J M Barrie to George Llewelyn Davies - 1912

Description

Letter from Barrie to George, 30 January 1912.

[Not included in Peter's 'Morgue']

Transcription

My dear George

I don't like the idea of all these swamps round you. So long as the frost holds, it is all well from the point of view of health of course, but equally of course frost comes in this country to raises hopes and retire. I shd think however that frozen fields would be nearing today so you may have a look in.

It sounds well about the fives court, and I hope you will come out thereof with flying colours.
Rather funny about Lawrence Ma[jor], if he now ceases to be as he was. Your suspicions show an awful cynicism for your age!

[Sir Herbert Beerbohm] Tree has at the last moment of the eleventh hour turned tail over "The Ladies' Shakespeare" and is not to do it. Afraid people would think it was making fun of Will apparently. Of course it must always be a touch and go affair, and I don't blame him except for going about talking of it when it shd have been kept a secret. I don't quite know what may happen to it now. Various managers seem to want it, but I'll probably shut it up in a drawer for a bit.

Have you been seeing Peter? I have not heard from him yet. Michael is making [??losing] hazards and Nicholas has conceived the idea that I should set him an exam-written paper (for a prize). The first question that keeps popping up is "Who killed Cock Robin?"

Yours affec

JMB

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[AB: Another of Barrie's letter to George that failed to make it into Peter's Morgue, resulting in both a lack of commentary and an absence of transcription. I can't make out the first paragraph as to what it refers - some sort of Eton game? All thoughts welcome in the comments page.

"The Ladies' Shakespeare" was a short One Act affair, an inverted version of "Taming of the Shrew" in which Petruchio is Katharina's butt. It flitted in and out of Maude Adams' repertoire in the U.S., but according to Mackail was never performed in England.]