August 26 [1913]

Its been a blank day, my dear, without your letter – I was horribly disappointed this morning in Half Moon Street – there are so few days –

However – its absurd to feel it – How many more long days are there to be, when you and I cannot talk of everything! Yes I know we can talk of much and of things that appeal to both of us – still one hasn’t got used to it.

I am terrified to wonder – did I say too much? or was it that you thought the time had passed? or were too occupied? Away with all such things – In the chains we live in – or I live in – it is wise and right to wear them easily –

Tonight I hear, it is to be Brindisi where we meet – hateful place – I told my wife yesterday to wait in Wales – tomorrow I am asked to go the F. O. to hear of starting, etc.

And I want to start. To live here waiting may be good discipline, but I hate it – Serenity again stands back – I can scarcely feel it where it lives immense – like mountains at night – And the things of the world that one passes, I have none tonight – I can’t speak to any fellow man or woman –

It will be all right tomorrow – and all right always – for the sun gets up just the same –

I tried a gallant old man of 93 today, an Admiralty judge – whom I have known and loved all my life – and he was nice to me –but it didn’t last –

And yet I know – none better – that somewhere close and easy to touch lies balm in Gilead – some page of the mind to turn and there like a parson to a cure of souls one reads oneself into peace. And I shall get it – for it is the birthright of all of us –

I didn’t mean to write to you tonight – but I want to go to bed and sleep and this is to say goodnight – God bless you – what you will.

Its perfectly ridiculous to a self-sufficing mind to want music played or poetry remembered – yet so I do – And by saying to you how poor a thing it is to need even such heavenly aids, the call for them will pass and go –

And tomorrow I’ll get to work, and feel it wrap me about as of old and be happy-

Goodnight my dear
Dick