2110-3-9-12

Pen Rose Berkhamsted

Feb. 27. 1921.

Dear John

I have read all except the actual Lincoln stories, which I shall read tomorrow, but as this Sunday afternoon is my chance at writing to you at leisure I write now; I am full of enthusiasm, and think it the best thing you have ever done, - a great thing to say of anything done at the time of life we have reached now and after all this bothering war, and with your own indifferent health etc. The historical vignettes are each clearcut, bright,

full of the spirit of each passing age, psychologically interesting, and yet with a moral 'uplift' in them that 'done me a lot of good' and a unity to the whole book given by the entrancing mystery of heredity. What a grand idea to hang it onto Abe. That 18th century Kentucky ancestor of his, lifting it quite natural-like out of the slime of the seedy rascals just before, is grand. The idea and execution of the seedy rascals is also capital. Its all so daftly natural and probable - barring the ring which is thrown in to make the vulgar gape and

rub the elbow - as I did too. I have often thought and dreamed of this mystery of heredity - and seen history just like that, but I never have had the inventive gift and now you have done it for me just as I have often longed to have it done, as I never could do it myself. And its just rightly tragic enough, as life is, but yet very comforting and strengthening that in spite of all it goes on and even gets somewhere sometimes and anyway is fun all along if you have courage. Just now when one can see no way out for public

affairs that one likes the prospect of, this grim cheerful reminder of what the "course of history" has actually always been "done me a lot of good"!

And for the imaginative use of real historical knowledge and sound thought on historical happenings it delights me to the heart.

By the way, does the author of the life of Montrose really think it was a good thing to cut off the King's head, "sub specie aeternitatis?" Anyway that was a good story, like

the Maid and St Bartholomew, and the Flanders wife, and in fact all of them.

Well John, thanks for writing that book. My children are following hard on my trail, also enthusiastic. But there's more in it than even they, at their age, can see. I'm so glad Mary's got it from you with the jolly inscription. The "face at the window" is a family tradition of value. I shall be in Oxford on commission March 29 to Ap. 1. If you are going to be at Elsfield the following week end, viz Ap. 2-3, and visitable, I might linger on in or near Oxford.

Last of all, would you be