March 10th [1932]

My dear Mary Butts,

Here's a moment of time. As I've just finished "The House Party" and am still almost quivering with excitement about it, I must obviously write to you. It is superb; I think one of the best things you've ever done. But, you know, it's Vincent's fault, really. Though, of course, you know that? Or, being - as you say - spectator only, don't you? I just wondered. You have made it utterly inevitable; tragedy perfectly artistic; yet I feel it isn't inevitable finally. I mean it isn't universally true, because it is somehow involved in Vincent's personal weakness. In 98% of similar cases, yes; but it's the 2% which matter and make the rule rather than prove it. I'll talk, if I may, when we meet.

I think that the first page of "Friendship's Garland" is a most perfect example of your style. I shall include it in an anthology of English prose style about the year 1950! And (may I say it?) I don't think "Scylla and Charybdis" quite comes off; because you know the people so well, you haven't introduced them properly and the reader (me) is slightly

2.

muddled. But anyhow, it's all good and I'm delighted beyond
words that Squire has given you such a good boost. That
ought to help more than anything I shall ever be able to do.
I haven't finished "Traps for Unbelievers" yet; it's heavy
going in spite of its apparent lightness.

I've just read O'Neill's "Mourning becomes Electra" -
an attempt to rewrite the Oresteia as a tragedy during the
American Civil War; trilogy of all. Excessively vulgar.
They become a family of criminal lunatics, which was not, I
feel, what the Greeks meant.

Would your nearest and dearest care to do two or three
little line drawings to illustrate a dullish article on
"How the Classic Writers worked"? I couldn't pay much -
but the publicity might help? The drawings, though bright,
to err on the side of discretion? Shall I write to him
direct?

And now I've got to review an 18/- book proving that
Henry VIII didn't have syphilis after all. Isn't it odd
how people waste their time?

As ever,

The Bookman

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.

Directors:
Sir Ernest Hodder-Williams, C.V.O. (Chairman)
R. Percy Hodder-Williams
Ralph Hodder-Williams

Telephone: CITY 3704-5-6-7

St. Paul's House
Warwick Square
London, E.C.4

May/June 1932?

My dear Hans Butts,

That is quite warrellous. I can't tell you how pleased I am. But I wasn't surprised (because Winston Edward's & Hennemann rang we up on Friday to ask for my article on you in the Bookman, and we had a long talk) and I'm going to say something my copy of "Ashe" to read. I want to write to you over the weekend to tell you, but

The Bookman

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.

Telephone: CITY 3704-5-6-7

2,

That's all right - but it seems like the only thing now is to break it somehow to Gabriel. Put me through to you. It is heart breaking, I know.

Blame on me.

It is heart breaking, I know.

Stuart I send Heine warm. Fabriele stellées for "The Bookman" as specimen of his work in the meantime?

And forgive me, us and everybody if you can.

From,
Hugh R.W.

The Bookman

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.

Directors:

Telephone: CITY 3704-5-6-7

I can't tell you how much Petter cleared me. I finished the book last night and feel depressed. It's been aSURPRISING. Don't dare to buy a copy. You're in the "six", and she'll have one immediately.

But my posthumous reputation will not rest

The Bookman

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd.

Directors:

Telephone: CITY 3704-5-6-7

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on that but on the fact that you are
going to dedicate one of your books to me.

I can't thank you enough.

Also, [underline] I'm going to do a book on
your uniform with Eliot.

Yes, Manny Forbes certainly intends to
unit you, according to my brother.

Hampstead.

My dear Mary Butts,

"Felicity" has arrived, but within her a letter to Trubo
which I return. And I feel that perhaps it should have been a
letter to me instead, telling me what to do with the copy when I've
read it. To come back to you or to go to Wishart direct? And the
dedication. Again I can't thank you enough. But may it be just
the plain name, without anything else? What I was allowed to do
was a gift to me and what I did was a debt I owed to you. Just
between us. May we leave it at that?

And wouldn't I just love the "Supernatural" for the
"Bookman"; May I begin it in the January Number? Which means at
press by about December 8.

There's no news here, really. One is so busy doing
unimportant things that there's hardly time to live. I try to
keep integrity and un-busy, but it's very difficult. Not sure whether
in circumstances like that it isn't best to simplify things to the
point of catholic devotions? I'm not a catholic. May have to be one
day, though.

**Are** affairs important? You know I broadcast about news
to schools every Tuesday - with a partner. Yesterday I spent four
hours preparing a twenty-minutes dialogue about Ottawa. Does Ottawa
matter a tinker's curse, anyhow? And one can't tell the truth, even
if it did. Next week The Means Test; about which can tell less truth

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than ever.

In about a year I shall come to you and ask you what I ought to
do? I'm hopelessly undecided about Parliament; if I do stand, it'll
have to be as a Socialist. A Liberal seems so useless. But I can't
help being a Whig at heart. It's so complicated.

Or the Church? I should make a good confessor and might be
able to help stacks of people I can't get at now. But could one
break through the barrage of whited sepulchres and wouldn't the
Church effectively stifle any good that was in one?

Or writing? Is it possible to fight for true values? Is
one's own vision sure enough to be worth expressing?

I suppose the real answer is that one must just wait till
the Powers see fit to attend to you. But then perhaps they won't.

Now I'm going to read "Felicity".

Ever,

Hampstead.

My dear Mary Butts,

It's quite magnificent; I've lived with it for two
days - in tubes, buses, armchairs and bed: read it twice; thought
about it, thrilled to it and criticised it. This last as the
final compliment, without which anything else I might say would
not please you.

I think you've got right down to the depths; clarified
it inside yourself and shown it to the world; shown them what
they _must_ think - those that can think anyhow - about ultimate
things. The sheer dramatic force of it is amazing; the great
point, I think, is when you first hear of Kralin's plan about the
land; it's so enormous (in the sense of enormity), so unexpected
that it's something like the shock of surprise (only reversed;
ugliness instead of beauty) that you get on coming suddenly on
York Minster, towering above you, out of one of the tiny lanes
where you'd never suspected its presence. Then, again, the first
time they all sit down together to discuss things! Almost the
feeling of aesthetic satisfaction when a clever dramatist has
got all his characters, credibly, together; combined with the
authentic Surry-side thrill, when the green light announces the
villain. And the tension that only you can get.

I pick those out, I suppose, because the dramatic
always gets me (it's that partly in T.S.E.); but the atmosphere;