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Royall Tyler to Mildred Barnes Bliss, May 3, 1926 [3]

Commissariat General of the League of Nations.
Budapest, 3.V.26Monday.

Your wire has just come, dearest Mildred, and I’m so very glad you saw Bill and liked him.See letter of May 3, 1926 [2]. I view him with the eyes of parental prejudice, I know, and am glad to have some reassurance. We had a good time together in the Adriatic. It’s alarming to think he’s 15 1/2 already. In no time he’ll be grown up, and what then? I don’t feel old enough to have a grown up offspring—I hardly feel grown-up myself, unlikely as that statement may sound from one who has just recorded, without enthusiasm, his 42nd birthday.

Thank the Lord we are to meet—so I gather from your wire—in August. It isn’t good to be so long apart.

I wonder how the book really will strike you on perusal. I’d be so grateful if you’d write me candid criticisms. I really don’t mind if they are unfavourable. I feel that time is getting on, and I’m increasingly anxious to run down my own faults rather than to bask in commendation, which I know all about already, probably, being pretty well aware of such qualities as the book may really possess. What weRoyall Tyler and Hayford Peirce. tried to do is to produce the sort of introduction to Byz. which we both looked for 20 yrs. or so ago and didn’t find.

I see the BarclaysColville Barclay (1869–1929), the British minister to Sweden (1919–1924) and Hungary (1924–1928). Lady Barclay (née Sarita Enriqueta Ward), daughter of the sculptor and explorer Herbert Ward. now and then. Lady Barclay looks a bit better than she did before she went away, and not as thin, quite, but still frail. She didn’t miss anything by not spending the winter here, I can tell you.

I’ve heard that the miserable J.H. got four years!The identity of “the miserable J.H.” is not known. See also letters of June 25, 1925, and July 21, 1926. What a time his wife must have had! I wonder what the whole affair really looks like in her eyes.

In a great rush to get this off to catch you before you sail, dearest Mildred, with much love to you and Robert, and wishes for a good trip.

Yrs always
R. T.

 
Associated People: Hayford Peirce; William Royall Tyler
Associated Places: Budapest (Hungary)