I have written a huge long story of a rather new kind.¹ It's the outcome of the Prelude method—it just unfolds and opens—But I hope it's an advance on Prelude. In fact, I know it's that because the technique is stronger—It's a queer tale, though. I hope you'll like it…

We had a marvellous drive up into the mountains here the other day to a very ancient small village called Castellar. These roads wind and wind higher and higher—one seems to drive through the centuries too, the boy with the oxen who stands on the hillside with a green branch in his hand, the old women gathering twigs among the olives—the blind peasant with a wild violet pinned to his cap—all these figures seem to belong to any time—And then the tiny walled village with a great tree in the cobbled square and the lovely young girl looking out of the window of flower pots in the Inn—it's all something one seems to have known for ever. I could live here for years and years—I mean away from what they call “the world.”