g to make you feel quite happy in
your holiday. "Real good times" (a Yankeeism I hate, but it is
difficult to find its brief equivalent!) are not so common in "this
wale" that you should cut yours short. I rather hope this may be in
time to catch you (it is not _my_ fault that you will be without
letters). If you would like to linger longer--Do. You are not likely
to find "the like of" your present surroundings on leave in Scotland,
least of all as to sunshine and flowers. One doesn't go to Malta every
day. I wish I was there! But I can't be, and ten to one should catch
typhoid where you only smell orange-blossoms, and I don't think my
sins run in the Dog-in-the-manger line, and I hope you'll quaff your
cup of content as deeply as you can.

For one thing winter has returned. We had snow yesterday, and the east
wind, the Beast Wind! through which I went this morning to send your
telegram was simply killing; dust like steel filings driving into your
skin, waves of hard dust with dirty paper foam.--Ugh!!--Spend as much
of your leave as you and your friends think well where you are. I've
waited three years. I can wait an odd three weeks and welcome!
Especially as I am up to my eyes in packing and arranging matters for
our new home. What I do hope is you will be happy _there_! But I
believe in laying in happiness like caloric. A good roast keeps one
warm a long time!

How often I have thought that philosophers who argue from the premiss
of the fleeting nature of pleasure, might give pause if they had had
my experience. A body so frail that _nearly_ every pleasure of the
senses has had to be enjoyed chiefly after it had "fleeted"--by the
memory. Pictures (one of my chiefest pleasures), the theatre, any
great sight, sound, or event, being a pleasure after they (and the
_headache_!) have passed away. The "passing pleasures" of life are
just those which this world gives very capriciously, but cannot take
away! They are possessions as real as ... marqueterie chairs! Of
which--more anon,--when you return to the domestic hearth.

* * * * *

I had such a round in Wardour Street the other day! I do wish for a
Dutch marqueterie chest of drawers with toilet glass attached, but he
is L8! Too much. But (I _must_ let it out!) I got two charming Dutch
marqueterie chairs for my drawing-room for 35/- each. You will be
surprised to find what nice things we have!...

TO MRS. JELF.

_7, Mount Street, Tau