BRACERS Record Detail for 107238
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Butler's book was lent to BR by Mrs. Hubback at the Hague Congress.
"I have read it twice, with the greatest pleasure."
Tagore could never have succeeded without his beard. On Pythagoras: their treatments are very different, though not inconsistent.
BR TO E.M. BUTLER, 21 JUNE 1948
BRACERS 107238. ALS(X). U. of London
Proofread by K. Blackwell
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Penralltgoch
Llan Ffestiniog
Merioneth
21.6.48
Dear Professor Butler
Many thanks for your very agreeable letter. Your book was lent me by Mrs. Hubback at the Hague Congress, and as I could not finish it there, I bought it. I have read it twice, with the greatest pleasure. You can hardly be surprised at its having a “rough passage”, seeing that you put Christ among the magicians. The M.G. reviewer was stupid, and I was amused at his appeal to the support of one fool and one cleric.
I was amused by the difference between your treatment of Pythagoras and mine (in my History of Western Philosophy)—not that there is any inconsistency, but that different things are stressed. It was pleasant to learn the facts about the historical Faust; his rise to the eminence of Marlowe’s Faustus is amazingly rapid. It almost persuades me to grow a beard and turn magician— though, from the portrait you give, Faust did without a beard. Per contra, Tagore could never have succeeded without his.
My daughter teaches German at Radcliffe in USA, but will be in London this summer. I wonder if she might see you?
Yours sincerely,
Russell.
