A knighthood, an honorary degree from his old university, and
sudden death two days after the latter—a strange end for Desmond MacCarthy. But a quiet end, it would seem, and not altogether unexpected, for he had been in ill-health for a long time. But his regularly weekly Sunday Times article was in its place in that paper last Sunday as usual (before his death had been announced) and a most characteristic photo- graph appeared on another page in connection. with his honorary degree. As has been observed, MacCarthy left little of solid literary weight behind him, though his various volumes of essays are among the best of their kind. One of the most interesting of his writings is his too little-known preface to the too little-known volumes of H.H.A.'s (Lord Oxford's) Letters to a Friend, in which Mr. Asquith, as he was when the series of letters begins, dilated freely on persons, books and politics to a naval officer's young widow, with whom he had contracted a warm platonic friendship. MacCarthy was entrusted by Asquith's literary executors with the task of editing the letters for publication, with no instructions except to remove anything that might give pain to any living purpose. It must have needed resolution to sacrifice an interesting anecdote or a sardonic) comment on that ground, but MacCarthy did his work admir- ably. I only recall one lapse, and that no serious one. Asquith had once referred to a certain person as "the rather resonant and polysyllabic —." It was not a very derogatory reference, but its publication did give pain to the person in question.
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