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Elsfield Manor, Oxford.
7th February, 1933.

John Edgar, Esq.,
Crichton Royal,
Dumfries.

My dear John,

I sent you a few books this week, and I will send you
some more books and papers regularly.

I cannot tell you how distressed I am about your misfortunes.
I quite see that a farm house in the winter would be very
uncomfortable, but your account of the Crichton makes it the near-
est approach to hell I have ever come across. If only we could
get you to Elsfield, where you could have a first-class doctor to
give you the "dope", and a comfortable place to live in! Remember,
as soon as you feel able to travel, to keep this in mind. My idea
would be that you should break yourself to travelling by first go-
ing to Johnnie Jameson in Edinburgh, and then coming to us.

I know it is very easy for me to ask you to look at the
bright side, but there is a bright side. The mere fact that you
are physically well is one; also the fact that you wake sometimes
in the mornings feeling that your old life were back again is an
encouragement. You can get your old life back again - of that I
am perfectly certain. Shut down upon worrying about Egypt, for if
you get yourself fit your friends will find you some other job.

I know all this is rather Job's consolation. There is
nothing, I am afraid, your friends can really do at present.

Notes and Questions

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ubuchan

John Edgar was one of JB's oldest friends, having met first at the University of Glasgow. Edgar, like JB, then went to Oxford. He was a university teacher in Cape Town at the same time as JB was in South Africa. Later he taught in Egypt. However, he suffered crippling bouts of depression through his adult life, and his friends, such as JB and Johnnie Jameson did what they could to help him. The Crichton Royal Hospital was an old-fashioned mental institution outside Dumfries. At one point in the 1930's, Edgar did come down to Oxford, to the Warneford hospital in Headington, where he was visited frequently by JB.