2110-5-1-2

[Mr Standfast]

66. Marryat Road, Wimbledon, S.W.19.

9. February 1927

Private & Confidential

Dear Sir,

Of the many readers who write to you in praise of your work, I wonder whether you have any other who is like myself at once a publisher's Reader of novels, etc., a member of a Quaker family traditionally "pacifist", a man who through ill-health has never shone in sport or war, and yet an ardent admirer of Richard Hannay and his friends.

It is because I doubt it that I think it may interest you to know how much my good friends of the "Greenmantle" books mean to me (not to mention Midwinter or Prester John & the rest)

I will not bore you with an account of the many times of crisis or trouble when the courage, good faith and high endeavour which are the foundations of your stories have given me courage to face things which seemed at first pretty hopeless; but I would like you to know this: that I am a man whose chosen work is connected with literature, so that I may claim to be fairly well read, and I do not know any other writer whose books are to me so pleasant, because of their style, or so cheering because of their ideals, as your own. Please don't think from this that I regard your novels as sermons! I enjoy Richard Hannay's adventures with the best, as adventures brilliantly described; but I do believe that

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the great appeal of your work to many of your readers must be that there is in it all so much more than the adventures; so much that is sorely needed in the world just now, when so many are disatisfied, unsettled, and disloyal to what they know in their hearts to be worth of loyalty.

As I say, I am undistinguished in sport or war or anything else, but I got crocked when serving in France with the Quaker Ambulance Unit in 1915, and as a temporary invalid afterwards naturally met the types of "conscientious objectors" you described in "Mr. Standfast" so that I have some knowledge of both sides of the picture, and can appreciate particularly the penetration, understanding and humour of your account of the "conscientious objectors".

Please forgive me for troubling you at all, but I have resisted the temptation for a good many years to send you my most grateful thanks, and I hope that my excuse for writing now may be the rather unusual angle from which I first approached your books (an angle not naturally inclining me to appreciation of them) and also the fact that, as I re-read my well-thumbed copies of them, I realize that they had not a little to do with broadening my own views on one's duties in life, and on what things are really worth while.

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You may remember a wonderful description of a meeting at night on the slopes of the Coolins, and its consequences. I never had either Wake's courage or his fanaticism; but that scene and its effects made a great impression on me, and may have saved at least one insignificant fellow from becoming a sanctimonious poseur like too many of his former co-religionists, and possibly helped him to a point of view which has enabled him, however unworthy, to marry a regular officer's daughter and (I hope!) make her happy.

Really, these personal confidences are unforgiveable, and I must stop before I embarrass you further, with the assurance that I do not, of course, expect any reply to this, and a renewed hope that you will forgive my bad taste in indulging in personal matters. The excuse for that is that unfortunately a favourite author cannot expect a reader to regard him as a complete stranger!

Very gratefully yours,

William Rowntree