Snt,—In your issue dated June 21st Mr. Harold Nicolson writes
one of the most singularly ill-informed commentaries that !I have ever read. Mr. Nicolson is entitled to feel enraged that philatelists should exist, just as I am entitled to wonder why ncne of his enraged readers has quietly lynched him years ago He is not entitled to write such statements regarding a hobby which gives to its millions of devotees all over the world a study embracing (in some form or other) all the arts, providing unequalled opportunities for relaxation and pleasure and, at the same time, without harm to anyone (except Mr. Nicolson).
The following are among 'his wholly untrue statements : " Nobody contends that the stamps are in themselves objects of aesthetic delight ; nobody argues that the fact that they constitute an unused block in any way enhances their beauty ; nor does anybody eveneek to pretend that the presence of intact margins, both at the side and on the bottom, represents more than a fortuitous and quite unimportant instance of survival." " The history of these stamps is in itself a dull history." " No philatelist can really contend that the blurred and murky rectangles which he roves possess any possible artistic or historic' interest." " Yet I resent hobbiei which make no contribution whatsoever to useful knowledge or to physical or mental health." Many of his other statements contain those hideous half-truths which so distort the real facts that they are worse than deliberate lies.
It would appear to his readers that Mr. Nicolson is confusing criticism with slander. Mr. Nicolson should study the works of some of the more eminent living writers of English literature and learn their views on a subject about which he knows so little. He writes: "I shall remain angry with philatelists until I•clie." I ant sure that I am but expressing the sympathy of the majority in saying that we hope that he will not be angry with us for many days.—Yours faithfully, ROBSON LOWE. 50 Pall Mall, S.W. z.
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