Royall Tyler to Mildred Barnes, July 28, 1907
Paris
July 28th 1907
Dear Mildred.
Here is the photograph,This photograph, if preserved, has not been located. it is pretty, is it not? I arrived from London this morning, after a very good journey, and tomorrow I start for Munich. I had a very nice time in London, but I fear I shall not be able to live in Golden Sq. Soho,Golden Square (in Soho, an area of the City of Westminster), one of the historic squares of central London. there is nothing in the way of dwelling houses to let.
I am sending you two poems by George, the Bard.Tudor Castle. Royall Tyler occasionally referred to Castle as “Long George.” See letter of November 30, 1914. I am going to join him in Munich,See letter of July 21, 1907. and we propose to walk together to Prague, or some equally distant place. After that, I shall go to Spain. My scheme for going to Constantinople has been knocked on the head by a new American law which forbids the chancelleries [sic] to give passports to anyone who has been more than three years away from America—two years, rather. If I had not been in a hurry I should have stopped and had myself naturalized in London—but it can wait a little.
I hope to hear from you soon, and incidentally you might say something about the enclosed verse if you have any opinion on the subject.
Yours sincerely
P. S. Betty is not an imaginary person, but a Scotchwoman. On rereading foregoing it strikes me that you may wonder what scheme it was about Constantinople, especially after words I uttered on the subject at lunch. Know then that Hungarians asked me to stop with them at Mohacs on the Danube, and then go down that stream to the Black Sea and thence to Constantinople, and I was on the point of doing it. Such nice wild Hungarians. RT
I am sending you Utrillo’s little books on the Greco and Ribera.Miguel Utrillo, Domenikos Theotokopoulos (Barcelona, 1906) and José de Ribera, “El Españoleto” (Barcelona, 1907). Utrillo’s book on El Greco was the first published Spanish monograph on that artist. They are useful for comparison.
[enclosures:]
Dear Betty, all faults I admit;
So it’s needless again to rehearse
How I spoil by crude flashes of wit
My otherwise serious verse.
This alone can I urge on my part:
When I speak (and it’s seldom I speak)
My mouth is so full with my heart
That I must keep my tongue in my cheek.
Church
In the old days on Sunday morning
Papa and I to church set out.
It is the proper thing for Christian men,
And papa and I were both devout.
I could watch through the praying and hymns
I’d stand upon the seat and sing a heap.
But when Mr. Ogle climbed the pulpit
I nearly always fell asleep.
So Papa took a bag of sweet biscuits
And, when on his arm I drooped my head,
He’d give me one to fix my attention.
But now my poor dear old papa is dead.
May 1907