ENPages
page_0001
Laurier House, Ottawa.
March 27, 1933.
My dear Buchan:
I cannot thank you too warmly for sending me the charming inscription to be placed in my Sir Walter Scott. Your reference to me as "an old friend" is something I value much more than words can begin to express. The reference is doubly precious seeing that the inscription goes into a book dedicated to two such friends as Baldwin and Trevelyan.
page_0002
I can hardly claim Trevelyan as a friend also of my own, but Baldwin I certainly can. With Trevelyan however, I had an acquaintance which I recall with pride. I spent the winter of 1899-1900 at the Passmore Edwards Settlement in London, and was present one evening at a feast of Fellows, or some such event, at Trinity College, Cambridge when I had as a neighbour on the one side Lord Acton, and on the other, George Trevelyan. I was, I think to Dr Wm Cunningham, that I owed that particular honour. Dr Cunningham had given a course of lectures, which I attended at Harvard the year before, and I was paying him a visit at Trinity at the time, if I recollect aright. I also knew the Humphry Wards very well, so have an additional link with both Trevelyan and his wife.
I recall so vividly the day Violet Markham took me to call on you. I see us all standing by a table - with its polished surface and books upon it, which it seems to me was not far from a large window with long hangings - the table was [by] a wall opposite the part of the room from which we entered,
page_0003
this may be wrong, but some such grouping remains in my memory. I am gratified, indeed, to be numbered among your friends.
I am delighted that you are writing a life of Cromwell. I can imagine the intense interest with which you must carry on this work. I wonder if you know Professor W.Y. Elliott of Harvard University: he is professor of Government. - an exceedingly well-informed man, and a very fine fellow. He is spoken of as a possible president of the University. In course of conversation in my library here one day, he told me of his being a direct descendant of Cromwell. I imagine he may have a knowledge of some material that might be helpful to you.
With renewed thanks, and my affectionate regards to Mrs Buchan and yourself.
Believe me,
Yours very sincerely,
W.L. Mackenzie King.
