a solecism. He aid "NO".

Bit Jamseie my dear do not build hopes
on this. All I can say is that I have tak
e action.

It may not work.

But do not fuss about getting o
other people t o take similar action. That
makes otherpeople seared. If I do not
succeed, I shall tell you atonce. And men
while do not be too optimistic.

Yours ever,

FROM HAROLD NICOLSON, 10, NEVILLE TERRACE, ONSLOW GARDENS, S.W.7

TELEPHONE: KENSINGTON 3326

2nd December 1949.

My dear James,

Thank you for your letter. I was much amused about the Duches
of Kent. I do agree with you about the discomfort of meeting
Royalties. I am very sorry for them, but then I am very sorry for
armadillos, but where if an armadillo comes to luncheon one can shu
it up in the cellar, one has to grin and bow when Royalties are
there. Their attempts to be natural and spontaneous are an
agony to the soul.

I should like to see you before you go to Paris. What about
dinner on Wednesday the 7th? I shall be up on Monday morning so
you could telephone to say if that is all right, or we may be
meeting at Lady Crewe's for luncheon that day.

I saw Clarissa yesterday and thought she was looking more
lovely than ever.

Yours ever, my dear James,

April 1 1951

FROM HAROLD NICOLSON, SISSINGHURST CASTLE, CRANBROOK, KENT

My dear Jamesy,

My mother died on Good Friday. For the last five days she was practically unconscious and did not recognize any of us. She just floated out of life gently. Of course I was glad of all that and happy that she did not suffer. Then she was cremated, her ashes put with those of my father, and she will be buried next week with him in the cemetery at St Michael's Mount--le cimitière marin. All therefore would be just a pleasant melancholy of gentle memories and regrets were it not for the problem of my brother Freddy. He completely collapsed. Two days before she died he was carried back at luncheon time by two strong men from the local pub. I had to put him to bed at least four times. Then the doctor gave him injections and he was removed in an ambulance to a home. But what are we to do with him now? His whole life was looking after my mother and if he is left alone he will just drink himself to death. One cannot divest oneself wholly of such duties and responsibilities.

I gather that the Ombrellino was every bit as cold as I had been told. I do not care for cold in a northern climate, but when it hits me among cypresses and myrtle it is like a disguised enemy. I do not think I should have enjoyed the Florence stop, apart from sight seeing. The constant cry of "Alice! Alice!" would

drive me out of my senses. It would be the only words of Violet's that I
with my weakness could hear. But I need a holiday. It is wet here and col
as I have never known it; the garden is about three weeks overdue.
I have been reading with interest St. Stephen Spender's autobiography. He

I have been reading with interest St. Stephen Spender's autobiography. He
had a sense of sin. When he was a young man he lived outrageously in Ham-
burg having about 52 lovers and sprawling over then on hot afternoons.
What made it all so delicious to him was that there sense of SIN. I
wonder if I have missed something. Perhaps the sense of sin in early days
would now give me as a companion to my old age a sense of remorse. And
that in its turn would reconcile me to the cruelty of becoming old. As
it is I just try not to allow my indignation at it to find a voice.
I dare say this letter will not reach you as I do not remember the In-

I dare say this letter will not reach you as I do not remember the In-
ghilterra's address-- is it Tre Fontane or Quatro Fontane? Such a mis-
take to put three when one ought to put four.
Bless you my dear James and enjoy every minute of it. I hope the chair-

take to put three when one ought to put four.
Bless you my dear James and enjoy every minute of it. I hope the chair-
man of my and your Committee is being firm to Victor Mallet, firm to
Mrs Cacciatore, firm to Ruth Draper, but very gentle to you and Keats
and Shelley and even to that swine Trelawney and nice to Severn--what a
GOOD man the latter was!

Yours ever,

September 12 1951 Wednesday

FROM HAROLD NICOLSON, 10. NEVILLE TERRACE, ONSLOW GARDENS, S.W.7.

TELEPHONE: KENSINGTON 3326

My dear James,

When people want advice, what they really want is to be given encouragement in a dangerous enterprise, or solace to a conscience that is feeling a bit sore.

What you want me to say is that I think you are morally justified in throwing over Constable and going to Longmans. (Incidentally Mark is an angel of sweetness and beauty, but just you wait till you meet Mr Green !! Michael is a nurse in a fever ward, soothing brows, compared to him) I understand perfectly your wish to "come over"-what an odd technical expression!- to Longmans. But the fact that "Mark saw at once, in a flash", does not mean that you are not committed for a third book to Constable under your 1949 contract. Nor does it really justify you in forgetting that Constable have given you advances and **me** been financially generous in the past.

Publishers are, I suppose, accustomed to authors whom they help in their early days and who desert them when grandeur, fame and plenty are achieved. I do not think Constable spotted soon enough that you were not exactly a hack writer. I agree that far. But no further. Anyhow,

there is nothing to be done about it, since you must go your way. But if you want me to put a great dollop of lanoline on your guilty conscience, I just want. You van get it out of John and Lady Crewe and the Naval Commander whose legs have gone wrong or more probably from the spirit that twangs harps in the night.

I go down home on Friday and remain till I have finished G.V. -which
should be a week. Then I am up here again.

Yours ever,

Oh Lord! What a floater about Vincent! I AM sorry about it. I mean the heavy autumn rains in the mouldering apple orchards wont be nearly so much fun when there is no prospect of ending the day with Calvados and sport.

You are not very explicit in your note. I am not clear whether Gérard
emplys you as (a) ballon d'essai (B) bouc émissaire (c) agent provocateur.

January 13 1952

FROM HAROLD NICOLSON, SISSINGHURST CASTLE, CRANBROOK, KENT.

My dear Jamsie,

I have just finished "The Flight of Youth" and my review will appear next Sunday today week. I think it is really beautifully done and so well constructed. It must have been hell to get the right facts in the right order and to keep your proportions. But you have managed all this without the slightest strain or apparent effort. That is what makes the difference between good writing and bad writing. The latter seems difficult; the former seems effortless. Yes it is a fine literary achievement and you may well feel proud of it. I like people who are able to concentrate. Your book, although discursive in form, is terribly concentrated in essence. Very very cunning you are Jamesy. But a good craftsman; good at that vital thing facture; in fact a good professional writer and what more can we need in life. A little love, you may say. A little less debts, you may say. A nice holiday with an Arcadian companion at Baalbek. Yes all these things are desirable and good; but it is best to have a job and to be good at it, to know one is good at it, and to know that the people who are also good at it know that you are good at it. That is the best.

I go off to Denmark by the boat on Friday next and come back a week after. We must have an evening. I hope you have kept your New Year Resolution. Tell Len from me that I think he is a selfish man not to help more

July 18 1954 what a dull sort of date! April 5 is exciting: August

FROM HAROLD NICOLSON, SISSINGHURST CASTLE, CRANBROOK, KENT. 20 ought to be
torrid: But July 18 is just wet
and green.

My dearest Jamsie,

Many thanks indeed for reading my manners chapters. I am encouraged
by what you say and am sure you are right about the Eastern Chapter.
It is silly to affirm opinions about a civilization, even the range
of which escapes one's own experience and knowledge. My theory real-
ly is that once manners become fixed or stylised they degenerate
into ceremonial and this is hateful to me. But I did not express the
thing tactfully or respectfully. I shall sleep with a piece of jade,
for at least a week, hoping it will induce a more receptive mood. Not
perhaps a very exhilarating companion. It recalls for me John Spar-
row's suggested phrase for anbituary of Lord Simon:-"Under a
smooth, and indeed conciliatory manner, he concealed a heart of
stone".

If Rupert Hardy writes I shall reply. I shall say how long I have
known you since you were at Balliol with my own boy and in the army
with my other own boy and are a figure in the world of letters. But
I see that he is angry and will not be in a mood to appreciate small
fun.

See you on July 22 Coq d'Or Stratton St.

I do not know how much Crewe had to do with the Irish crisis.
He was one of those people, I imagine, who never took a firm initi-

S.S. Whillem Ruys
Rotterdam Lloyd.

Java, February 18 1957

My dearest Jamesy,

I have just finished reading the Confessions of J.J. Rousseau and feel that I must write to you at once to clear myself of the depression he has aroused in me. I dislike self-pity and persecution mania more than I dislike most human afflictions and Rousseau really was disgraceful the way he convinced himself that all his self-induced misfortunes were due to the machinations of his enemies. I cannot tolerate a man who could blub over the sweet innocence of a child in the Luxembourg Gardens and deposit as many as five (repeat five) of his own babies on the steps of a foundling home. Worse than Shelley. Now you would never deposit your basards basely. You would me to adopt the elder girl and Peggy to adopt the younger one, whereas the boy would be given over to the charge of Sir Anthony and Lady Eden.

I know you don't want to hear about my travels. It is like being shown photographs of a journey to Guatemala, where all the photographs are views of South American harbours, marriage processions in Quito, and a group of missionaries taken out side the White Fathers dispensary at Bahia Blanca. The only photograph albums that are interesting are those which depict lovers of different clines and ages. The bathing pool on board convinces me how correct Kenneth Clark was to distinguish so sharply between the naked and the nude. There is always a most unbecoming moment when the bather, emerging from his initial dive, wipes his nose or squeezes his nose in order (not having a hankerkief) to expel moisture. Nor do I share Raymond's theory that the coloured races are more shapely and skin-perfect than Europeans. I am not sure about the Chinese, since those I have seen seem to me to be dry and smooth. But the sheen of a black skin suggests wetness to me, or even slime.

The tropics, as you told me, are ugly things. Moreover we have had dull weather, which is called a monsoon. But the oceans are superb and Vita and I have thoroughly enjoyed the days and nights on board, watching flying fish and retiring to air-conditioned cabins to do, strange as it may seem, A LOT OF WORK. She has got on with La Grande Mademoiselle, and I have laid the foundations of my book on Happiness. You know what a delight this is, and with what enhanced self-esteem we enter the saloon or smoking room with a sense of work accomplished, and gaze with contempt upon Major Turner, Mrs Hyamsohn, and F. Stokks and Mevrouw Stokks who are just totting up the score of the game of bridge which they have been playing all afternoon.

In every country, I suppose, intellectuals are in the minority, but in Great Britain and the Dominions that minority is reduced to a tiny figure composed of eccentrics. I don't want or need people to talk to me about Proust or Kafka but I do sometimes regret that so many of my countrymen are interested only in uninteresting things. But I enjoy shop. I like rubber planters or tea planters to tell me how exactly they tap rubber or dry tea. But then off they wander into test matches or pension grievances and I gaze at the blue waves chasing each other with sad empty eyes. "Am I boring you?" thy ask seeing veiled eyes. I should wish to answer, as Hugh Cecil once answered such an enquirer, with the two words "Not yet". But I am polite and murmur without conviction "Not atall".

Albany has been entered by thieves who have stolen my links and cigarette cases and two watches. I don't really mind much, as I am not a man of property like Gerry. Colin. Miss Niggeman and Miss Macmillan each suspects someone else, since it was clearly prear a

Sissinghurst. December 25 1961. CHRISTMAS DAY GLORIA IN EXCELSIS!

My dearest Hamesy Two wonderful letters from you. A narrow escape it seems to me from Mary Lise. As Howard would tell you, it is risky to flirt with people if not prepared to go to all lengths. Howard still preserves the legend of his virginity, which I know to be untrue. He also from time to time is telephoned to by a woman with a sad beatnik voice, demanding much, but expecting little. I have a fellow feeling for her and am exquisitely compassionate and polite. Nigel has insisted on my rewriting three chapters of my Monarchy book which he says are unworthy of my reputation and that of his firm. To rewrite these has cost me more trouble and effort than the whole book together. One must have ZEST to write well and fluently, and who ever had zest in a rechauffé? But I have finished it today or shall tomorrow and then all is well again. Once a week do I receive a tax demand for super-tax and it is enough to break the soul. I miss you very much indeed. The bell rings from time to time, but it is not you, only Michael or the man from Harveys.

I lunched with Tommy and Joan last week. Tommy has been wholly recovered by his trip to Cooden Beach and is now his old self again. We went on to see Siegfried Sasseon unveil a plaque to Walter de la Mare in St. Paul'script. There was a choir which sang an anthem, beginning at the first words when the tenors had just finished the last sentence. I consolidated myself by identifying one of the choristers with Howard. There he was in his ruff singing away to the roof with ecstacy and loathing while the Canon choir master kept time with soothing movements of the hand. Then Siegfried made an address on the subject of Walter de la Mare and the Dean of St Paul's blessed the tablet and we filed out into the wind of Ludgate Hill. Siegfried in the car driving back along Fleet Street burst into passionate denunciation of the book-market for having at Sotheby's bid £5000 for the manuscripts of Ronald Firbank and only 4000 for those of Edith Sitwell. "That giggling dypsomaniac just could not write". But it seems that in America there is a market for his giggles.

I got a letter from Dr Unwin which would have made even a hardened matron blush. I never boast of my amatory successes but he contends that he cannot enter a train or an omnibus without all the occupants falling flat and begging for fornication. I shall not answer his letter. As I have often remarked, homosexuality should be a gay vice and not be taken too seriously. Still less should it be boasted over. I do not share your special capacities (it makes me terribly out of breath) nor if I did share them should I have your opportunities, but I enjoy being told about them in your chatty way. Patrick Kinross assures me that old age has brought him a wealth of opportunity since so many people see in him a "father image". In the only/father image they recognise is that of Mr Barrett of Wimoole Street.

Oh my God! How I hate Christmas! Infants howling carols at me on the wireless when what I want to know is how Katanga is going. I do hope you remained fixed and safe during cyclone Beryl. I always wanted to witness a cyclone provided the roof remained above me and there were no tidal wave. But I imagine that at Curepipe you are above thereach of angry waters. It would be terrible if, not Pope-Hennessy Street only, on

Pope Hennessy himself were blown ...

blown away. As at Belize. I am glad President Kennedy's father is coming out as he was a bad man and very anti-British.

Tommy told me that you had been caught by what, East or Suez, is called "Gippy tummy". I got caught once in Morocco and for ten days my interest in life waned and I felt that there was nothing more that art, letters, or love had to offer me. By the waters of Marakesh I sat down and wept. My sole comfort was that I lost seven pounds and my figure resumed its adolescent shape. I wish I hadnt started this on a letter card since it always over-runs.

Icy it is today, the lawn crackles as one walks on it and the pipes are frozen. Ben and Luisa are about to separate. She develops hysterical storms, such as Beryll, and Ben cannot sleep at night for guilt feelings. And Nigel and Philippa have gone for Christmas to stay with The Tennyson d'Eyncourts which is an ordeal. I am lunching with John next week and shall write again to tell you how he is. Vita gave Alvilde a prize retriever puppy, but Alvilde wrote and asked her to take it back as it brought mud into the house and scratched at the doors which had but recently been painted. My dislike of Alvilde was increased by this episode and I offered the dog to Lord Home, who has a place in Scotland at a game keeper and grouse. But he had three retrievers already. He is a nice modest man.

Do not believe that everything here is going wrong. We have a very intelligent Prime Minister and are healthy and hopeful. But I shall be glad when you get back. Vita and I leave in the Antilles for Trinidad on January 19.

Bless you my dear James,
Yours ever,

Open cut here

AEROGRAMME

James Pope Hennessy Esq. C.V.O.

The Park Hotel

Curepipe

Mauritius

Second fold here

Sender's name and address: Harrodd Nicolson
C.I The Albany
Piccadilly. London W.I

AN AIR LETTER SHOULD NOT CONTAIN ANY ENCLOSURE; IF IT DOES IT WILL BE SURCHARGED OR SENT BY ORDINARY MAIL.

C I The Albany, Piccadilly, London W.I January 18 1962

My dearest Jamesy, Tomorrow at 6.45 a.m. Vita and I get into a car and are driven to Waterloo where we catch the boat train for Southampton, Guadaloupe and Trinidad. We are to be met on the quay side by the Governor General's A.D.C. But oh! how different he will be from that slim uniformed figure who ministered to the needs of Hubert Young. I shall wander round the Botanic Gardens reflecting sadly and gladly on how much you have meant to me in the last twenty years. Then an we go to Martinique and then back here February 20. I am an extraordinary person for getting packed and off- being overwhelmed with Abschiedsstimmung and not wishing to leave my haunts. But I know from long experience that once he set foot in the Pullman Car at Waterloo and have eaten my breakfast of haddock and marmalade, the expedition will cease to be a cause of dread and fear and will become a blue lagoon of calm and hopefulness. Philip Magnus and his brioche wife are coming with us and also Mrs Lament- an artist, gardener and Kentish neighbour. Tommy Lastcelles has recovered from his 'flu having been restored by channel breezes to his accustomed health and spirits. He gave me a paper back to read on my voyage. "The Romance of the Empress Josephine" it was and it displayed a gorgeous picture of the Empress being crowned in Notre Dame. I went yesterday to a party being given by John Astor to celebrate the centenary or jubilee of the Literary Supplement. Bruce Richmond, aged 91, was there: Alan P.J. was not there being in New York but was represented by his pop-eyed son. Adrian was not asked. I met Sir Stanley Unwin there. He asked me if I had heard from you. I replied that you were happy if unwell, and had discovered much information and documentation. "It will be a wonderful book" said Sir Stanley. "It will indeed" I echoed reverently, Stephen Spender was there and told me that the night before he had taken too much champagne for dinner and that thereafter he had gone to the flat of a lecherous friend where he had met a Ghana citizen of youth a beauty. But he had forgotten utterly what had then ensued. "A complete black-out" he said, "with has robbed me of what was probably a very happy memory". His wife was standing beside us with her back averted and I think she heard. Stephen did not seem in any way disconcerted. Then my little friend Robin Maugham dined with me at the Beefsteak. John Hugh Smith was there and two elderly peers of the realm. Robin with exquisite courtesy discussed with them points of procedure in the House of Lords, from which they slid naturally into discussin the battle of the Somme in the first war and the desert battles of the second war. I was proud to see my young warrior friend acquitting himself so well at the Beefsteak, but we had to leave early as Robin had seen fit to invite a member (a sergeant) in the Rifle Brigade back or round to the Albany. I expected him to look like a sergeant, but he didn't look like a sergeant in the very very least. He had a profusion of black hair and lovely blue eyes. He and Robin sat side by side on the sofa and matters crept to their climax when the door opened and in came Howard. I had warned Howard that he might interrupt an audience, but the little beast said "I sha'nt be back till after one". Then he had crept in on silent feet anxious to break in on the audience. He found his old friend and landlord seated demurely in his arm chair and Robin less demurely on the sofa with the Rifle Brigade. But Howard just said "I must go down and put on the kettle for the hot water bottles". Which he did and on his return all was decent again and concealed. But what a little sly-boots Howard is! I find it advantageous to be 75 years of age, since by then all passion is spent and one does not place

FROM HAROLD NICOLSON, C.I. THE ALBANY, PICCADILLY, W.1

TELEPHONE: REGENT 2470

7th October 1963.

Dear Mr. Pope-Hennessy,

I spoke to King about the offer i.e. letting C1, and he
said that Sir Harold had had a letter from Mr. Sparrow at Sissing-
hurst, telling him that "somebody" wanted to take it, if it was
to let. Obviously the "somebody" is the same person, Mr. Ailes,
since the latter met Sir Maurice Bowra in his letter.

Anyway, I rather gather from King the Sir Harold quite
likes the idea of staying at Sissinghurst during the spring
and summer. But of course neither he nor Mr. Sparrow know about
the Observer offer. Also we none of us know that Nigel negotiated
with the Observer. I am afraid that Sir Harold is not capable
of going through the diaries himself, and also rather flinches
at the suggestion. But Nigel hasn't the time to edit them now.
I wondered whether Nigel had promised them to the Observer in
the distant future, in return for their paying Sir Harold for
his lifetime - but newspapers usually want things more or less
immediately, not in the uncertain future. Also, if the Observer
did give him this sum each year for his life, would the Literary
Society people feel they need pay me? I hardly think so. Mk
Would Sir Harold really want to spend the Spring and Summer at
Sissinghurst if he knew he was financially able to keep this
place on all year round. Or is it that he feels too deaf and
tired to cope with the weekly journey to London.

As regards the amount of work I do for him, except for the
income tax returns, few letters, permission to quote, Bank
correspondence, it is very little. But King has to have some time
off, and as long as Sir Harold is in London I feel I must be here
to enable King to be free some time during the day. But what I
really do want to know is whether Sir Harold would prefer to
be down at Sissinghurst, 2, whether the Observer affair is going
through. I don't know if there is any way of finding out. I
don't want to ask Nigel because he will then embark on a long
diatribe on the expense of Sissinghurst, when all I want to know
is the answer to one specific question. Also I don't want to hear
again about what it costs to keep Sir Harold at Sissinghurst.

This is rather rambling, but you will doubtless see what
I am after. In any case we have the winter before us before we
move, and King could be taught to do what I do for Sir Harold.

Yours ever,