Autographs
Aldous Huxley's Fresh Observations Regarding Mexico
ALDOUS HUXLEY (1894-1963). British Novelist, Essayist and Satirist.
October 10, 1933-Dated, Autograph Letter Signed, “Aldous H(uxle)y,” upon blue "La Gorguette, Sanary (Var)" letterhead stationery, 2 pages one sheet both sides, measuring 8” x 5”, Octavo, Extremely Fine. Here, Huxley pens, in full:

"Dear Richard, I ought to have written before to thank you for the book of poems, which I thought interesting, though - like all you write, I think - a bit excessive in their mode of expression. 'Methinks the Lady doth protest too much' is very pertinent literary criticism. One can generally say more by saying less. I thought the drawings very charming & elegant.

We had a very interesting journey in Guatemala & Mexico - such exceedingly queer countries & full of the most astonishing things: - Spanish baroque churches, Maya & Toltec ruins of incredible magnificence, Indians practising fantastic mixtures of Catholicism & heathenism. Mexico City pullulates (breeds) with surrealistes & is the queerest bad joke of a place. There is a sort of American-artistic Montparnasse (a section of Paris on the left bank of the Seine) - Saint-Tropez (i.e., artist colony) called Taxco, full of drunken sodomites & lesbians who pretend to be painters - unspeakably depressing and lost, hopelessly, in the midst of the blank expressionless Indians & the vast endless mountains. Go there & look if you ever get the chance: Ja vaut lapeine (a variation on "Ja ne vaut pas la peine" - "it is not worth bothering about" - meaning "it is worth the pain"). Yours Aldous H(uxle)y."