in it. Shirley’s The Glories of our Blood & State is also attributed to Mr SB. The readers says the edition “will depend to see Wit in its whole extent & variety, so unconstrain‘d, & flowing with that freedom, as if the great Author were only the AMANUWENSIS to some Heavenly Muse, & charmed us with thoughts not his own” Alas, says he, SB. was one “whom all confess the most exalted Wit of the Age in which he lives, & one of the brightest spirits that ever adorn‘d our Island” &c &c. I also got a 17th century Erasmus Colloquies, & an 18th century Pope & a Fay & a Prior & so on, not wonderfully clean but interesting to have. Good 18th century stuff is a pretty high price these days. My Butler is pretty well as good as new though. If I had the cash I could send you out a lot of interesting dope like this. That place at Gloucester still makes me weep. I must see what Oxford & Cambridge bring forth — whenever I get there. Well, well, time to knock off I think, though I don’t seem to have said much. I enclose a picture of this district I meant to send you about a year ago — our house approximately marked, as it is too late to go out & count the exact number along the street now. With all the love in the world.