3, Fitzjohn's Mansions, Netherhall Gardens, Hampstead, N.W. _December 17th_. Dear Sir, Many thanks for your letter and the copy of "The Song of Songs." I read the book carefully several months ago. I consider it to be a most wonderful book, and should deeply regret to see the work of so great a master as Sudermann suppressed in England. It is an absorbing psychological and physical study; and I see nothing obscene in its frank presentment of a woman's life, given over, it is true, to passion, and yet with a thread of finer aspiration clearly and continuously to be traced throughout the course of her career. I am, Yours very truly, Beatrice Harraden. 17, Stratton Street, W. My Dear Lane, I have now read the "Song of Songs." The translation is obviously an undistinguished piece of work; and possibly it adds here and there a coarseness which the original book is without. As to that I cannot speak. Herr Sudermann is no doubt outspoken to the point of brutality, but with his theme brutality is the better way. Pruriency is the bad way; and with that he has never had anything to do. That the "Song of Songs" might offend some people I can understand. That it would do any harm I cannot. Yours very sincerely, A. E. W. Mason. Riviera Palace Hotel, Monte Carlo. _December 30th_, 1910. Dear John Lane, Please pardon the delay. I've been seedy, and have not written a single letter for ten days. I'm all right again, and am sending to tell you briefly what I think of "The Song of Songs."