xt7qjq0stw34_384 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/1997ms474.dao.xml unknown archival material 1997ms474 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. W. Hugh Peal manuscript collection Gordon Bottomley letter to Frederick Carter text 43.94 Cubic Feet 86 boxes, 4 oversize boxes, 22 items Poor-Good Peal accession no. 11453. Gordon Bottomley letter to Frederick Carter 2017 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7qjq0stw34/data/1997ms474/Box_4/Folder_30/Multipage1345.pdf 1923 June 20 1923 1923 June 20 
  Scope and Contents
  
Peal accession no. 11148a. Includes a transcript and biographical clipping.
 section false xt7qjq0stw34_384 xt7qjq0stw34  

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 Silverdale hr. Carnforth [Lancashire]
QOth. June 11325.

Rear FredericK Carter,

How scandalous and altogether graceless of me.
I can only assure you that I aJJear so because I thought I had acknow—
ledged your 1 " Let me tha IJK you asain — to make quite sure ~ for

.he large . z : w r :ive me and for the honour you do me in ma»
King me a s-g'J 3 of them: I trust they will fine many admirers in
my house.

It i an esuecial lelight to me that such a fine attempt to reihm
state ideal art among us should Je made by a fellow YorKshireman ~ a
fact which is aI:other strength to my thesis that the artistic imyulse
of Southern Englanct the cradle of our original civilisation is e}:-
hausted and. withering; and that the centre CI gravity has shifted in
all thi ncs to the i; Id_ustrial North. where aesthetics are still nasv
cent and everywhere a dee. J Jlind instinct Ior the arts is stirring
which might JreaK into a marcellous Iecundit3 iI our tremendomn
ern force could he focussed in that direction: I liKe to thinK
such fellows as you and I are forerunners and si gnJosts.

And JerhaJs I am most delighted of all to thi: 1K that these yotents
of yours haJe come out oI that old Bradford which was once the very
Zity Io Dreadful Night to me——

"It is Iull stranz:e to him who hears and feels
While wandering in sowe deserted street
The booming and the jar of uonderous wheels. . ."

You Know the lines. They alwa ys maKe me thinK of Hall Ings at
clocK of a November night.

I believe that most of our modern art has gone wrong because it has
not a sufficient suoject— —matter and. tries to fudge it out by proclaim—
ing that it does not nee d onegi and that some great Jelief or ideal to
De exures sed is the Only source oI great art. ESut at the same time I
nelieJe equally that when a worK of art is achieJed it is not at all
valualee for the JelieI it exyresses, out only Jy the Significant beau"
ty whi Ch it achieves.

So that I haJe to confes to you that I feel sure that the exposi~
tion of your mystical doctrine WI ll not helJ your art to accejJtalice.
and that y‘u would serJe your art Jetter iI 3ou were to let it stand
by itself, without exylanation. I ought to conIes to 3ou too that asw
trology and the other things that are so dear to you do not mean any«
thing; to me and that I dis =;JelieJe in some of them ardently, but then
I do not Jelle'e in the GreeK religion which imyelled Aeschylus to
produce the iramas whicn sweeo over me in august majesty and seem to
me still the greatest ”JTO uctions of the human syirit: nor in BlaKe's
mys tical doctrine which im him to produce masteruieces of grauhic
art and oI yoetr3 whiCn are entirely Caticijlug to me and seem to me
some oI the greatest glories oI our country; so I shall not question
your Jeli eIs when they Iurni sh you with satlstln and significan sym--
Jols oi CLIP liIe and ex :Jerience to turn to the MUTJOSES oI artisti Ic crew
ation.

The only reservation and criticism I have secretly made to myself on
your worK is that your faith has not so far g1iren you such :Jower 0 er
the rest of nature as it has o-.rer the human Igorm (yfi ) you have not Iound
such a noble interyretation oI the rOCKs in Lamentations as you haze oI
that of the woman in front of them. But at all other ooints I feel great
symuathy with the intention of these engravings; and Balance? The Pream~
ers, and Dionysia still stir my admiration as they did it [at] first and
maintain their yower over my imagination.

‘4
’l

09..

 

 You must not tfliflfi I want to argue aha confute. I don’t: "a chacun
son” passions ago JGliGIS; out I thought I owed it to you to be cah~
difi aaout my own Jeliefs anfi hot to mislead you 3y a golite gliflihg
over the things in WhiCh I cannot follow.

I hoye your ylahe for American yujlicatiOM will fructii; ago grin;
you the audience and the oggortunity you £88K.

my wife joins we in very Kind regards to you, ahfi we should be hayyy
if you woulfi rememaer us to the Clements. Believe me most gratefolly

Your well—wisher
(#) ahfi I feel that mystical Gordon Bottomley

doctrines can only iihi full expreeeion
in comylete terms of external nature.

 

Gorooh Bottomley (l57£~l350). author. yoetry ahfl gro
II

'C
.nv
'1
l

C born at
ltfis he rew

Keithley; efiucatefl in he .eithley Grammar School.
ceivefl F. B. E. L., in 1:4 the degrees of LL. P. ant V. Titt.
from Leeds; in 134o P. from Durham. His name is in the 154?
issue of Lho'e WHO. out not in that of 1350.

.— r
J

Frederica Carter; yaihterwetCher, was DOPfl near Bradford. Yorx~
shire. He studied in Paris at the Academy Royal of the Beaux Arts:
and at Antwerp. He etartei to be an engineer and surveyor, out gem
came interesteé in art worK. and has won three medals for his WOTA
in ooox illustration.

The quotation from Jamee homeon's [VB.V."] "The City of the
Dreadful Night” is from $ection IX of that poem, the first three
lines. [Poems of James Thomson “B. V.“ Selected and edited by
Gordon Hall Gerould. Henry Holt, N. Y. gage 157.]