“Water invariably flows downwards,” said he, gravely....
Ecclefechan I don’t know and don’t want to; Carlisle, I do; Gretna Green I do: I never want to set eyes on either again. I have a desolating memory of brown fields between Carlisle and Gretna Green. By now you have, I expect, seen as much of England as you wish to see in the course of your natural life....
To-day, seized with a sudden lech for art and beauty, my wiff and I are going to Hammersmith to hear The Beggar’s Opera....
I have again lost your waybill, he writes, 16.9.21, and cannot tell if this will still find you at Glow-worm Castle.
The Beggar’s Opera was a great affair.
Little has happened to me since.
But to-day Mrs. Asquith and her daughter are coming to play different forms of the game of auction bridge at the Cleveland Club.
And to-morrow ... ah, to-morrow! To-morrow I am going to stay for the week-end with a hostess, at or near Marlow, whose name I do not even know.... I am promised a perfectly good end; but so were any babies of old who ended in being eaten by the ogress.
We are never too old for adventures; but pray that I come safely out of this one.
On 30.9.21 he writes: