.ODI3.NTQwMDg
May 16, 1943
Dear Mr. Hitz - The “Carroll Club” which aroused your curiosity was no formally organized institution, with members and regular meetings. The 90’s were a period of Browning club and Shakespeare club in Lincoln with interpretations, semi-profound papers etc, etc. It was also the period of enthusiasm for the books of “Lewis Carroll,” all of which the Pounds owned. So we had informed meetings occasionally with six or eight or 80 in attendance and non-serious programs echoing the Browning etc. programss.,.,with very profound interpretations.I remember writing a paper on “Portmanteau Word.” unclear - explaining? the component of galumping underlined, chortle underlined etc. (I didn’t foresee the need later. I was to make a study of Herodotus unclear? that I had prized (Winter is a learned series at Heidelberg - it was no my doctoral dissertation). Another person wrote of “unclear? Character of the Joker.” I have forgotten what Willa Cather contributed, if she was n a program.I think George Whaley was present once.See the meetings were at the Pound house. Our star member was Derrick N. Lehrer, singer, violinist, poet, later professor of mathematics at the University of California {Berkeley}, editor of the literary magazine The University of? California Chronicle underlined,, author of two volumes of poetry and composer of two operas presented