2110-5-9-6

Telegrams, Thorpe, Surrey. Telephone, 13 Chertsey. Station & Parcels, Egham.

Eastley End, Thorpe, Chertsey.

18 August 1931.

Dear Buchan.

I hope without being tedious I may say how much I have enjoyed your recent historical romance, and how I appreciated the various characters and the charm of the woodland scenes in which they appear.

I wonder if you will think me pedantic if I say that for sometime I was puzzled by a haunting parallel to the title of your work, and that at last I have recalled it. Do you remember in the Crito - at the beginning of it - when Crito went to see Socrates in prison - it was ὄρθρος βαθύς - deep twilight literally, but it was really deep dawn, when the sky was still dark. Something of this kind I feel fits your beautiful title which pervades the whole book.

I am so glad you published that striking and eloquent language of Chief Justice Crewe, when in 1625 he delivered judgment concerning the Earldom of Oxford, to which claim was made by Robert de Vere, and Bertie L^d. Willoughby d'Eresby, ancestor of the present Earl of Lindsey & Abingdon.

I remember when Asquith in the worst possible taste appropriated the title of Oxford, despite many protests of authority, I hunted up Crewe's judgment. Can you find a better example of stately English than that wonderful panegyric on the family of De Vere? Your friend Rosebury, who delighted in lineage questions, once said to me that there was no family in chivalry comparable with that of De Vere. That passage you quote from the judgment concludes, as you probably know, with -"and yet let the name and dignity of de Vere stand so long as it pleaseth God."

Again, do you remember in the judgment that quaint phrase -"apprehension of gentry" which I suppose anticipates our modern Snobbery?

By the way when do you suppose that very prevalent little ailment first made its appearance?

I once had occasion to write of some recent political peerages (of which Lloyd George took handsome toll for his Private Fund), and I amused myself by quoting Emerson's piracy

of Crewe's rhetorical question - "Where is Bohun? Where is de Vere &c" and then his conclusion

"The lawyer, the farmer, the silk mercer lie perdu under the coronet, and wink to the antiquary to say nothing"!

I daresay you remember it.

Crewe, before his appointment as C.J., had been Speaker Do you think he addressed the Commons House in such language as he employed in the judgment? Your Fitzroys and Whitleys are a little pedestrian in comparison.

Pray forgive this trespass on your holiday, and do not think of any answer.

With my duty to your lady if she still remembers me

Yrs

J.S. Sandars.

I remember when Gathorne-Hardy was ennobled in 1878 (after being 13 years M.P. Oxford University) he proposed to take the title of Oxford; but at the first word of protest he abandoned the idea & took Cranbrook.