Yes, I shall be home for Xmas, rather earlier in fact. This exam.188 will take place in the first week of December and when it is over I shall come straight home. I am beginning to funk it rather: I wish you were in for it with me (so as to be sure of one, at least, worse than myself). I wish I could see ‘The Winter’s Tale’: it, ‘The Midsummer’s Nights Dream’ & the Tempest are the only things of Shakespeare I really appreciate, except the Sonnets.189 It is a very sweet, sort of old fairy-tale style of thing. You must certainly see it. As to Bennet’s book, if a person was really a book-lover, however ignorant, he wouldn’t go and look up a text book to see what to buy, as if literature was a subject to be learned like algebra: one thing would lead him to another & he would go through the usual mistakes & gain experience. I hate this idea of ‘forming a taste’. If anyone like the feuilletons in the ‘Sketch’ better than Spenser, for Heaven’s sake let him read them: anything is better than to read things he doesn’t really like because they are thought classical. I say, old man, it’s beastly kind of you to keep the ‘Country of the Blind’ till I come. Of course if you hadn’t told me I should have thought you would throw it off the top of the tram. Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha, likewise He-He-He! (You do love that sort of writing!) By the way why do you call it your dog if it lives at Glenmachen? I suppose in the same way as you like Shakespeare but I don’t like reading him? Can’t write more to night, your last letter was very short–
J.
TO HIS FATHER (LP V: 142):
[Gastons]
3/11/16.
My dear Papy,
This is a surprise. I can hardly account for it, if it be true–a jump from the rank of second Lieutenant to that of Captain is very unusual, is it not?190 Even among the temporary people. However, I suppose you will know all about it in your next letter from Big Brother, who will doubtless communicate the facts with much codotto. I only hope we shall not be disappointed in any way.
I thought that I had told you about the colleges, but apparently not. We have finally burned our boats and sent in my name for the big group. This has not been without a good deal of hesitation, but I think on the whole it was the wisest plan. There are very strong arguments on both sides, and we can only hope for the best. The man at New tells us that the candidates for scholarships will be either lodged in the colleges or directed to ‘digs’ selected by the University–apparently Alma Mater takes more care than we supposed, for even her sons elect (Bow! Bow!). He is going to write again of course, and indeed I am surprised that we have not heard from him yet. As to the ‘Accidents’ I really can’t see on what principle my Latin and Greek proses may be quite good for five days and come out with some awful blunder on the sixth–which is what happens. I am sure I take as much trouble on one day as on another. It is at times a bit disheartening, but we pray that the exam may not come on an ‘off day. In the German Kirk thinks I am doing better.
I am reading at present, what do you think? Our own friend ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’.191 It is one of those books that are usually read too early to appreciate, and perhaps don’t come back to. I am very glad however to have discovered it. The allegory of course is obvious and even childish, but just as a romance it is unsurpassed, and also as a specimen of real English. Try a bit of your Ruskin or Macaulay after it, and see the difference between diamonds and tinsel.
It is one of those afternoons here when the sky is the colour of putty and the rain comes down in sheets for hour after hour: perhaps we are beginning the winter at last. Tell me all the further news about the ‘captaincy’ as soon as you know anything.
your loving
son Jack.
TO ARTHUR GREEVES (W):
[Gastons
8 November 1916]
My dear Arthur,
You certainly have all the luck! I should give anything to be at home for these operas. (Cant get a decent pen so you’ll have to do with pencil this week) As I can’t see them myself I can only hope & pray devoutly that they will be badly sung & staged, your seat be uncomfortable, yr. neighbours talkative & your escapade detected by your terrible parent–Amen.
To be serious: if I were going to three of them I should choose Aida & the Zauberflut192 straight off without hesitation: the latter is of course old fashioned but, to me–tho’ of course my views on music are those of an ignoramus–the formal old beauty of old music has something very attractive about it. At all events a thing with an overture like that must be good. As to the libretto, my ideas are rather hazy, but an article on it which I read last year in the ‘Times’ gave me the impression of something rather nice & fantastic. These two then I’d certainly go to: in the third it is more difficult to decide. ‘Tales of Hoffman’193 I thought was a comic opera–at any rate I am sure it’s not in the first rank. ‘Carmen’ & ‘the Lily’194 are out of the question–the latter being an awful hurdy-gurdy, tawdry business by all accounts. Perhaps on the whole you would get more pleasure out of ‘Faust’ than any: here too you’d have the dramatic interest as well. ‘Pagliacci’ & ‘Cavaleria’ you have seen haven’t you?–Though of course that’s no reason why you shouldn’t see them again.
‘En passant’ I don’t exactly ‘despise’ your opera-book. I think it very useful like a Greek grammar or a time-table, but no more a ‘book’ in the proper sense than they are. For instance I should never think of getting ‘Bradshaw’s Railway Guide’ printed on hand made paper with illustrations by Rackham, wd you? And talking about Rackham I saw in my French list the other day an edition of Perrault’s ‘Contes’195 ‘avec gravures en couleurs de Rackham’ for 1 fr. 95 (at the present rate of exchange about 1/6, I suppose). If its the same Rackham that wd. be wonderful value, wouldn’t it? Though I daresay Perrault himself (the French ‘Hans Anderson’) would not be up to much,–coming as he did of the most prosaic nation on earth.
It is hardly fair to be sarcastick about my ‘controversies’ as you deliberately asked for both of them. I am afraid I have not made my views on old literature very clear but it can’t be helped. The word ‘feuilleton’ is French, I suppose, originally but quite naturalized. (By the way can the whole of Bernagh not raise a French dictionary? I might give you one in calf for an Xmas box!) It means the horrible serial stories that run in the daily papers: if you’ve never happened to glance at one it’s worth your while. They are unique! Yes, Sir!, it IS correct to say ‘if he like’ & not ‘if he likes’–tho’ a little pedantic.
I thought you would enjoy ‘The Antiquary’. The scene on the beach is fine & tho’ it hadn’t struck me before the whole scenery of ‘Fairport’ is rather like Portsalon. What I liked best was the description of the antiquary’s room at Monkbarns–I wish I could fill up my room with old things like that–also the scene where the doting old woman sings them the ballad at her cottage, but perhaps you haven’t come to that yet. Of course the hero–as usual in Scott–is a mere puppet, but there are so many other good characters that it doesn’t much matter.
What fiddlesticks about