I return on the 12th; on the 13th I go cuckooing at the Wharf, returning on the 16th; ... on the 18th I join my wife at Bexhill; how, I ask you, can I come a-cuckooing in Lincoln’s Inn?
Nor do see any chance of touching The Tour while I am here. I am really too busy to do aught but play the sedulous cuckoo in Cockayne. So let my visit to you be a pleasure (to both of us) postponed....
To this I replied, 14.7.19: I lunched yesterday with one Butterworth, who is opening up a publisher’s business. In the course of conversation I mentioned to him your translation of Old People and the Things that Pass. More than that, I took upon myself to lend him my copy of the American edition so that he might have an opportunity of forming his own opinion of it. You may, if you like, call me interfering and presumptuous, but I have not committed you in any way to anything, and yesterday’s transaction may be regarded as no more than the loan of a book from one person to another. I, as you know, feel it a reproach that that book is still unpublished in England, and, if Butterworth thinks fit to make you a good offer, no one will be better pleased than me....
On 26.7.19 he wrote from Bexhill: If it comes on to rain as it threatens daily, I shall be returning The Tour to you quite soon; and in any case it will go back to you before I leave here on the 15th of July: I must reduce the weight of my luggage; I had to run all over the town to find two stalwart ruffians to carry it to the attic where I sleep.
You need not look at it before we meet unless you wish; but you may like to do Cora’s song[9] in your sleep meanwhile; and my additional comments and queries are few.
I am leading here that methodical humdrum life which alone makes time fly. When I return to town you shall see me occasionally at the opera, but not oftener than twice a week. You will have to look for me, however, for I shall be stalking behind pillars, cloaked in black, like Lucien de What’s-his-name, hiding from my black beast, Lady....
P.S. Can you tell me if Beecham intends to do any light operas at Drury Lane in addition to that tinkly, overrated Fille de Madame Angot? I am dying to hear the whole Offenbach series before I die.
A letter from Bexhill, dated 2.7.19, touches on one general principle of translating:
... With all deference, a translator’s first duty is not to translate. His first duty is to love God, honour the king and hate the Germans. His next duty is to produce a version corresponding as near as may be with what an English original writer, if he were writing that particular book, would set down. His last duty is to translate every blessed word of the original....