TELEPHONE 51 RYE

LAMB HOUSE
RYE
SUSSEX

this pilgrimage, to wait here till I can get into 21 Carlyle Mansions, Cheyne Walk, S.W.; which, kindly note, will be for some months to come my address — though indeed, as I fear that is still 8 days off, this place will be better meanwhile. I was too ill

to resort to my Reform"chambers"; I had to come here, where I could have my own servant at hand, and where also I could better see the particular "big" London authority on my ailment whom I had the superstitious wish to consult. I don't mention his name — he has but caused me such aggravated anguish. However, my dear Norris,

I pull up so as not to stretch out these dismals. Please generously take them, such as they are, for a poor stopgap or substitute in respect to the "Missive of the Season. I have to draw breath, and, you see, haven't left myself any for a question about yourself.

I find I think of everyone but my own self as in the highest health and spirits — such is the effect of my too prolonged torments.

I really hope to do better by you when I am settled in my own

TELEPHONE 51 RYE

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LAMB HOUSE
RYE
SUSSEX

quarters and amid my own arrangements. I am caught in this place
as in a trap; I rather took for granted myself that "change"
would magically work, and that I might betake myself after a few
days to Pall Mall. But nothing has come of that superstition;
Pall Mall remains impossible, Cheyne Walk isn't ready; and here
I count the hours as your much stricken but all-faithful old

Dictated.

TELEPHONE 51 RYE

Garlant's Hotel
Suffolk Street
Pall Mall.

LAMB HOUSE
RYE
SUSSEX

January 1st., 1913.

My dear Norris.

See by the horrible dishonoured contents of this what a deplor-
able thing has happened. My poor letter, once you have surmounted
the shock of its sordid characters, as well as the ditto of this,
will explain itself; but what is inexplicable, what would be gro-
tesque if it were not so heartbreaking as to my appearance of faith-
lessness and delay, is the queerness of my having reverted to your
old address of so long ago without being conscious of it; one of
the oddest phenomena of "automatic memory" I can remember —
unless it be simply a sign of the decay and rapid impending disso-
lution of all my faculties, leading in the complete collapse of my
poor old person itself. The result at any rate has been, I feel,
little less than tragic — and I bundle into this, as I say, all
the shabby signs of it. Forgive me, if you can — you would if
you knew — well, more than I can tell you now. For I have been

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TELEPHONE 51 RYE

LAMB HOUSE
RYE
SUSSEX

having a very bad time, and, though it improves a little there
seems to be badness enough left. I have been caught as in a steel
trap at this hotel, where I "alighted" much too many days since on
coming up to London to see a "Specialist" and being then, and since,
too ill to go to my club. Now I simply stick because hoping from
one day to another to get into the quarters my letter will have told
you of, and the address of which I repeat (if I _did_ give it to
you: I can't bear to turn to my letter and look.) It will be, I
devoutly hope, by the end of this week. I haven't heart for the
pretty speeches and bright invocations the Day demands — still you
do know what I wish for you: so do succeed in having a year of it.

I myself have a reasonable hope, in spite of everything (that is of
the regular purgatory, to put it mildly, I've been through and still
am seated in the suburbs of) to crawl gradually upward. This is all
now! All ruefully and faithfully yours

P.S. Address: 21 Carlyle Mansions, Cheyne Walk, S.W.

21 Carlyle Mansions

Cheyne Walk, S.W.

105, PALL MALL,
S.W.

January 5th., 1913.

My dear Norris.

Poor creature as I still am, and reduced to these methods
even yet by conditions you would appreciate on a nearer view of
me and a more particular recital of my melancholy tale, I can't
not thank you ever so kindly for your charming and generous, and
most vivid and interesting letter — by the comprehensive generosity
of which I am greatly touched. <u>How</u> I understand your liking, your
enjoying the sense of expatiation on your own (though it seems to
me so few and slight) intimations of our common mortality. I find
myself able to run on about mine even when quite helpless for a
step in any other direction or of any other kind. It is difficult,
however, I confess, for me to think of you as in the least really
stricken when you bristle so with every sort of physical prowess
and agility and make me feel in comparison with you a mere inanimate
human bundle chucked into a negligible corner. Into <u>this</u> corner,

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105, PALL MALL,
S.W.

more exactly, I was finally chucked in the course of yesterday;
and the mere taking effect (however imperfect as yet) of a winter
installation here intended to work for my remaining span has, I
confess, in my present state, left me too done and too — I trust
but temporarily — down in the depths to say to you half the
several other things I should like. I must, however, manage just
to thank you for your admirable specimen of the genius of our in-
comparable E.G. — whose account of my presence and poor personal
state in connection with his Christmas hospitality shines for me
as one of the brightest gems of considerate exactitude that I have
ever known him to throw off. Oh the tale I could tell you myself!
— but I must keep it for a better hour. And I did dine with him,
and with Mrs. Nelly, and with Tessa and Sylvia, and a single other
guest, an interesting Frenchman, André Gide, rather than have a
bowl of Benger in bed at my dim little hotel; and I did allow him
to place an oh so quite tragically mistimed and irrelevant tissue

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105, PALL MALL,
S.W.

paper cap upon my helpless head — so that after all you may think
there is something in it. But he is the inimitable and only — !

You sound very rustlingly and quite purringly surrounded with
toutes ces dames; which is quite right and good for you, I'm sure,
as I take each of them to be — and especially those I know — the
right sort of person for a lone sportsman, after his "change", to
turn in to tea with of a winter afternoon. I have been able to
turn in just once with dear old Rhoda, who is simply a heroine,
for making the genial best of her disabled state; and whom I don't
despair of seeing soon again. She will be greatly interested in
your news. But here, scant of breath, and I scarce know whether to
say most "done" or "undone", I pull up. You will be glad to know
that I find this little Thames-side quatrième very promising and
protective; my outlook straight on the River, though only my two
principal rooms occupy it, is a real felicity, and I can put up
my three little servants, an extraordinary chance in a flat of