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COLONEL WILLIAM WOOD 59 GRANDE ALLÉE QUEBEC CANADA.
3 August 1936
The Private Secretary of His Excellency thw Governor-General, the Citadel, Quebec.
Dear Sir:
on receipt of a recent letter from you, in which His Excellency kindly expressed his acceptance of this book, I wrote to the donor, whose own reply is enclosed herewith.
I remain, dear Sir,
yours faithfully,
William Wood.
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Anna Chapin Ray New Haven Connecticut
357, Whitney Avenue, First August, 1936
Dear Colonel Wood,
Thank you enormously for doing my errand. I was sorry to ask it of you; but I was sure you would do it with just the proper degree of casualness.
Now that the aroma - musk - of Franklin Delano's presence has evaporated from Quebec, the book is starting, and to your address. As a mere Yankee out of Devon out of Brittany, I don't just know the exact path to the steps to the throne. Together, the Custom House, the Post Office and I evolved the strange jumble of markings to keep out the customs inspectors.
I wonder what you, who knew Mr. Taft and, probably, Mr. Hoover, both gentlefolk, and wise, and honourable thought of Roosevelt. At your distance, you can have gained no realization of the progressive disintegrating of all our national decencies. The best excuse we are making is to admit quite frankly that the man, his wife and children are definitely degenerate, mentally and morally. The corruption of this government is untellable. But we hope a good deal from the simpler Kansan.
Lord Tweedsmuir's Scotland was a delight. When Sandy Foulis, child of Ottawa Bildad, went to the Paris cemetery, I went across to buy a native-born Scottie and, for the four months it took to get him old enough for the trip back to Paris, we lived in the charming Royal George on the banks of the Tay: Tay Bridge under one window and the North Inch outside the other, with the autumn-coloured Grampians beyond. Never was a lone foreigner given a better time. I even got a Bairn's Token!
And, living at Saint Malo, we were given the freedom of the library, with access to the Jacques Cartier Manuscripts. Caenmohr Fergus Steele is an erudite canine. * Wolfe, by this time, should be chasing bunnies in the Happy Hunting Ground. I greet his successor - for there is sure to be one.
With great thanks and all good wishes for you and for my beloved Canada,
Sincerely,
Anna Chapin Ray
* Not James; but a dog of the name of Wolfe.
