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Correspondence from Charles Stansfeld Jones to John Symonds
25 June 1948
Dear Mr. Symonds,
Thank you for your letter of June 22nd.
I have no reason to suppose your intentions are anything but reasonable and fair. I felt, however, that when you suggested that you would like to include "my life" in that of some other man, and to do this from the "papers" in question over there, plus any few scraps of information, true or false, you may have in your possession over there, you were both underestimating the length of my life and over emphasizing your task as literary executor for A.C. He did not appoint you as mine, did he?
I have not withheld anything that in my opinion would be really useful. I sent along some further information to Yorke [Gerald Yorke] quite recently on two points. (1) Another early "Will" of A.C.'s which I thought would be interesting. (2) A series of "past lives" which he claims to have remembered. These I went to the trouble of typing for that purpose.
The papers in question which I am not sending contain practically no references to myself; they do, however contain some details of a black-magical attempt to bring about the death of one near and dear to me who had done A.C. many favours. I cannot see that the spreading of the details of that sort of thing is any part of your duty. I think you may have been under some misapprehension in regard to my reasons for writing as I did.
On the other hand, you may be certain that I did mean what I said. If you find yourself in possession of any of my personal letters written to another, there are, I believe, laws which cover any question of their publication during the life of the writer without permission. If you have other "supposed facts" about my life from other sources, it would be well to make sure of such facts. I would advise that you show my previous letter to your legal adviser, and take his advice.
Yours very sincerely,
C. Stansfeld Jones
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