DLA020-0244  Transcription

29th November 1933

Dear Mrs. Inge,

It was most kind of you to write to me.^[1] It was a very delightful evening on Saturday, and I felt very much the appreciative words Dean Inge^[2] said on the occasion of the unveiling of our mutual friend’s portrait [5554]. I would have liked to reply, but I am generally very bad at doing so! I hope the Dean will understand how much I value what he said, the more so because I know he is very reluctant to express his ideas on such occasions.

I cannot tell you how happy I am to know that you both, and all the friends, like the portrait [5554], and that you think I have succeeded in transmitting to the canvas his character and his sympathetic personality.

I would like to have had a few words with you and the Dean before you left, but do hope that on my return, which will be about the middle of March, we will meet again. I always want to do a study of the Dean, and hope I shall have an opportunity of doing so early this next Spring.^[3] On the 7th December I am sailing for America, where I have to paint some portraits which I have long promised to do, but hope to return by the end of January, and after a few days’ stay here to leave again for Madeira to meet my wife on her return journey from South Africa. We hope to spend three weeks in Morocco to have the thorough rest which I very much need, and to do some studies there.

Will you please remember me to the Dean, and with my renewed thanks for his kindness,

Believe me,

Yours most sincerely,

SMDL

12/09/2018