But my
opportunities have been limited. For future historians, the
illuminative value of such writing will be incomparable.
I suppose I must send the two pieces back to Glen. Which I will
do, together with this letter. Let me see what you write. I think
you have a very penetrative glimpse into character, which comes
from perfect disengagement and sympathy controlled by a critical
sense. The absence of egotism is a great point.
When Symonds died I lost my best intellectual tutor as well as one
of my dearest friends. I wish I had taken his advice and seriously
tried to write years ago, but, except for a few magazine sketches,
I have never written a line for publication in my life. I have
only kept a careful and accurate diary, [Footnote: Out of all my
diaries I have hardly been able to quote fifty pages, for on re-
reading them I find they are not only full of Cabinet secrets but
jerky, disjointed and dangerously frank.] and here, in the
interests of my publishers and at the risk of being thought
egotistical, it is not inappropriate that I should publish the
following letters in connection with these diaries and my writing:
21 CARLYLE MANSIONS, CHEYNE WALK, S.W.
April 9th, 1915.
MY DEAR MARGOT ASQUITH,
By what felicity of divination were you inspired to send me a few
days ago that wonderful diary under its lock and key?--feeling so
rightly certain, I mean, of the peculiar degree and particular
PANG of interest that I should find in it? I don't wonder, indeed,
at your general presumption to that effect, but the mood, the
moment, and the resolution itself conspired together for me, and I
have absorbed every word of every page with the liveliest
appreciation, and I think I may say intelligence.
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