the
farther the spring the greater the honour, and the poor man has had no
peace and the article is to be suppressed. But since these things are
published only for subscribers and the volume is now out, of course
nothing can be done. Please telegraph that you can't spare me any
longer, for the meals here are getting impossible. Not even the peaches
compensate.--Your devoted ENID

III

Sir Jonathan Puttenham to the Rev. Stacey Morris, Editor of _The
Mustershire Archaeological Society's Records_

DEAR SIR,--I wish to utter a protest against what I consider a serious
breach of etiquette. In the new volume of your _Records_, you print an
article dealing with the history from remote times of the family of
which I am a member, and possibly the best-known member at the present
day. The fact that that family is of humble origin is nothing to me.
What I object to is the circumstance that you should publish this
material, most of which is of very little interest to the outside world,
without first ascertaining my views on the subject. I may now tell you
that I object so strongly to the publication that I count on you to
secure its withdrawal.--I am,

Yours faithfully,

JONATHAN PUTTENHAM

IV

Horace Vicary, M.D., of Southbridge, to his old friend the Rev. Stacey
Morris

MORRIS,--It's a good volume, take it all round. But what has given me,
in my unregeneracy, the greatest pleasure is the article on the
Puttenhams. For years the Puttenhams here have been putting on airs and
holding their noses higher than the highest, and it is not only (as they
say doubly of nibs) grateful and comforting, but a boon and a blessing,
to find that one of their not too remote ancestors kept a public-house,
and another was a tinsmith. And I fancy I am not alone in my
satisfaction.

Yours, H. V.

V

Sir Victor Puttenham, F.R.S., to the Editor of _The Mustershire
Archaeological Society's Records_

DEAR SIR,--As probably the most widely-known member of the Puttenham
family at the present moment, may I thank you for the generous space
which you have accorded to our history. To what extent it will be
readable by strangers I cannot say, but to me it is intensely
interesting, and if you can arrange for a few dozen reprints in paper
wrappers I shall be glad to have them. I had, of course, some knowledge
of my ancestors, but I had no idea that we were quite such an
undistinguished rabble of groundlings for so long. That drunken
whipp