My dear Julian,
Just a brief line, for I am still very restricted in permission as to writing, as so much depends on the rest-cure which is no small factor in my redemption here....
It has been ‘a narrow squeak.’ Briefly, after a hard tussle at the brink of ‘Cape Fatal’ and a stumble across ‘Swamp Perilous’ I got into the merely “dangerous condition” stage—and now at last that’s left behind, and I’ll soon be as well in body as I’m happy and serene in mind.
It is at best, however, a reprieve, not a lifetime-discharge. N’importe. Much can be done with a reprieve, and who is to know how long the furlough may be extended to. At any rate, I am well content.”
To me he wrote—for I was unable to accompany him:
Neuenahr,
16th June, 1905.
... Here, at the Villa Usner, it is deliciously quiet and reposeful. I had not realised to the full how much nervous harm I’ve had for long. To live near trees is alone a joy and a restorative. The heat is very great but to me most welcome and strengthening.... In my room or in the garden I hear no noise, no sounds save the susurrus of leaves and the sweet monotony of the rushing Ahr, and the cries and broken songs of birds....
I could see that Dr. G. can’t understand why I am not more depressed or, rather, more anxious. I explained to him that these physical troubles meant little to me, and that they were largely the bodily effect of other things, and might be healed far more by spiritual well-being than by anything else: also that nature and fresh air and serenity and light and warmth and nervous rest were worth far more to me than all else. “But don’t you know how serious your condition may become at any moment, if you got a bad chill or setback, or don’t soon get better?” “Certainly,” I said; “but what then? Why would I bother about either living or dying? I shall not die before the hour of my unloosening comes.”
I want to be helped all I may be—but all the waters in the world can only affect the external life, and even that only secondarily very often....