The days here speed past on wings, thanks to their monotony. Waters at 8; again at 10.30; a bath or baths at 11; lunch at 1.30; a jog-trot drive from 3 to 4; bridge; dinner at 7.30; massage at 9; all this with unfailing regularity. I believe far more in my masseuse (she lives at this house) than in my doctor. It will amuse your father to hear that this genius is prescribing for me in the matter of rheumatism, neuritis and fibrositis in the arm without having once had my shirt off! I make suggestions, at the instance of the masseuse, and he promptly annexes them as his own:
“Tell me, doctor, may I do so-and-so?”
“You are to do so-and-so; and this very day!”
The doctors here generally have the very worst name; but there is nobody to pull them up or show them up.
The place teems with people whom I know and don’t want to see.
The rain it raineth every day and all day....
My cure is now over, he writes on 12.8.17; it has been long and costly; it has done me no good at all. Indeed my main affliction is worse; certain movements of the right arm which were possible with comparative ease before I came down are now nearly impossible. On Saturday, at the final consultation, when I took leave of my doctor and paid him five guineas, he told me for the first time that I have no neuritis but that I have bursitis. All the while, mark you, he has been treating me for fibrositis. It is a consolation to know, however, that I have no arthritis. What I have been having is what the vulgar would call a hi-tiddlyhitis high old time....
A week later I went again to Cornwall on leave.
Do devote yourself, wrote Teixeira, 25.8.17, at any rate for the first ten days of your absence, to becoming very well and strong. I have never seen you quite so ill as yesterday and I was infinitely distressed about it. Treat yourself as though you were an exceedingly old man like me. Then when you have entered upon your rejuvenescence you can begin to play pranks with yourself again....
Later he added: