2110-4-1-24

* You somewhat anticipated the coincidence: I contrived it.

Studley Vicarage Oxford Aug 28

Dear Colonel Buchan

You are dealing hardly with good & long established precedent. To make gifts on a birthday has hitherto prevailed. Instead, you to whom is the birthday, give us your gifts & with a lavish hand. You give me Huntingtower*: & all we can do is show our thanks - even to the heavens - and wish you Happy Returns; especially if each Return be heralded by similar gift.

For nigh a year I have more than Lenten self-restraint denied myself the serial instalment of Huntingtower. I like not my nectar (scotch or other) in sips. Give me a long, long drink. I have had it. Thanks indeed.

They call you novelist, publisher, historian. Man alive. You are PAN

himself - Pan dancing in the coppice-clad hills of Otmoor, & compelling even sexagenarian country-parsons to dance with him.

"Lord, it's astonishing how that old bird, Tennyson,* got the goods". Change Tennyson to Buchan & it is "the goods" indeed.

But why - oh why - couldn't you have consoled poor Heritage with Eugénie? Make it up to him in your next, and bring him to Beckley. Our drabness would be all the better for a little of the sunshine you spread.

Yours sincerely J Kinchin Smith

* Salve, Regina et Victrix! Glad you too are Victorian!