Royall Tyler to Mildred Barnes Bliss, November 14, 1947
Paris
14.XI.47
I had your card from Constantinople yesterday, dearest Mildred.Mildred Bliss also wrote Bernard Berenson from Istanbul on October 21, 1947: “I [saw] ‘Aya Sofia on Monday! No work of man that I have seen conveys such a sense of space & not even a humming bird soars & floats more easily. What that great church must have been before those Vulcherous Latins looted it!” Villa I Tatti—the Harvard University Center for Renaissance Studies, Florence, Italy, Archives, Bliss correspondence file. It was long on the way. Bless you for it.
I’ve just this minute had a letter from Bill telling me that PollyPolly Brown Peirce, Hayford Peirce’s wife. spent the day of Nov. 9 with them, AND THAT SHE GAVE THE MINIATURE MOSAICBZ.1947.24. TO D.O., and lent to D.O. semi-permanently, Hayford’s coin collection.Dumbarton Oaks acquired the coin collection of Hayford Peirce in 1948.
I can’t tell you how I rejoice about this; and I’m sure Hayford does too, sitting up aloft on his pink cloud.
I send this of[f] in a great hurry so that it may reach you in Rome.
Tell Robert I’ve had his watch overhauled by the Universal people at Geneva,Universal Watch (now Universal Genève SA), a Geneva luxury watch company founded in 1894. and have it here, ready for him. I wind it religiously, every morning.
Forgive writing; I’m actually trembling with excitement over the news that Polly has come across. I never dared to hope she’d do to the letter what I so tentatively advised her to consider.
Much love to you both
I shall be here during your proposed Paris stay.
Private address: 8 rue Quentin Bauchart8 rue Quentin-Bauchart, an elegant seven-story apartment building built in 1926–1927.
Paris VIII
Tel. Elysées 49.28
Office: 51 rue St. Georges,
Tel. Trudaine 52.90