My Dear, of course I will write. If I were not tied to London just now by office work I should take rooms near you and do my best to spoil you. But that cannot be. Instead I will send you a letter as often as possible. In fact, I wouldn’t mind, if it would really give you any satisfaction, promising to write every day. Nulla dies sine epistola—however short. Shall I? I never made such an undertaking before in my life.
As to books—when I am ill I am like the man who when a new one came out read an old one—Dr. Johnson or Hazlitt or Mr. Birrell—and therefore I am a bad counsellor. Were I to have a nice luxurious little illness at this moment I should take with me to the nursing home Emma and Mansfield Park; but they are men’s books far more than women’s. I should also put into practice a project I have long had in mind—the attempted re-reading of certain favourites of my schooldays, to see if they will stand the test. Probably not. These include Midshipman Easy, Zanoni, Kenelm Chillingly and, above all, Moby Dick; but I doubt if any of these are in Miss Raby’s line. Nor is, I am afraid, my glorious new friend, O. Henry. In default of a better I send by parcel post the old 6-volume edition of Fanny Burney’s Diary.
Picture me hunting about for a Reader. Surely among all the demobilised young women who are said to be pining for a job I can find one! Don’t be frightened—she shall not be too startlingly from one of the great tea-drinking departments of the Government—but I can’t guarantee that her skirts will be below her knees. There are no long skirts left in London to-day, and no stockings that are not silk. I am not an observant person, but I have noticed that; I have noticed also that the silk does not always go the whole way. But perhaps among all your vast array of relations you know of a nice girl. If so, say so and I will not pursue the chase, but at the moment more than one agency is being busy about it. “Must have a pleasant voice and be able to keep it up for an hour without one gape”—that is what I tell them.
I must now stop or your poor arms will be tired with holding this up. Don’t forget that I want to know what Sir Smithfield Mark says. Apropos of doctors, I met old Beamish at the club to-day, very cock-a-hoop as he was just off to North Berwick, on his doctor’s advice, and without Mrs. B. He said with a wink that every man should have three doctors, carefully selected, to consult with discretion: one, when things were slackening domestically, to assure his wife that he must be fed up—better and more nourishing food, oysters and so forth; one when he was bored with town, to assure his wife that he is badly in need of a change and ought to go off on a little holiday at once, alone; and one to look after him when he is really ill.
R. H.