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Royall Tyler to Mildred Barnes Bliss, April 1, 1909

Burlington Hotel. Burlington Hotel, 30 Old Burlington Street, Westminster, London. W.

April 1stThursday.

Dear Mildred.

I fear there is no chance of my being in Paris on April 23rd or even April 26th. I only hope this scrawl will reach you before you leave the South.Mildred Barnes Bliss was in Hyères in the south of France, and she arrived in Paris on April 23, 1909. See Robert Woods Bliss to William Henry Bliss, April 23, 1909, Blissiana files, William Henry Bliss correspondence. I am sorry.

I had articles in the Feb. and March Englishwoman, and if I can get it ready shall have another in the May No.Royall Tyler, “Essays on Masterpieces—I,” The Englishwoman 1, no. 1 (February 1909): 72–78; “Essays on Masterpieces—II,” The Englishwoman 1, no. 2 (March 1909): 180–85; and “Essays on Masterpieces—III,” The Englishwoman 2, no. 4 (May 1909): 441–46. The first essay concerns amateurs, connoisseurship, and the passion for paintings: “The man who has a passion cannot live without working to attain the object that inspires it.” The second deals with the painter and the critic, both historical and contemporary. And the third turns to the London National Gallery collection and the near absence in it of the English School, especially portraits. Tyler would continue to publish “Essays on Masterpieces” in The Englishwoman: IV in vol. 2, no. 5 (June 1909): 544–52 (on the English School of painting and on the English and modern art); V in vol. 3, no. 7 (August 1909): 97–103 (on English versus French museums); and VI in vol. 3, no. 8 (September 1909): 229–36 (on connoisseurship and art criticism). He would also publish “The Home of Medieval Architecture,” The Englishwoman 4, no. 10 (November 1909): 72–79 (on France). I am now at present working hard—or trying to under adverse circumstances. I am making an index to my book—a dog’s business—but one which has to be done. As soon as the book is out I shall go back to France and, I hope, to the country. You can’t imagine how I long to lose sight of London. I feel that either I am mad or the people here are, and I can’t endure it. I long for trees, fields and silence. They make such a foolish noise and fuss here.

You must excuse the blot on this page, for this is the second letter to you I have dropped ink upon, and I can’t copy it out again.

Yours sincerely

Royall Tyler.

 
Associated Places: London (United Kingdom)