WOLSELEY
(Garnet, Viscount, 1833-1913, Field Marshal, C-in-C of the Army)
Autograph Letter Signed to Mrs Mitchell
telling her that he is going “out of town on Sunday morning early, so I cannot have the pleasure of calling upon you in the middle of the day, as you so kindly said I might do, but as I return in the afternoon I shall do myself the honour of paying you a visit about 5 pm on the chance of seeing you then...”, 2 sides 8vo., War Office, Friday, no date
Item Date:
0
Stock No:
43520
£55
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WOLSELEY COMMENTS ON AN ARTICLE BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT ATTACKING HIM
WOLSELEY
(Garnet, Viscount, 1833-1913, Field Marshal, C-in-C of the Army)
Important collection of two excellent Autograph Letters Signed both marked ‘Private’ to Edward A. ARNOLD
(1857-1942, Grandson of Thomas Arnold and Nephew of Matthew Arnold, Editor of Murray’s Magazine) thanking him “for sending the latest number of your magazine - I have skimmed over... Roosevelt’s article which deals with me. My article which he criticises was certainly written in no hostile feeling towards America or its people. I am very fond of both, & I tried to avoid all points upon which I knew that small minded men from the other side of the Atlantic are thin skinned about. We have all our national peculiarities, & when ours are laughed at by outsiders, we don’t fly off into coarse, vulgar abuse... as Mr Roosevelt’s article seems to abound in. I never heard of him before but I presume he is a literary man & knows his trade. I am not a literary man & I shall not venture to criticise his knowledge of it. What a pity that he did not assume... that I know my trade also! He is evidently a very strong party politician, & it is but natural therefore that as a Northerner, he should hate an outsider to write or speak of General Lee as I have done. It is very galling to men of his stamp that the great huge masses of men collected from the four winds of heaven by the Northern states, & supplied with everything which money could purchase to make them into soldiers, should have been kept at bay for years, & defeated over and over again by small Southern Armies. I admit all this & I know from long residence in American how impossible it is for the ordinary Northerners like Mr Roosevelt to write dispassionately, I might say with common fairness, upon matters connected with General Lee or the great Confederate war. I was in American when Mr Lincoln & his Cabinet trembled for the safety of Washington. I saw northern & Southern troops & know what both were like and the value I attached... I have carefully avoided giving expressions to those feelings, to those opinions because I should hate to hurt the susceptibilities of a people that I am very fond of, of a nation sprung from the same roots as my own, that speaks our language, uses our laws & above all things, whose minds are educated by the same literature. I cannot help thinking that your friend does not represent what is best or most refined in the American nation. The Americans whom I know are as patient of others views, opinions as they expect others to be of theirs and do not scold when argument fails them. You ask me to write you something that you should publish in answer to Mr Roosevelt’s attack upon me. I regret I cannot do so. I have written the foregoing for your own amusement, thinking it might interest you, but I have long since made it a rule never to answer any such attacks. It is quite fair that Mr Roosevelt should express himself as having no opinion of me as a soldier, & should criticise all I have ever done in the field or scribbled in magazines. I presume he is a professional writer & I should therefore be sorry to enter upon a war of styles with him. In such a war I should be easily - very easily defeated. However on military subjects, it is possible I might hold my own with him, although he does lay down the law upon them as if he was a recognised authority. I have not the time nor the inclination to embark on a war of words...”, 7 sides 8vo., Fir Grove House, Farnham, 29th August 1888. The second letter says that he was flattered by his letter but that he is “sorry to say that I could not at present rush into print on Army matters. I am not supposed to give any public expression to my views which are far in advance of those who are my superiors, & therefore not palatable always to them. Were it otherwise, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to comply with your flattering request...”, 3 sides 8vo., Oakdene Guildford, no date
Item Date:
1888
Stock No:
43567
£575
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THE FOREIGN PICTURES WERE “SO WRETCHEDLY PAINTED THAT IT SEEM TO ME AS IF THEY MUST HAVE BEEN PAINTED BY A SET OF DEVILS...”
WOOLNER
(Thomas, 1825-1892, Pre-Raphaelite Sculptor)
Fine Long Autograph Letter Signed to Mr White
saying he is “steadily on the look out for a few minutes to chat with you and have begun this so that I may go on with it as time may offer. My wife hunted out a catalogue of the 2nd year of the Old Masters, which I sent straightway, as I knew that it would amuse you to have many of the beautiful old friends of your youth brought before you again. I have seen Reid and am happy to say that the account he gives of his wife is hopeful, for she is a great deal better and he spoke in a cheerful frame of mind. I cannot give you so good an account of poor Pearce, but I am happy to say that he is a trifle better than he has been; they have had a great Doctor in who says that he may rally for a time but that he never will be well again. It is very sad to think of one so good and kind having no life henceforth but a life of suffering. The ‘Grenoble’ Turner drawing fetched 1400 guineas at Broderipp’s sale, and many other drawings almost the same in proportion to their quality; the fact is that works of art in a well accredited collection go to almost any price now a days. I was shown a drawing by Turner, the ‘Falls of the Clyde’ which was just sold for 1600. I confess it is one of the finest I ever saw. There was one of ‘Cassiobury’ which was sold for £1000. I went yesterday with my wife to look at a large coll; of foreign pictures at Crockford old gambling Rooms in St. James’ street; and they were so horrible in feeling, morbid or mawkish, or evil, and so wretchedly painted that it seems to me as if they must have been painted by a set of devils, or perhaps for the want of power in them, I ought say devilkins. We then went to the Dudley Gallery of the rising young bloods in water colours, and the work there did not look so morbid and wicked as the foreigners but, as if all the drawings came from various young ladies schools and were the show drawings the girls took home on holidays to show their parents... We went for another peep at the Old Masters, and I found that the public complained bitterly of the Exhibition and said there were not enough pictures for their shillings. You as a philosopher of large Art experience know well enough that the day for studying art is past and now the time for ostentatious swallowing is come instead. My wife was grieved to hear of Mrs White’s illness...”, 4 sides 8vo, 29 Welbeck St, 18th February
Item Date:
1872
Stock No:
43568
£275
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