to-morrow for Abu Hamed.

MR. W. S. BLUNT.

At Newbuildings Place, Sussex, on Sunday, a committee of poets consisting of W. B. Yeats, Sturge Moore, John Masefield, Victor Plarr, Frederic Manning, Ezra Pound, F. S. Flint, and Richard Aldington, presented to Mr. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, in token of homage for his poetry, a carved reliquary of Penitelican marble, the work of the sculptor Gaudier Brzeska. It bears a recumbent female figure and an inscription. The committee had intended to give a dinner in Mr. Blunt's honour, but he preferred to receive them at Newbuildings.

The following verses of address were read :—

"To Wilfrid Blunt.

"Because you have gone your individual gait,

"Written fine verses, made mock of the world,

"Swung the grand style, not made a trade of art,

"Upheld Mazzini and detested institutions;

"We, who are little given to respect,

"Respect you, and having no better way to show it

"Bring you this stone to be some record of it."

Mr. BLUNT said in his reply that he was to some extent an impostor. He had been all sorts of other things, but never a poet. He was not brought up that way at all. He was never at a public school, nor at a college. He had written a certain amount of verse, but only when he was rather down on his luck and had made mistakes either in love or politics or some branch of active life. He found that it relieved his feelings. He never thought in the least of getting it published; he did not even show it to his friends. His first little anonymous work was published when he was 35 or 36—and it was not much of a thing even then. He did not publish a single verse over his own name till he was about 43. His life had been an active one in various connexions, and people wrote to him sometimes, "We have great admiration for you." But it was never about his poetry. It had been either because he had taken up the cause of the Indian or the Egyptian, or more generally because he bred horses, that he was generally known. In one of the very first things he wrote he was ill-advised enough to say that he would not be called a poet, and that had stuck to him ever since. However, he had come round rather from that now. Within the last year or two he had washed his hands of politics and all forms of public life, and had withdrawn to a great extent from horse-breeding, and, having nothing to do, he had taken up with verse-writing to console him for a new disappointment. He had been writing a certain amount in the last year, and was very pleased now to be considered a poet.

There was then some general discussion of rhyme, blank verse, and consonance as Mr. Blunt's speech became less formal and was mingled with replies from individual members of the committee.

BOXING IN FRANCE.

NICE, JAN. 19.*

In a boxing match between Carpentier and O'Keefe here to-night Carpentier was declared the winner in

Stone Cottage

Coleman's Hatch

Sussex

( mail, as usual, 10 Church Walk, Kensington London, W. )

Dear Viola

Yes, very.

Hors d'oeuvre, as usual. Had a longish letter from Bill with long animadversion on you. otherwise the veil of ignorance has been drawn. I dare say the same channel of information has conveyed to you all needful news of y.v.t.

I am staying down here with Yeats, have been for two months. He goes to the U"S" in Feb. I am working on old Fenollosa's literary remains: Japanese plays which will appear in the Quarterly Review somtime or other. There are also Chinese lyrics to be got at.

As usual, I am about to have a book, I always am in that precarious condition.

I have found a Sculptor, one Gaudier Brzeska, he is so good that I came very near to insisting that Gwen should emigrate and study under him.

I have also told Cournos to call when he returns to New York, so dont be alarmed if you see a wild object on the doorstep. His real name is Korshune. However I suppose Bill will be seeing him anyhow.

Make my profound salaams to your wife and relatives .
I have not had a jim Djinn fizz for ages , and and
there is only ONE djinnfizz properly so called .

Thanks also for the noble contribution
from the editor of the delineator , fine manlike
figure he is .....

I can not think of anything else
that is fit to tell you, I am being converted
to Confucianism slowly but surely . Tell Gwen its not a religion .

YOURS SINCERELY, signed with the
blood of the martyrs

10 Church Walk, Kensington, W.

Dear Vyoler

You are quite right about Gorky, he
is a very ancient lemon. Cournos still suffers
from having lived in America, a number of his
enthusiasms are out of date.

Your remarks about "impressionism, Post impre-
sionism etc. are just provincial nonsense.
Impressionism was a classie and almost academic
style before you were born. And as for people
doing it because they cant follow in the feetwobs
of Alna Tadema and Rodin, that is more nonsense
as you know or as you ought to know if the
gods had had mercy on your intelligence.

But then I dare say you are only doing it
it to get a rise. Base ball has come to London.
Also a new manager for the G.E.R.

Any exports now !

No I've forgot the sabe. wash it. Not with a
goatee surely. Does your wife do sewing or is
it only a week end Brighton ? So dew be explixit.

I dont suppose yur letters are intended
to convey information ???? Sometimes ??

When do you change your mgr.?

Wots? doing ? voy a casar me ( no hyphen )
Still Fenollosing notes. Change of address to

5 Holland Place Chambers
Kensington, London, W

Dear Marpessa

Thanks for your letters. Was, Is, the
Ferdinand Earle's Carlotta, the same as Poor Bill's
ex-Carlotta ???? Lawk; s Mirandy '!!!. Who'd a thunk it
?? New thirds bright an sunny. All modern novelists
are likely to be bad, Oooooo yes., and the
Decameron was written a long time ago so naturally
is is a bit out of date. You'd better read the class
classics. .

And best felicitations for your rosy red
birthday. .

"Borning Borning" indeed !!! talk
about Chy kago feet ....

Sounds like one of Bill's adventures.

I wonder you didn't fang the goup picture and left it
for Ivan Gregorevitch Korshune to bring over. Here's
what I didn't look like three years ago, five years
ago when the fotograft waz, took. Oh what a blessing
is the daily press. Haow sweet ... and how is
your own wooly Katt, what do we care, personally
I mean, about the mad one ???? .

La la lah.
Its exhausting to be so elintic, especially when one has
written so much to day tey already.

Anyhow I've got to go tn the post AT once, or
I won't get in.

Grace mercy and peace etc.

5 Holland Place Chambers
Kensington . London . W.

Dear Vyoler-Marpesser

Your ideas of English life are jawndiced
by distance and distorted by readin' de poipers. Even
that gouper thinks I got a bald head. Taint so .

I dont think the foil of de Antillies will
open your letters but if she does you'll have to
stand alimony and all the drinks. You are gettin
somethins' unbridled like Cheyenne. And you'll spiel is a
fair treat, A roaster, blime, An me out for a style
as pure as the virgin snoze.

No I dont want no books, unless maybe you
want to fork up postage on the works of Mr Browning
my illustrious predecessor. You can sell the rest to
pay for the luxury of transmission.

No Gwen did NOT send me photo's of anything, only
a short note months ago, before me banns were banned.
or whatever, banded, I guess it is.

WOT !!! you never knew it was Bill's
unattainable pinnacle, his bleatin' desire etc. the
ungetatable Charlotte, that perferred his bad big brother
.Bill damm well out of it ? eh wet ? No this
is too tragic, or something. Bill's never let on
as how there was a sandal in his family in law.

3.

I didn't want to do it ? Don't you believe that song.
Its too late for me to tell you ALL about cubism,
read the century magazine pictures but not the printed
matter. And send me the photos of Guen's sculps.
And the faint wan echoes of you Wagons on the bloomin
blastin breeze.

EASTERN ISLEDER at Seigfried an' Coopers
etc. To see some o' ollly do, no that's the
wrong waltz. Try Bronx. NO a bronx.

I cant keep this up for much longer its gettin late.

Be kind, discrete and observant.

yours ever

S. HOLLAND PLACE CHAMBERS,
KENSINGTON W.

Yes my darling twirly twirly, Billette ex-Baxterettkins,
( to copy your charming style ad' familiares , and your
enchaunting frankness .)

America is full of people like you
and you letter is a charming example. Precicely because
of minds like yours, comparable to slightly hardened
putty, it is difficult, nearly impossible for
any good art to exist in America. Enthusiastic slush.

If your unfortunate son has any creative instinct
for the arts, he will undoubtedly have to leave home
at the age of seven. Pauvre petit ! Gawd and the right
etc.

You are the type of the nation at its best, what
can we hope from it ? It is all like you, you are
its glass and copy. Let the arts avaunt. Let Christianity
reign there.

yours ever devotedly