'I can't tell you what delight and happiness The Eternal Moment has been to me, and I can't thank you enough for your very great kindness in sending it to me. Even though I was undergoing the horrors of a bad attack of influenza, I realised what a wonderful book it is. Well, all I know is that "The Machine Stops" made me feel as though I had come out of dark tunnel in which I had always lived into an immense open space, and were seeing things living for the first time. I believe it is the most tremendous short story of our generation. But then the whole book has got every quality of beauty and truth and illumination. I do think "The Point of It" is such a wonderful story too, and "The Eternal Moment" is enough to frighten one out of one's wits - but not to frighten one only. It is, in a way, the most terrifying ghost story I have ever read.
The strange thing about these stories is that every time one reads them and I've read them all several times already, one finds fresh beauties in them. They seem to have an inexhaustible store.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith Sitwell Print: Book
'I cannot tell you with what delight I found your lovely history of Alexandria, and your most kind letter, awaiting me when I returned here on Thursday. ( I was delayed in London)the book has a beauty that makes one feel calmed -(at the moment I am reading the section on literature) as one feels calmed when looking at certain statues and listening to certain music. I am deeply grateful to you for sending it to me, and am proud to have it inscribed in your handwriting.
I wish you could know what pleasure I feel in reading this book. Whilst I was in London, I found people tearing about, and declaring they could read nothing but newspapers. What a strange way of trying to retain one's sanity! For myself, I have been reading Nashe's Lenten Stuffe, and now I am reading Alexandria.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edith Sitwell Print: Book