2110-4-4-11

[Nowell Smith]

School House, Sherborne, Dorset

May 6 '24

Dear Buchan,

Though I am fearfully busy, I must tell you that I have just read your notes on Sir Walter which came by today's post, & I have enjoyed them enormously & agree with all you say. I have never been able to doubt that

Sir Walter was the biggest of all the lot since Shakespeare: & I have often maintained that there is nothing in narrative up to Homer till you come to the Great central chapter of the Heart of Midlothian. That is the very crown of imaginative narrative to me.

This however is mere "encomium", & you plead for criticism - for which I wish I had time. But really I habitually lose myself so much in Scott that it is about the nearest thing to pure pleasure that I know.

Now back to business! I hope you are very fit. Why don't you ever

come this way?

Yours ever

Nowell Smith