… If this weather goes on, my girl, I'm afraid you'll have to make a canvas boat of your picture and I will have to turn my writing table upside down and float out of the window. But perhaps God in His goodness will allow us page 75 to bob near each other for a moment. I have been informed by my great-aunt Charlotte (of Bangalore, Worple Avenue) that all those who are saved have expected a recurrence of the flood ever since the Kaiser was recognized to be Anti-Christ. And are Fully Prepared for it. Can't you see them “done up in impervious cases, like preserved meats”—like the Micawber family starting off for Australia? …

I spent a mournful half morning yesterday being thumped and banged and held up by the heels by my doctor, who gave me no comfort at all, but half hinted, in fact, that given another hearty English winter or two the chances were that I'd bend and bow under my rheumatism until I become a sort of permanent croquet hoop….

So, if in a year or two (I don't think the rain will stop before then) you should come through my gate and find me in the garden as a sort of decorative arch with a scarlet runner growing over me you will know then that the worst has happened.

Goodbye for now, mia bella. Salute my friends, frown on my enemies.