For the next few days Teixeira was absorbed in his preparations for leaving Crowborough. On arriving in London, he came to stay with me until he and his wife went to the Isle of Wight for the autumn and winter.
In acknowledging, on 1.9.20 his instructions about the diet on which he now lived, I wrote:
Many thanks for your letter written on the anniversary of Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands. Do not forget to date any letters you may write on Friday the anniversary of Naseby, the crowning mercy of Worcester and the death of O. Cromwell.
Teixeira interpolated here:
(And the birthday of my late aunt Judith Teixeira.)
On 2.9.20 he writes:
Dodd [Dodd, Mead and Co. Inc.] is going to reissue [Couperus’] Majesty in America and would like you to write a preface to it.... Will you do this? I should very much like you to. It involves re-reading the book, I fear; but after that you will not have much to do except to draw an analogy between the hero and the poor Czar, on whose character the recent articles in the Times have thrown an interesting light.
I reminded Teixeira that I had never read Majesty, as I had never been able to secure a copy.
You’re perfectly right, he replied on 5.9.20. I’ll bring the only copy in the world, that I know of, in my suit-case.
You will be able to point to some remarkable prophecies on C’s part (he foretold the Hague Conference years before it happened) and, for the rest, to let yourself go as you please on high continental dynastic politics. I doubt if any writer ever entered into the soul of princes as this astonishing youth of 25 or so did....