2110-4-3-31

Studley Vicarage Oxford Nov. 6. 1923.

Dear Colonel Buchan,

Let me acknowledge a fresh debt. You'll soon have no worlds left to conquer - except Otmoor. Wasn't it Bacon who took all knowledge for his province? Exit then Bacon to a back seat.

Thanks for the pleasure of "Midwinter" and "A Distant Prospect," which indeed gripped me more than the other, in spite of its five impressions. (Congratulations.) Perhaps because I have been indulging in a surfeit of fiction, and my palate is too coarsened to appreciate the finer vintages. Or it may be that I saw my own vacuous shadow reflected in your unplumbable depths. Have I not often taken the ignorant and shewn them your Distant Prospect, and, pointing out its incomparable beauty, unspoilt by the "hideous periphery of red brick," compassionated citied and cultured Boar's Hill? What matter if I have more often than not shewn them a mist and found polite acquiescence instead of rapturous delight? However, "The Last Secrets" next. I would pray Pan to return to Otmoor , - and stay awhile .

[over]

I chuckle over the duty of the older universities (Distant Prospect, page 558) and look up Shane Leslie, "End of a Chapter " page 118. Coincidence or is it an echo of a tickled memory like my own?

Yours sincerely and gratefully J. Kinchin Smith