Letter from V.S. Pritchett, Great Shefford, Newbury, to Thomas Balston, 1939 November 18 : autograph manuscript signed.

Writing that he is "delighted" that Balston liked his book, and adding that he is "more pleased" that he "paid it the compliment of discussing it seriously"; reflecting on his work and his own intellectual disposition, remarking that "It's probably the inability to make my mind up about most things which accounts for all my stress on objectivity. I'm essentially a pair of eyes.", commenting on his progress as a writer, his ability to earn a living, and his belief that he has "degenerated as a critic ... and improved as an artist" in recent years; referring to one of his stories as a "freak" for its mysticism and reflecting on his attitudes towards mysticism in general; responding to Balston's observations on Pritchett's short story "Main Road"; giving a humorous account of one of his neighbors who he describes as "almost Pearl White come to life"; mentioning his garden and expressing his wish that Balston would come to visit them; remarking that Balston's "fish has been admired by many visitors" (evidently a reference to a painting Balston had given Pritchett) and that he is glad that Balston has continued to paint; expressing his belief that the present "decentralization of social life" will prove a good thing, and that "it will be possible to exhibit pictures in towns like Newbury" and "from Petersfield I hear of a relative boom in painting and literature"; mentioning that his wife, Dorothy, is expecting to deliver a child soon and that they have hired a nurse, and commenting on the eccentricity of a former nurse, who was "obsessed with sex and Anglo-Catholicism" and whose father "used to go about his house affecting to be a Hermaphrodite with the aid of a couple of grape fruit placed under his shirt"; adding that Noel Carrington came to visit on Saturday and "said you were one of the few surviving examples of a truly civilized life", after which Carrington's new wife appeared wearing shorts "which do not, I think, make people look civilized".