Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (digital text)   Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Letter from John Cawte Beaglehole to his Father, 3 August 1929

page 1

My dear Father,

I think I can just
get a note off to you at Plymouth
that will go by the next N. Z. mail
& so get to you about five weeks from
now, by which time I sl suppose
I shall be at Fremantle & able to
write to you again.

I sent a cable to you yesterday
which I trust was clean though abbre-
viated
. You will have got the Osterley’s
dates I suppose from the Orient people
in Wellington — I see she is due to get
to Sydney on — no, I haven’t got the
paper with me; but if you write to
the Bank of N. Z. at Sydney I will
page 2 pick up my letters there.

Well, there is nothing doing in
the way of jobs yet; & as I hear there
are 25 people in for this Singapore
job I do not feel very optimistic about
that. However the Col Office assured
me that I should be considered just as
if I were still in London.

I got a letter from you (the
first from Wanganui) two nights ago —
I’m sorry you have had the trouble
of writing further letters, but I’ve
arranged for them to be posted back
to me. I am confoundedly sorry not
to get them at the proper time.

I note your words on culture
in N. Z. — & also the news that the
N. Z. libraries have banned All
Quiet. We do need some rag like
the old Triad again, don’t we! Culture
I should like to discuss with you
later. I don’t believe there’s much of it
in the Old World on the whole, anyhow.
page 3 Talking of art galleries, I am bring-
ing
out one or two prints I think you
will like & a book of pictures of England
I think you will like particularly.
Bumpus’s have been very decent over books
too — I have arranged to have a running
account with them, & they are sending
out some stuff for me which will reach
N. Z. before I do. — including the
Shakespeare Head Plutarch, to celebrate
my sojourn in & departure from England
& various other things. Sir T. Browne
I shall have to keep till later, but I
understand he won’t go out of print in
a hurry. Anyhow I’m not going to
pay N. Z. prices for books!

Packing has been a terrible
business. I sent away on Thursday
page 4 7 5 packing cases full of books & papers
& 2 cabin-trunks also containing books
among lesser things. I followed to-day
with suit-case, attaché case, swag, brown
paper parcel containing my portrait,
& wooden box containing a fine glass
lamp-standard Ern has given Elsie &
me. I got Waring & Gillow’s to send
along for me another large wooden
box containging a large vase for
another lamp standard that I picked
up at their place very cheap. I left
N. Z. with two cabin-trunks & a
suit-case!

It is pleasant having Elsie on the
same ship; I needn’t say what it
would be like without her. England
has a good deal of my heart now,
whatever N. Z. may regain. This in
spite of the shameless way in which
England exploits its “culture” — this
thought prompted by last week-end
spent in Warwickshire — Warwick,
Kenilworth & Stratford on Avon. S on Avon
page 5 may very well regard Shakespeare
as a priceless heritage! you can’t
even get into the church where he
is buried except for 6d; & on Sundays
you’re not allowed in at all unless
you guarantee you are a worshipper
(not of Shakespeare) — then of course
you’re not allowed to walk around.
The churchyard is beautiful though,
& so are the old houses & the sur-
rounding
country. We gazed at Sh’s
dwellings merely from the outside;
unfortunately as it was Sunday the
Sh. Head Press was closed. Kenilworth
is very fine; & I am desperately in
love with sun-drenched old brick.
Wooden houses by the way will
page 6 look funnyfunny to me when I get back —
especially of that peculiar W’gton
style of architecture.

The week has been pretty
hectic. I could not go up to see the
Johnsons again, or get north at all,
much to my sorrow — I do regret un-
seen
York & Liverpool Cathedral. But
I must remember henceforth what I
have seen & done, not the omissions.
I took a last bus ride along the
strand & up Ludgate Hill yesterday to
see St Paul’s as I saw it first; & last
night at 1 o’clock we went down to
Waterloo Bridge & gazed down the river —
a very lovely sight & London & its at
the culmination of its mysterious beauty.
I needn’t say anything of what I feel
coming back to N. Z. (if it is that)
at this time, by this ship — life is a
rum show, as I have heard you ob-
serve
more than once. I must post
this now.

with much love

Jack/