going to explain this and for a good reason. It is a part
of the Mystery of the Male, and you will soon, even if you do not
already, get the hang of it, by the society of an individual who
while being unmistakably a much better man than I am, is nevertheless
male. I can only say that when men want a thing they act quite
differently to women. We put off everything we want to do, in the
ordinary way. If the Archangel Michael wrote me a complimentary
letter tomorrow (as perhaps he may) I should put it in my pocket,
saying, "How admirable a reply shall I write to that in a week or a
month or so." I put off writing to you because I wanted to write
something that had in it all that you have been, to me, to all of us.
And now instead I am scrawling this nonsense in a tavern after lunch.

My very dear old friend, I am of a sex that very seldom takes real
trouble, that forgets the little necessities of time, that is by
nature lazy. I never wanted really but one thing in my life and that
I got. Any person inspecting 60 Overstrand Mansions may see that
somewhat excitable thing--free of charge. In another person, whom
with maddening jealousy I suspect of being some inches taller than I
am, I believe I notice the same tendency towards monomania. He also,
being as I have so keenly pointed out, male, he also--I think has
only wanted one thing seriously in his life. He also has got it:
another male weakness which I recognize with sympathy.

All my reviewers call me frivolous. Do you think all this kind of
thing frivolous? Damn it all (excuse me) what can one be but
frivolous about serious things? Without frivolity they are simply too
tremendous. That you, who, with your hair down your back, played at
bricks with me in a house of which I have no memory except you and
the bricks, that you should be taken by someone of my miserable
sex--as you ought to be--what is one to say? I am not going to wish
you happiness, because I am quite placidly certain that your
happiness is inevitable. I know it because my wife is happy with me
and the wild, weird, extravagant, singular origin of this is a
certain enduring fact in my psychology which you will find paralleled
elsewhere.

God bless you, my dear girl.

Yours ever,
GILBERT CHESTERTON.

Married in 1903, Annie and her husband took another flat in
Overstrand Mansions.

"Gilbert never