[Violet Markham, author and social reformer, to art historian Benedict Nicholson.] Typed Letter Signed ('Violet Markham'), thanking him for 'drawings of St. Nectaire', discussing France and French 'betrayal of the Allied cause'.

2pp, 12mo. In good condition, lightly aged. Addressed to 'B. Nicholson, Esq., | Brooks's, | St. James's Street, S.W.1.' (Nicholson was the son of Harold Nicholson and Vita Sackville-West.) She begins by thanking him for his 'kind letter and charming gift of your drawings of St. Nectaire', adding: 'as an author my vanity is flattered by your appreciation of “Romanesque France”'. She is glad she has helped 'a certain number of people in getting to know some of the beauties of France', but feels 'something of a fraud about the book as without the help of my friend Mr. Tyler I could never have written it'. It made her 'quite homesick to look at a picture of St. Nectaire again', and she is hopes 'the beautiful churches of France […] have not suffered too much at the hands of the German barbarians. I feel particularly anxious about Chartres and I pray they had the sense to remove the glass when hostilities began'. Unlike Nicholson, and as much as she loves 'the by-ways of France', it will cost her 'a great effort to go there again. I have always defended France and loved her, but her conduct during the present war and her betrayal of the Allied cause will make it difficult for me at least to go back to the country on the old happy terms.'