Hazel Lavery - Correspondence received (transcriptions)., 11/20/1911-07/06/1931

Contains autograph transcriptions by Shane Leslie of letters to Hazel Lavery from the following eminent individuals (abbreviations possibly Sir Shane's) - 1. Hon. Maurice Baring (7/6/1931) - "Thank you for yr beneficence in giving my bk to the PM of Eng & Scotd. If he wd like a copy you must let me give him one (pd) don't know him & perhaps that wd be CHEEK! I will write yr name in it saying I didn't give it to you or to the PM or to Mr. Baldwin or to L George but they all bought it & then what happened then? Or I cd sign a statement in his copy to say you bought the book but I wrote it or that I wrote the bk & you bought it..." 2. Hilaire Belloc (6/17/1926) - "It was angelic of you to (invite me to) your table at the Mansion House then, all among the great, but the Sea will hold me either on its surface or within its depths. I haven't seen you for a year and the result is that I have grown sour & bitter & crabbed like Philip Snowdon. But unlike him I haven't got a butler(?). The Portuguese, when I was with them, had a revolution & kicked out all the Parliament - to the huge joy of everyone. The PM ran up a tree & then disappeared. He's never been seen since. Your Humble Slave H. Belloc." 3. Lord Berners (Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson) (10/30/1924) - "I am glad Diana's descents into mines, teaparties with (...?) and chats with millgirls have been crowned with success - & I am sure Margot's fur motoring cap was largely responsible for Asquith's defeat. In spite of what our Lord sd people do continue to be guided by appearances. Lady Colefax was here & now Evan Morgan dressed as a priest may be seen carrying a sheaf of lilies to some wayside shrine. So you see it is all very picturesque & charming. 4. Stanley Owen Buckmaster, 1st Baron of Cheddington (2/6/1922), includes autograph copy in pencil - "An unusually happy evening. There is still pleasure in the world if we can only gather it. You are far too generous in the things you say. I never quite understand why it was I never seemed to think like an Englishman until one day after a meeting about Ireland an Irishwoman came to me with tears in her eyes and said you're never an Englishman or you would not speak like that & I remembered for the first time that my father's mother was a purebred Irish girl - Perhaps it's that. At any rate success & what English people call sanity have always found in me an enemy, I simply hate them. I prefer Ruskin's appeal when he said everyone should ask themselves, "Have I a friend, have I a cause, have I a faith I am ready to die for?" 5. Winston Churchill, 4 letters (11/8/1924, 11/12/1924, 2/27/1929, undated), including reference to Irish politics - "...I have practically always repeated what I said again & again in the House during the passage of the Bill, namely that we never contemplated the "mutilation" of Ulster. I think the Free State are making a frightful mistake in forcing this partition of their country. But of course, if they insist, the Treaty must be executed even though it be to the lasting injury of Irish unity..." 6. Tim Healy, 2 letters (3/25/1924 which includes pencil copy; 12/20/1929) - "Since your letter came I have been mentally prostrated owing to the Queenstown tragedy. I am quite disabled from writing you in any sprightly tone as I should wish. Since the Phoenix Park murders in 1882 I have never felt so downhearted..." (3/25/1924). 7. Reginald McKenna (6/17/1923) - fragment. 8. George Bernard Shaw, 2 letters - @ 11/20/1911: "The frightful truth is that I am too completely out of date to know Walton's work. If he is a successful fashionable painter my terms for 32 hours sitting...2000 pounds down in advance of a royalty of 15 percent on the proceeds of the exhibition of the picture. If he is a man of genius tell him I gave a month to Rodin and immortality..." @ 12/17/1924: "Excellent. Many thanks. It will help me to sustain my recent & totally unfounded reputation for erudite scholasticism. I shall be able to stop those allusions which proclaim the accomplished Thomist in general conversation..." 9. Lytton Strachey (6/6/1924): "Dear Lady Lavery, Your letter of last Friday has only just reached me. It was not forwarded to me at once, as they thought I was returning, but I was too ill to move. I'm afraid you may have thought me a traitor and that my illness was caused by the small and unCanadian nature of your party; but not at all. I really did get some horrid chill or other and was obliged to take to my bed. I was miserable, thought of your delicious food and conversation...with gnashing of teeth, wondered whether B. Shaw was there and what happened..." 10. William Butler Years (11/25/19--): "Thank you so much. I know of course quite well that this honour is given to me far less as an individual than as a representation of Irish literature as part of Europe's welcome to the Free State. People here are grateful to me for having won them the recognition & life is very pleasant. I have always so written as to express something not myself - the seemingly person's side is a mirage, the reality is a part of Ireland..."