14 OCTOBER 1949, Page 20

A Matter of Quotation

SIR,—The prose of Mr. Harold Nicolson is always attractive, and sonic of his phrases are memorable. In his Oct. 7th article he pertinently uses quotation marks, but in the fourth paragraph he ends one of the sentences with the striking words, "the ground-whirl of the perished leaves of hope," without setting them apart, as I suggest he should have done, seeing that the phrase forms a quotation from one of the sonnets of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

It is admittedly difficult, to one who has a good verbal memory, to separate the words and phrases of other writers from those which have been extemporised by one's self, and I trust that Mr. Nicolson will for- give me for giving him what is intended to be a delicate and respectful