My dear Stephen, loyal and true, he writes on 3.10.20; A thousand thanks for Lady Lilith, with its charming dedication, and for your letter.... I cannot well lend you the Repington volumes. I have them from the Times Book Club, which is all that my poor wife has to supply her with books. But seriously I advise you to buy them. They are as admirable as they are beastly. They form a perfect record of the war as you and I saw it; you will refer to them often in years to come; they mention every one that I know (except yourself) and a host more, every one that you know and a few more; and there is a very full index to them....
No, do not send me the Tree book: it will arrive in the next parcel from the Times Book Club....
There follows an account of a characteristic dialogue between Teixeira and his dentist:
New (enumerating every action, like a comic-conjurer): “Spray!”
Tex: “Oremus!”...
I wish, he writes on 6.10.20, that I had no correspondent but you: what good stuff I could write to you! But 19 letters in one day: think of it!...
My age is a melancholy one. The man of 50 or 60 sees all his acquaintances and friends dying off in ones and twos: Heinemann and Williamson to-day; who will it be to-morrow? When he’s 70, he begins to be a sole survivor, with no friends left to lose.
You will find the Tree book amusing as you go on with it. Four-fifths of it represent the life of a dead fairy told by living fairies, one wittier and more whimsical than the others. I confess to tittering over Viola’s “screwing their screws to the sticking-point” and “peacocks held in the leash.” And that’s a glorious portrait of Julius, though, when I knew him, he was more mature and more majestic....
On 11.10.20 he breaks into verse:
My very dear Stephen McKenna,