1928-11-27 English Autobiography; Biography; Journals; Correspondence 21:18:07, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCText-proofing of a sample of the text21:18:07, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCConversion to TEI.2-conformat markup21:18:07, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAdding scripted markup21:18:07, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAddition of encodingDesc21:18:07, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAddition of bibls21:18:07, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAssembled all images21:18:07, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCCreation of derivative images21:18:07, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCValidation of TEI21:18:07, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCValidation of names21:18:07, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCConversion to Unicode (utf-8)21:18:07, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCPromotion to production21:18:07, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAddition of text to access control21:18:07, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCHarvest into Topic Map21:18:07, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCChecking of text using browser21:18:07, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAddition of text to corpus21:18:07, Tuesday 7 August 2007editorialNZETCAddition of text to Library Catalogue14:47:45, Tuesday 23 September 2008editorialNZETCMake text available on NZETC website 21 Brunswick Square London W.C.1 27.11.28 My dear Mummy,

This news isn’t too good — you with another chill; & rather an ironical comment on your nursing homes that you have to come home to get cured of a chill contracted there. Well, I can but trust it wasn’t a severe chill & that you are now cheerful as a lark again, & perhaps even, when you get this, down the garden basking in the sun. There’s just a chance you may be, if your weather moves inversely to us; because ours has turned suddenly cold, & I got a head-ache today & still have it though going out without a hat. So that’s the sort of blooming country England is. Will let’s hope the movement of the universe will keep you jakealoo anyhow. Daddy’s letter only arrived this morning, just in time to be answered before the mail goes out tonight — it’s only been as late as this once before — Atlantic gales & what-not which have made a sad mess of the British coast, not to mention historic trees falling all over the place like nine-pins, generally on top of people, sandwichmen blown into lorries, plate- glass windows busted &c &c &c. Crossing Russell Square has been almost as bad as getting up to the Wireless on a windy day. — Of all the blithering asinine stupid fools, the N.Z. parliament take the bun. Or it may be this great British t capacity for compromise which has built up the empire & so many other I was going to say vicious circles but perhaps I had better not or Daddy will want to know why anyhow I am referring to daylight saving ½ hours! I suppose if some stupid farmer goes crook this winter it will be halved again to ¼. Fair dinkum! Either do the thing or not, but don’t play around with it. — However I see that none of the explanations of the fall of Coate’s govt beings in the matter so I suppose N.Z. is satisfied with that at any rate. Well, well, Gordon has certainly bit the dust this time! And as for Joe Ward, he must be chuckling fit to bust. The Liberals here must be taking considerable comfort from the fact that in one section of the empire at least rail-sitting has its reward. Of course Joe Ward may be out of it again by the time you get this letter, so it won’t do to make too many facetious comments about anybody. I suppose Harry Holland will be a bit peeved at getting pushed out of his job as leader of the Opposition, but it won’t do the Labour birds much harm to climb up slowly, as long as they’re not too slow about it. I should like to see Peter Fraser as Minister of Education for a bit — Thank God Wright’s out of it anyhow. That will make it a little bit easier to come back to N.Z., if necessary. I’m sorry Nash didn’t get in; surely to God the Hutt has had enough of Wilford by now, if even if he did does have the distinction of having gone to sh school with Daddy. Dunbar Sloane is a pretty optimistic bloke if he thinks he can push Peter Fraser out. — I can only say I’m surprised at Auntie getting late to church, daylight saving or none; you can’t expect God to consider little details like that. Especially on the Sunday school anniversary day. As for that having any associa- tions for me — & Daddy seems to think it hasn’t — what about the parent Primitive Methodist mob, of which for so many years I was a prominent member? Many a time I’ve set up in the Town Hall in my best clothes of a Sunday afternoon & evening & hymned the Almighty in dulcet child- ish tones. Why, I even remember shocking Mummy nearly to tears (anyhow so you told me) by getting bored with the whole caboosh one night & playing with a paper camera I made; of course you sat in a place where you could see me & seemed very grieved about it all. And whate about the recitations I used to give after the fights in the church or standing up all by myself from among the serried ranks of children & saying my piece all so nice & pretty? The trouble was you & Daddy never seemed able to agree with the Sunday school teacher about what I should say; the Beaglehole taste, I seem to remember, was a bit more austere than the Primitive Methodist young lady’s. I think it was something about Caravans you wanted out of that red book of poetry for children we had; but I’ve forgotten what Webb Street favoured — it may have been dicky birds or something piously facetious. Ah well if I ever have any kids I’ll keep them out of the Sunday school anyhow. Look at me now, 27 & I have to start & read the Bible all over again to see what it’s all about, let alone my style. — Well, well, well! — fancy Daddy sitting up into the night when his ears glued to the wireless listening in to Sydney! That does convince me that it’s a scientific age. I don’t know what N.Z. won’t be doing now — picking itself up on a suitably sized aeroplane & transporting itself into the middle of the Atlantic perhaps. I wish it would.

Daddy’s birthday duly noted. I hope by this time my tribute to the occasion has safely arrived. Kathleen McKay was due in Wellington to-day, too, & we are all wondering at the amount of chat that must be going on — telephone break-downs, serial disturbances &c. What they ought to do is, they ought to get her to give a wireless talk on Familiar Strolls abroad with J.C. Beaglehole, or some such. No doubt you will be seeing her to-morrow or the next day, & collecting the things I sent out. By the way, McG. says the Erasmus has not been finished quite properly, the surface should have been waxed. Exactly what difference it makes I don’t know — he says it will get dirtier as it is; but anyhow I shouldn’t drop it into to [sic] water to clean it as the plaster might melt away or something. Perhaps some bloke at Shanland’s knows something about it. Mine seems to be clean enough so far, anyhow. I was browsing round the Wallace Collection a couple of Saturdays ago, & I see they have a copy there, only in bronze — the B.M. one is in a mixture of lead & something else, I forget which. — Yes, we used to have pretty good birthday parties in the old days; I hope that dammed balance sheet is out of the way now & Daddy can get some reading done in the evenings. It beats me that Shanland’s can’t organise itself any better. Surely he ought to be a paid director by now, l if Ern says they were willing to make him general manager! They make me sick. Everything or at least a good many things make me sick now — even the Yanks, Daddy will no doubt be pleased to hear, what with super-prosperity, Rockefeller decisions & so forth. I saw in the New Republic tonight that they have now absolutely definite proof that Vanzetti wasn’t in the business he was murdered for. Gov Fuller said he wasn’t interested in the evidence.

I’m glad you got the postcards all right — Daddy doesn’t say what he though of the Ste. Thérèse series; let’s hope he was suitably improved by their perusal. It looks as if they’ll be the last lot you will get from me this trip, unless I can manage to dash down to Florence, which I greatly doubt now. And here’s Daddy suggesting that I might have a look in at Edinburgh & Dublin before I shake my feet out of it. Lord knows what I shall have time or money to see now. — As for the bishops & the prayer book question which Daddy posed to me, no doubt he is fully satisfied of an answer after the recent proceedings oveover here in Synod. There may be more happening when Lang gets well set in his archiepiscopal chair at Canterbury. They say he’s pretty strong on the bishops’ taking a strong line. It would be rather choice if they got disendowed now — shades of Edmund Burke!

What’s this about Murray & references of mine to Savage Club & not being appropriate to my Father? Shocked again, I suppose. I don’t remember ever saying anything derogatory to my father — God forbid that I should ever do such a thing. Must be a mistake somewhere. Henceforth I say that nothing said in contempt, dispraise, or de- preciatory criticism of any sort of the Savage Club shall apply to my Father. I believe I said I was not greatly impressed with the Savage Club. No more I am. Of course I’m not a social bird like Tom Wilford & Alan & all these prominent coves in Bohemian life. If I can’t go to a concert or a play gimme the domestic fireside, or even the fireside without the domestic, & a Nice Exciting Book. After all, there’s nothing like Reading. See Sesame & Lilies; though all I really remember about that masterpiece is J.R.’s the girls of England to learn off the Greek alphabet & so get truly cultured — but not quite so cultured as their husbands, because the husband should always know a bit more than the wife. Choice stuff. — I have taken my Songs of Childhood down to Hodgson’s to be auctioned, but nothing has happened in the matter. I am going to put a reserve of £36 or so on it, so as to make sure of clearing at least Bumpus’ £31..10. Perhaps Sotheby’s would have been better. Still we’ll see. Anyhow l as I have remarked before, there’s always the comforting feeling that I can’t possibly lose on it. — Yes, I believe Daddy has some good things among his books; & I thought Mummy would be advising him to hunt them out & rush down to Bethume’s with them. But it’s only little books at a big price I’d be willing to sell — or big books at a whacking big price. However it’s no use talking to women about such matters. As for that friendly, settled-in kind of feeling which books give you, & which Daddy refers to, it’s a positive fact all right; now I would go clean off my chump if I had to live in a room without any books — besides I would feel so dashed cold. Now I’ll just tell you — it beats me, these furniture designer’s libraries. I went along to see an exhibition of modern French & English furnishing at Waring & Gillow’s yesterday afternoon; well, nothing could exceed the elegance of most of the rooms they had on view — two or three extraordinarily beautiful bathrooms, & a really 1st rate dining room in walnut & green. Arm chairs £12..10; armless £7..10. Well, I liked this room so much I wondered if I stood around till the end of the exhibition would they say “Here, take it & get out!” — really the most beautiful chairs; & charming green glass-ware. Also bed-rooms very elegant; most comfortable l entrance lounge — delightful young girl’s boudoir; very good drawing-room, & a bed-room which would suit you more ideally than anything I have seen since I left home. I had a good mind to order it for you so that you could come & stay with me in fitting surroundings. A sort of silvery-grey & mauve was the general scheme, so far as I recollect, with dressing-table, lighting, chairs, & so forth all to match. Sleep! my word, you’d never want to get up, there would be so much to look at in the place. Very good bedroom for gent too, which would suit Daddy or me down to the ground. All right — that’s all right! — but when you come to the libraries what do you see? Beautiful furniture — wonderful writing desks, exquisitely wrought fine screens; but where are the bookshelves? Most chastely arranged, generally built into the wall, all very nice & patent with holes for making the shelves adjustable — & all so nicely & harmoniously arranged & spaced out that after you’d carried a few arm-fulls upstairs & come home once or twice on Saturdays you’d wonder where in blazes you were going to put your books. There was a beautiful study there too, which I would have been quite glad to take in toto — but only on the understand- ing that there was a large room on the other side of the door with shelves all round the room. These classy interior architects seem to regard a book as you regard a piece of Chinese porcelain — you put a piece here with delicate precise fingers, & you put a piece there, & you stand back & put your head on one side & admire the effect. It never seems to strike them that a cove would be under the necessity either of adding on a fresh library to his house every year, or of going down to the Chinaman’s & getting a few old fruitcases & nailing up some ordinary rough protrusive useful shelves of his own to hold his books, against the panelled wall between the built in beauties. They don’t seem to have any sense, these blokes. Still, I have no doubt that McG. has de- signed my library on the right lines, & so he ought too, as it is a £3000 affair. Well, anyhow, apart from that, it was a very good exhibition — it I’m sorry you don’t get a chance to have a squiz at such things. I’m afraid Williams Bros rimu & Scoullar period work will have a rather depressing effect on me after French & English walnut & amboyna mahogany; let alone some of the ways they have of playing round with oak these days. Sycamore they seem to be using a bit now too — there was a most charm- ing girl’s bedroom suite of polished sycamore just relieved with a few inlaid gree lines of some green wood. It’s a very white pale yellow, rather wood & can almostalso be made astonishingly ugly. It’s hard to beat a good plain unpolished oak in some ways, though.

I thought Miller’s review was pretty good, though I larfed considerable at my sympathy with the mission- aries. I never read this bird Saunders, either, but as he appears to be the dinkum oil & everybody else were such blooming scoundrels I suppose I should lose no time in doing so. Thanks for the Worker; I don’t subscribe, but Campbell had kindly torn the review out & sent it along. I hope C.Q.P. does an article; I would gladly scratch his back some day in return. I hope the other Wellington papers have a review too. Talking of all this reminds me I also got by this mail a good long letter from P.J.S. four fscap sheets, typed single space. He has some choice yarns to retail — apparently the Hist Assn suffers from its connections with V.U.C.; Scholefield wants to have a subscription of a guinea so as to attract more of the “right” kind of people — my God! — Johannes Andersen is prepared to fight any proposal to erect a memorial to E.G.W. tooth & nail because he wasn’t honest or something. But here’s the choicest stuff, which perhaps you already know all about — & may have joined? — Miss England & Johannes are starting a New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Literature & Art — to meet at one another’s houses regularly to discuss literature, art, sculpture, architecture, biology, anthropology, psychology &c. &c. (He says the &c’s are actually in the notice) Holy smoke! larf! I nearly swallowed my teeth, even though they’re not false. P.J.S. thought it might be a joke, but I have heard of things such-like in the past in which Johannes Andersen has been implicated. My word — wat a lark! And here I am unwilling to come back just yet! — Everything else duly noted in Daddy’s letter — good idea Keith’s installing deck tennis if it’s quod-tennis — Labour Day week-end family part, including Keith performing on the piano — Geoffrey’s new car — Betty’s slumbers &c. I hope this Christopher Dawson whom Daddy’s been reading is not a Yank, like the rest of his anthropological teachers.

Here’s a blasted nuisance. At I have just about finished revising my thesis — a cruel job — & am just preparing to start my last chapter; this time last week I got hold of a nice cheap typist — 1/- a 1000 words, what more do you want? — & here I get a note from her to-night to say that her new landlady objects to her playing the type-writer at home & that she can’t do it for me. I call it pretty cruel — she’s only done one chapter; & here’s Helen Allen who was going to do my index for me going away in three weeks (with her exceedingly wealthy aunt, to Italy, till the end of January) Now I’ve got to get another typist — probably more expensive — typing’s going to cost me about £18, as far as I can see. I could buy a l typewriter for £13..13, but the job’s too big for me to do in the time or with the requisite neatness, out of practice as I am. Anyhow it would drive me barmy to type 6 or 700 pages of my own stuff straight out — bad enough reading it.; Theses are horrible things. I shall be putting it in at the beginning of J the second term, about the middle of January. I’ll have it off my hands, lock stock & barrel by Xmas anyhow, unless I now go & trip over the mat & concuss my brain or something.

Well, Daddy’s cable came & after a week’s anxious thought I replied in the terms known to you. Nothing else seems to be turning up, & unless I go to the States I don’t know what to do. But I don’t want to go to the States for more than about five years. What I really want, is & would have had but for those cursed Rockefeller people, is two more years over here, to do Stephen & look round me properly. Of course Auckland probably has somebody to give the job to & will turn me down. If they give it to me I’ll have to start start thinking whether I’ll take it, as it means a serious & I suppose final plunge. The only con- solation would be that at least it’s Auckland & not Otago. If I come back I should like to come back to Wellington; at least it has some hills. What Grossman is like I haven’t the faintest idea — I hope not a complete dud. I had a letter from Tommy Hunter this mail in which he says some of the profs at V.U.C. have got their assistants up to £500 & if theythey all had guts it would be £500 all round. But he doesn’t know what F.P. thinks about anything, or any- thing about his Miss Marwick. I must have a scout around there I if I do come back — at least I could have a go at improving things a bit where I know they are all wrong & what needs to be done. I’d have to work fairly hard to forget about old Sir Jac Stephen, anyhow. Of course if I come out to Auckland I suppose I shall have to leave not later than the middle of February — that means I shall have to pay my own fare, as the free passage is only good between April & July. Well, anyhow, with that possibly in prospect, or perhaps hanging on here for a month or so longer, or going to Florence if there’s time — or Oxford — or Edinburgh — or Dublin — or the devil — could you, Daddy, advance me about £30 or £40 on my National Provident Fund cash. It must stand at about £40 or more now. What to do about that I don’t quite know: if I come back perhaps I’d better keep it going, though from all I can hear, it seems about the poorest insurance scheme in N.Z., & I suppose I would be in the Superan scheme. I think I asked you to give notice of withdrawal — perhaps if you will be so good & it’s convenient you will keep it paid up till I definitely decide. And look here; if the Dr’s bills have been pretty big, as I don’t see they can fail to have been, or if it’s in the slightest way incon- venient, don’t you go sending over any cash. I don’t want you to go selling out any shares or anything. You’ve done enough for me already. I said I would apply to you if in need — I’m not in need; but it’s just possible I may be in 3 months if I am still here. Remember I can raise the cash here in ½ a wink from people who would be delighted to let me have a loan for a few months or longer, & who can quite well afford to do it. So just remember; & no funny business, even if you are my Father. I hope Mummy will bear me out in this. I have still got £50 on fixed deposit; £25 to come from Joynt, final scholar- ship payment; & £30 (we’ll say on a conservative estimate) from Songs of Childhood. Enough to keep me here 6 months in moderate comfort — in Paris a year in luxury.

Here’s a thing I have forgotten about regularly ever since Ern came over — that’s to thank you Mummy for the socks you sent by him. I am wearing them now; they are as comfortable as any you have made. I like the colour, & very much cheered to be wearing socks made by you. On another chair a yard away are those blue & white capacious bed-socks you gave me which I used to take out tramping for the chilly nights — still as good as new. I am at this moment wearing also that brown cardigan you pinched from Ern to give me as I came away — no shop-products for you — & when I wear my Barker’s suit I put on that old woollen waistcoat of Daddy’s. I don’t wear Barker’s in this weather. So you see in Bollmsbury or Hammersmith where’er I may roam I wear all the woollen garments which remind me of home. — That reminds me I went to Hammersmith a week or so ago to see the Critic & a short thing by A.P. Herbert — very good roaring farce the former, the latter in the best Punch manner, that is, funny enough — quite funny — even very funny in places. I didn’t go out at all last week as I was econom- mising, except on Saturday, when I heard Ethel Smyth’s Mass in D at the Albert Hall — me & the Queen, we were both there. The Mass is 1st rate; after reading what the times, or was it the Observer? said, I believe her tales of cold-should- ering from male , conductors &c. “The Mass has a certain nobility, & moments of beauty” — smug, patronising lunatics.

Lord, here it is. ¼ to 12 & page 16! I have finished Boswell vol I. ½ way through Sidney, Defence of Poesie; but have read nothing else. Testimonials enclosed. Posted 1 copy of The Venture today, with poem by me. Posted also today this year’s Xmas card, reprinted from same. I don’t suppose you will like the “John C. Beaglehole” So I apologise for it; but the thing was done in a hurry, so that I couldn’t see a proof; Mac had it fixed in Cambridge for me; both the woodcuts are by him. Couldn’t get such good paper as last year either. I send a few extra in the Venture. I hope you will like it on the whole. Expensive things, though’ postage on them to N.Z. cost me 6/-. Too many cobbers.

Well, so long! Did I say testimonials enclosed. They may require to be edited a bit — eg. Butler’s hardly fits for a job in N.Z.! — but it might show them what a great man I am.