ENPages
page_0001
Junior Common Room Brasenose College Oxford
Oct: 14: 95
[postscript:] I go to Haigh of Corpus for Demosthenes, to Fox of BNC. for Homer, and to Clarke of Queens for Theocritus.
My dear Mr Murray
I cannot tell you how grateful I feel to you for troubling yourself to write me so long a letter. I cordially agree with you on every point. One of the worst faults of the book, I think, is the tendency to mere sentence-making. I think this is due partly to the excessive admiration which I have felt for some years for Stevenson, partly to the way the book was written. It was built up sentence by sentence
page_0002
at intervals during the last three weeks of the college session. I would do a few sentences in the morning while waiting for breakfast, a few more at the Union, and more at night in the intervals of my college work. This, I think, partly accounts for the absence of the "swing of narrative and the increasing progress of drama". The book would have been better if it had been written in a few sittings.
I had a very successful interview with publishers in London. My book of essays is coming out in February. It is to be beautifully illustrated and Macmillan are to issue it in America. I have got very good terms for it. My fishing
page_0003
book is promised for early December.
I have now got settled in Oxford. I can't quite make up my mind whether I like it or not. My rooms are nice – lit by electric light, wh. I can't understand – and I am allowed to dine out of hall as often as I like – which I find much cheaper. My tutor Fox is perfectly delightful, and I look forward with great pleasure to my work. The men appear to be a curious mixture of overgrown schoolboys and would-be men of the world. They talk a great deal rather largely, and are full of boisterous spirits. I like them, but I think I shall tire of them pretty soon. Last night five
page_0004
or six came into my room about midnight very drunk and wanted whisky. They finally found some methylated spirits for the lamp. I waited anxiously on developments; but luckily they found out their mistake before they tried to drink it.
Fisher Unwin came to see me here on Saturday night about my little book of short stories. He's very angry at Heinemann for stealing a march on him with that series of literature histories. It seems he had been contemplating the same thing for long.
The subjects for the Stanhope & Newdigate are compulsory – Sully and Theodoric the Goth in Italy – both rather nice.
Again let me thank you for your kind letter. I needn't say that I value your criticism more than anybody else's that I know.
Yours very sincerely
John Buchan
