We met for the first time in 1921, but then the platform was political. I was having lunch at the Emir Feisal’s in Berkeley Square – at him rather than with him, since my virtual host was an old Syrian friend who had gone on his staff. Feisal was absent through most of the meal, owing to business at the Colonial Office. He returned towards the end, and with him came a small fair-haired boy, who seems at this interval of time to have been holding a top-hat... [E M Forster]

He [TEL] said that he loved books and would like to earn enough money to buy a cottage that would have one large room in it. ... I asked what he would do in a small cottage with a lot of books. He said that he wouldn't have a lot, but only one hundred and fifty. How many books had I that I had never opened or read? The thing to do was to choose books very carefully and really use them, but, if they were added to, one must be strong-minded and part with some, so that the total remained at one hundred and fifty, and the hundred and fifty became more and more beautiful and necessary. (Hilda Chaundy)

People sent him books for review, criticism, friendship, and the writing of forewords. Of all the books that had ever been written in the world, he had found that there were scarcely 1200 that merited re-reading. How to dispose of surplus books at Clouds Hill would be a problem. In town the method that he had evolved was to take a midnight stroll, and drop unwanted volumes in letter boxes. He marked out promising boxes of a large size on front doors during the day time, mentally measuring the slots suitable for the reception of books on his disposal list. He had one or two especial favourite letter boxes in town, that received his volumes with a very satisfying boom; these he frequently patronized. (R G Sims)