Autograph letter signed : Oxford, to William Angus Knight, [1900?] March 12.

Concerning the letters of Dr. Martineau; saying "Truly this difference between you and Dr. Martineau's daughters is very grievous, and the correspondence must have caused you much pain. I wonder that they do not realise that such a complete series of letters is not a thing to be 'used' by biographers, but forming a kind of whole, a sort of artistic unity, by itself, as a record of unreserved friendship. In such a case it seems to me clear that you are their natural guardian, and that as with Stevenson & Sidney Colvin &c such a group might be published separately and would aid the biography. However, it is useless to resist the inevitable. I do not gather from Miss Martineau's letter that they will wish to oppose the publication when the memoir has appeared: and she is clearly in error in not distinguishing between the ownership of the documents and the literary copyright in them. I trust therefore that your design is only deferred; and that long before the time for its execution arrives the difficulties which have so unexpectedly arisen may be all cleared away. I am glad that you are likely to write some preliminary Study, probably for one of the Quarterlies;" adding that he doesn't see any reason to get approval from the family or from the biographers as the nature of the essay he would write would likely be "...impressions of his personality, & the tracing of his influence on thought, - minute detail would not enter into your plan. On the whole, just now, silence seems best. One cannot bear controversy over a grave."