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Elisina Tyler to Mildred Barnes Bliss and Robert Woods Bliss, March 24, 1947

Hotel Richemond

Geneva

March 24th 1947

Dearest Mildred & Robert,

I have feasted my eyes on the handbook,Dumbarton Oaks, Handbook of the Collection (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection of Harvard University, 1946). bulletinDumbarton Oaks, Special Number of Fogg Art Museum Bulletin dedicated to Dumbarton Oaks. Dumbarton Oaks & the Fogg Museum & Dumbarton Oaks Library & Collection (1946). and catalogueIt is unclear what catalog Elisina Tyler refers to. of Dumbarton Oaks, and I want to add on my behalf to what PeterPeter was Royall Tyler’s nickname. has written to you,See letter of February 20, 1947. that the impression of the whole array of lovely and rare objects gives me a sense of exquisite enjoyment, and a sense of internal peace that only beauty on such a scale, in depth and extent could call forth.

I rejoice to think of the great satisfaction you must both feel in having endowed the world, and one particular part of it, with such a gift.

The memory of the house and its surroundings as I saw them in 1938Elisina Tyler visited the Blisses at Dumbarton Oaks in January 1938. is vivid, and I could see the fire of the music-room, as if I were in it still.

There is much more to admire now and I hope before very long to add to the store of my memory.

For the present, my presence is necessary here, in France, and in Switzerland. But Royall may have the good fortune to see you before I do, and this vicarious pleasure is still a pleasure!

I see Russell Greely [sic]Russell Greeley (1878–1956), a portrait painter who had been director of Mildred Barnes Bliss’s American Distributing Service (Service de Distribution Américaine) during the First World War. here quite often. He is much as usual, but affected by obstinate neuritis in his neck & shoulders, and it is very painful, I fear.

Gioia’s Gilly is named, at 19, to a young Zuleta,Julian de Zuleta (b. 1918). son of the late Ambassador;Ambassador de Zuleta has not been identified. a very Spanish youth, interesting and cultivated, who will carry her off to Colombia where his parents live.

Gioia behaved heroically—as all English women seem to have done, during the war. I spent a fortnight with her and Tommy last year in London. It was a great joy—and I was happy to see some of my old friends again. Our theologian, Arthur and Ethel Salter,Sir Arthur Salter married Ethel Mather Bullard, née Bagg (1883–1969), on June 15, 1940. and others. But the war has left deep scars—that only time can heal, on all the Europe we all knew best.

We love to think that William and Betsy and RoyallRoyall Tyler (b. 1936), the first child of Bettine Tyler and William Royall Tyler, was born in London. After earning a BA in Far Eastern Languages from Harvard University and a PhD in Japanese literature from Columbia University, he became a scholar and translator of Japanese literature. He presently lives in Australia in New South Wales. and EveMatilda Eve Tyler (b. 1939). see you, if we cannot. Keep a corner for us in your heart, all the same, please.

My best love to you both

Yours ever affably

Elisina