S&SWM PR papers L671

[D'Alviella Ans'd]

Oxford May 1891

Dear Sir

I have been to your Lecture last Thursday at the Oxford Museum and took such an interest in it that I take the liberty of sending to you a book I have just published on the Migration of Symbols. You will see, by a glance at the figures, especially in the last chapter, that I have particularly devoted my attention to these passages of one form to another, which you have worked out with such a success in case of implements and architectural Designs.

Perhaps it will interest you to know that there is at Brussels a museum proposed on the plan carried out at Oxford, thanks to your magnificent gifts, viz on the principle of Development. But, as it is part of a larger scheme for a People's Palace I do not know when and how for it will be carried out

I remain
Your's [sic] sincerely
Goblet Alviella*
Hibbert Lecturer for 1891

P.S. I have borrowed from you, I believe, my fig. 41 p. 129 If I have not quoted my source more fully, it is because I had to take it second hand from a French book.

* Eugène Félicien Albert, Count Goblet d'Alviella (1846-1925) was a lawyer, liberal senator of Belgium and a Professor of the history of religions and rector of the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, see here

Transcribed by AP May 2011 as part of the Rethinking Pitt-Rivers project.