BR TO UNA POPE-HENNESSY, 25 APR. 1911
BRACERS 56617. ALS. John Pope-Hennessy
Proofread by K. Blackwell

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Trinity College,
Cambridge.1
April 25. ’11

Dear Mrs Pope-Hennessy

Very many thanks for your kindness in sending me your book on Secret Societies and the French Revolution. Two of the Essays I had read before, the others were new to me and I have read them with very great interest. I have always taken a great interest in your development as a writer, and I am rejoiced that it has turned out so well. I very much hope you will go on writing. I found occasion for two criticisms of your style, which I think are similar to criticisms I have made before. The one is that I think you are a little too apt to treat bigwigs as if they deserved the respect they get, that is, you tend to accept established reputations. The other is that once in a way you allow yourself a more or less journalistic phrase, such as “gain the ear of”. I hope you won’t mind my mentioning these things — I should not think it worth while if I did not have a great belief in your powers.

Yours ever
Bertrand Russell.

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