104 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ch. 



speaks of as " this touching letter from Lecky," 

 in reply. 



Feb. \2th, 1899. 



My dear Sir John — ^I am exceedingly troubled by 

 your letter for I hate refusing requests that have been 

 again and again made, but I really cannot combine 

 giving addresses with my literary work and the fatigue 

 of Parliamentary life. I have got a serious piece of work 

 on my hands and am doing the very best I can to get 

 through it in spite of politics and its many interruptions, 

 but I am not strong ; I can only do my literary work by 

 giving it my very best thought. Giving addresses is 

 not my line. I know by experience that my voice will 

 not carry to the end of a large hall, and the nervous 

 worry of a public performance of this kind is far more 

 trying to me than the writing of an address. If I am 

 not utterly to sacrifice my real literary work to parlia- 

 ment I must be allowed to devote my spare time to my 

 own work. I am quite sure that, by doing this, I shall 

 be more useful than by giving myself to the utterly 

 uncongenial task of giving public addresses. 



Literary life in England is becoming more and more 

 difficult from the persistence with which requests of this 

 kind are made to every one who writes a successful book, 

 entirely irrespective of the question whether the writer 

 has any turn or habit of talk of the lecturing kind. 

 Surely the talking literati are sufficiently numerous in 

 England, and the Universities are producing a large 

 body of most capable and efficient lecturers. 



I should be greatly obliged to you if you could 

 persuade your Committee of this, for this is the third 

 if not the fourth time they have pressed this very 

 flattering but to me very embarrassing request. I 

 should be exceedingly sorry to appear discourteous to 

 them or insensible to the honour they have done me, 

 but I have work before me to the full extent of my 

 powers. 



I hope they will therefore excuse me. — Yours truly, 



W. E. H. Lecky. 



In March he received from an Indian scholar, 

 Mr. Romerli Dutt, a copy of the latter's English 

 metrical translation of the Mahabharata, in a 



