stmarked Sept. 29, 1899.)

. . . I fear, as you say, that my letters do not contain many
practical details about myself: the letters are not very long to
begin with, as I think it better to write something every day
than a long letter when I have leisure: and when I have a little
time to think in, I always think of the Kosmos first and the Ego
afterwards. I admit, however, that you are not engaged to the
Kosmos: dear me! what a time the Kosmos would have! All its
Comets would have their hair brushed every morning. The Whirlwind
would be adjured not to walk about when it was talking. The
Oceans would be warmed with hot-water pipes. Not even the lowest
forms of life would escape the crusade of tidiness: you would
walk round and round the jellyfish, looking for a place to put in
shirt-links.

Under these circumstances, then, I cannot but regard it as
fortunate that you are only engaged to your obedient Microcosm: a
biped inheriting some of the traits of his mother, the Kosmos, its
untidiness, its largeness, its irritating imperfection and its
profound and hearty intention to go on existing as long as it
possibly can.

I can understand what you mean about wanting details about me, for
I want just the same about you. You need only tell me "I went down
the street to a pillar-box," I shall know that you did it in a
manner, blindingly, staggeringly, crazily beautiful. It is quite
true, as you say, that I am a person wearing _certain_ clothes with a
_certain_ kind of hair. I cannot get rid of the impression that there
is something scorchingly sarcastic about the underlining in this
passage. . . .

. . . as to what I do every day: it depends on which way you want
it narrated: what we all say it is, or what it really is.

What we all say happens every day is this: I wake up: dress myself,
eat bacon and bread and coffee for breakfast: walk up to High St.
Station, take a fourpenny ticket for Blackfriars, read the Chronicle
in the train, arrive at 11, Paternoster Buildings: read a MS called
"The Lepers" (light comedy reading) and another called "The
Preparation of Ryerson Embury"--you know the style--till 2 o'clock.
Go out to lunch, have--(but here perhaps it would be safer to become
vague), come back, work till six, take my hat and walking-stick and
come home: have dinner at home, write the Novel till 11, then writ