Sir Alexander was, I think, the most broad-minded man I have ever met. Well-known as a staunch antagonist of the mind-curing school, he nevertheless gave you the impression that he was fully prepared to take their theories into account, and to bow, if need were, to their diagnosis; but on the other hand, his immediate duty was to prescribe for this case here and now, and while in any other case he might have hesitated, this was just the one case in a thousand which the mind-doctors could not hope to tackle successfully. “Now, my dear young thing” (he affected these old-world courtesies of speech), “if I were to send you on to a woman like Dr. Bowles she would quite certainly give you a lot of good advice, which would give you relief for the present, and then in a year or two’s time you’d be back again here with the old trouble as bad as ever, and possibly worse owing to neglect. Our business just now is not to indulge in professional courtesies, we’ve got to get you well. Now, what I want you to do is this. Go very quietly: don’t dance late more than twice or three times a week; don’t drive at more than thirty miles an hour; don’t inhale cigars; don’t play ‘bridge’ till after tea; and, if you can possibly manage it, try to give up shopping altogether for the present. Give nature every chance to right herself. Avoid milk in all forms, and fish, and dry toast. If you aren’t on the mend in a month or so, you will have to go somewhere where you can get good marsh air, the Thames Valley, of course, for preference.” I went away greatly impressed with his manner, and honestly did my best to carry out his prescriptions: I spent all the October of 1940 at Goring, which was then only a small country town, and had ideal weather for my own requirements, since it hardly stopped raining the whole time I was there. But my physical symptoms were still disturbing, and, what alarmed my parents more, I could not meet S—— without a strong desire to run out of the room.