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reduced us to that condition of financial
exhaustion wh. daunts even the financial
genius of an Austen. I say to him at
times - "Get busy dear Austen or
the Whigs must starve": whereupon
Austen immediately becomes grave: there
can be no doubt that he fully realises
how much is at stake.

But to return to my enquiry.

Will you some day - oh! any time -
will you ask Mark to come & stay a
week end with you?

In the tented fields of Picardy, I fancy he
formed a misleading picture of the higher
intellectual life as practised in normal times
by our civil population. He looked forward to
release from the cramping atmosphere of a
cavalry mess. And lo! having got his
freedom, I have a suspicion that he has found
- in the society of Bob Brand⁺ & the financial
Hebrews - a certain disillusionment.

[in margin:] + this is only blague. The admirable Robert has no part in it.