No letter from you to-day. I had one from L.M. written on Friday—so the posts have got a real grudge against you and me….

I am posting you the first chapter of my new work to-day. I have been hard put to it to get it copied in time to send it off, but I am so exceedingly anxious for your opinion.

It needs perhaps some explanation. The subject, I mean lui qui parle, is taken from F. and M., and God knows who. It has been more or less in my mind ever since first I felt strongly about the French. But I hope you'll see (of course, you will) that I'm not writing with a sting. I'm not indeed.

I read the fair copy just now and couldn't think where the devil I had got the bloody thing from—I can't even now. It's a mystery. There's so much less taken from life than anybody would credit. The African laundress I had a bone of—but only a bone—Dick Harmon, of course, is partly, is—

Oh God! Is it good? I am frightened. For I stand or fall by it. It's as far as I can get at present; and I page 122 have gone for it—bitten—deeper and deeper than ever I have before. You'll laugh a bit about the song. I could see Goodyear grin as he read that…. But what is it like? Tell me—don't spare me. Is it the long breath, as I feel to my soul it is, or is it a false alarm? You'll give me your dead honest opinion, won't you?

If this gets lost I break my pen.

I am only, at the moment, a person who works, comes up to read newspapers, and to wait for postmen, goes down again, drinks tea. Outside the window is the scenic railway, all complete, and behind that pretty piece is the war.

Forgive an empty head. It rattled all night. I can't manage this sleeping business.