[c/o Perkins, Cambridge; forwardedHale, Emilyresident in Millbrook;q1 to Bennett Junior College. Millbrook, New York]
Letter 10.
I keep on writing in the hope of getting a letter sooner or later. It is true that I have had no American mail to speak of lately, so it may be simply that there has been a general hold-up. But I am naturally most anxious to have something beyond your first impressions of Millbrook. IUniversity College of North WalesTSE's adventure to;a6 have felt very tired this weekend, after my journey to Bangor, both mentally and physically, but not more than I should expect. The journey was rather a strain, as I could not get satisfactory assurance whether the whole train went there, or only a part, and if so, whether I was in the right part. In the end I think it was the whole train. It is a rather tiring journey of seven hours, the train very crowded, but I got a seat by good fortune. Bangor is a pleasant place, with the Menai Strait (across which is Anglesey) on one side and mountains, snow-capped, behind. IWilliams, W. Mosesas TSE's Bangor host;a1 stayed as the guest of a Professor Moses Williams, professor of Education: 1 that sounded rather forbidding, but I found him a very agreeable youngish man and a keen footballer; he has a very lively Irish wife – he being a Methodist lay-preacher, and she a devout Roman, make a serious combination – the one very very Welsh, and the other very very Irish, but it appears successful. The only outs were, first that all meals, including breakfast, had to be taken at the high table of the men students’ house of which the professor is Warden; and second that every interval of time was filled in by conversation from Mrs. Williams: I heard all about Swansea in the blitz, her husband’s rheumatic fevers, and the educational problems of their daughter Maureen. She and her husband seemed to hold rather different opinions as to whether it was an application of leeches to the temple (insisted upon by Mrs. W.) that cured him of blindness following rheumatic fever. But they were nice people. Owing to Mrs. Williams’s conversation, and the formal reception on Tuesday given by the Principal of the College, IPaget, Lt.-Col. Charles, 6th Marquess of Anglesey;a1 should have seen nothing whatever of the environs but for an invitation to lunch with the Angleseys – not especially interesting people, but pleasant and an agreeable interlude to purely academic society – at Plas Newydd, which is near Llanfairpwyll etc. on the island; their house, like all such houses, is commandeered for government use, and they live mostly in the dining room.2 The'Johnson as Critic and Poet'as essay was lectured;a4 lecture hall was filled, both evenings, and I got a good reception (the rest of the evening, of course, being spent in discussion with selected undergraduates of both sexes); but the lectures are by no means perfect lectures, because I found so much more that ought to be said on the subject than could be said in the time. They will have to be considerably expanded for publication, but goodness knows when I shall have time. IHallett, Monsignor Philipasks TSE to reprise Johnson lectures;a3 haveSt. John's Catholic Seminary, Wonershand 'Johnson as Critic and Poet';a1 to deliver them again, at the local Roman Catholic seminary a couple of miles from Shamley, this coming weekend. I don’t want to, but Monsignor Hallett is a visitor at this house, and a kind of spiritual adviser of two of the inmates, so I feel rather obliged to do so.
TomorrowEinstein, Lewis;a1 I have to lunch with the Hon. Lewis Einstein.3 I don’t know who he is, but he is interested in ‘Books Across the Sea’. He seems to be an American Jew who lives in Midlothian (but when in London at the Ritz) and has a slight Scotch accent, which is very odd; I wonder if he is a big pot, a retired judge or something? WednesdayMiller, Perry;a2 to dine with Perry Miller of Harvard, a Captain.
I hope that spring is approaching in New York State. Soon, I expect, you will be having to make up your mind whether you want to be there another year.
This old 5/- pen suits me much better than the new grand Parker, I regret to say.
1.W. MosesWilliams, W. Moses Williams, Professor of Education and Head of the Training Department, University College, Swansea.
2.Lt.-ColPaget, Lt.-Col. Charles, 6th Marquess of Anglesey. Charles Paget (1885–1947), 6th Marquess of Anglesey; his wife was Marjorie Paget (1883–1946), eldest daughter of Henry Manners, 8th Duke of Rutland.
3.LewisEinstein, Lewis Einstein (1877–1967), American diplomat and author. Born in New York – the son of a wool magnate – and educated at Columbia University, he served in the Legation at Constantinople, 1903–8, and was U.S. Minister to Czechoslovakia, 1921–30. His writings include Inside Constantinople: A Diplomatist’s Diary during the Dardanelles Expedition, April–September 1915 (1918); Divided Loyalties: Americans in England during the War of Independence (1933); A Diplomat Looks Back (1968); and The Holmes–Einstein Letters: Correspondence of Mr Justice Holmes and Lewis Einstein 1903–35, ed. James Bishop (1964).
3.LewisEinstein, Lewis Einstein (1877–1967), American diplomat and author. Born in New York – the son of a wool magnate – and educated at Columbia University, he served in the Legation at Constantinople, 1903–8, and was U.S. Minister to Czechoslovakia, 1921–30. His writings include Inside Constantinople: A Diplomatist’s Diary during the Dardanelles Expedition, April–September 1915 (1918); Divided Loyalties: Americans in England during the War of Independence (1933); A Diplomat Looks Back (1968); and The Holmes–Einstein Letters: Correspondence of Mr Justice Holmes and Lewis Einstein 1903–35, ed. James Bishop (1964).
3.MonsignorHallett, Monsignor Philip Philip Hallett: rector (since 1924) of St John’s Seminary, Wonersh, Surrey.
4.PerryMiller, Perry Miller (1905–63), American historian, taught at Harvard University from 1931, but spent the years 1942–5 working for the Office of Strategic Services in London. Works include The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century (1939) and Jonathan Edwards (1949).
2.Lt.-ColPaget, Lt.-Col. Charles, 6th Marquess of Anglesey. Charles Paget (1885–1947), 6th Marquess of Anglesey; his wife was Marjorie Paget (1883–1946), eldest daughter of Henry Manners, 8th Duke of Rutland.