_I have taken a few days to think over the extraordinary news you have seen fit to communicate. I hope I am not so far removed from sympathy with your aspirations as not to be able to understand almost anything you might have to tell me about yourself. But this I confess defeats my best intentions, setting as it does a crown on all the rest of your acts of folly. I tried to believe that your desire to write poetry was merely a passing whim. I tried to think that your tenancy of this house was not the behaviour of a thoughtless and wilful young man. I was most anxious, as I clearly showed (i) by my gift of £150 (ii) by my offer of a post at Fox Hall, to put myself in accord with your ambition; and now you write and tell me after a year's unprofitable idling that you are engaged to be married! I admit as a minute point in your favour you do not suggest that I should help you to tie yourself for life to the fancy of a young man of just twenty-three. Little did I think when I wrote to wish you many happy returns of the 20th of August, although you had previously disappointed me by your refusal to help me out of a nasty difficulty, little did I think that my answer was going to be this piece of reckless folly. May I ask what her parents are thinking of, or are they so blinded by your charms as to be willing to allow this daughter of theirs to wait until the income you make by selling your poetry enables you to get married? I gathered from your description of Mr. Grey that he was an extremely unpractical man; and his attitude towards your engagement certainly bears me out. I suppose I shall presently get a post-card to say that you are married on your income of £150, which by the way in the present state of affairs is very likely soon to be less. You invite me to come and stay with you before term begins in order to meet the young lady to whom with extremely bad taste you jocularly allude as my 'future daughter-in-law.' Well, I accept your invitation, but I warn you that I shall give myself the unpleasant task of explaining to your 'future father-in-law,' as I suppose you would not blush to call him, what an utterly unreliable fellow you are and how in every way you have disappointed_ _Your affectionate father John Hazlewood._ _I shall arrive at two-thirty on the fifth (next Thursday). I wish I could say I was looking forward to seeing this insane house of yours._