What chiefly worries me is the impaired standard of efficiency, the scamping, the cheating and the general cynicism. I seem to discern a universal decrease of pride. The best, the genuine, has gone, and substitutes reign. Tradespeople no longer keep their word and are impenitent when taxed with it. A certain amount of dishonesty must, I suppose, be bred of a war. Officers, for example, had to be fed and couldn’t be expected to inquire too closely of their batmen where the chickens came from, and no doubt a good deal of this bivouacking morality persists. But I wish it hadn’t affected life so generally. I rather fancy that what this old England of ours is most in need of is a gentleman at the helm. A nobleman would not be bad, but a gentleman would be better. No harm if he were rich and could win the Derby. But where to find him? He is a gift of the gods, to be proffered or withheld according to their whim or their interest in old England. If they are tired of us (as now and then one can almost fear), then we may never get him.—Yours, R. H. And here is to-day’s poem, a very brief one but a very striking one too:— Reason has moons, but moons not hers Lie mirror’d on the sea, Confounding her astronomers, But, O! delighting me. XLIII VERENA RABY TO HAZEL BARRANCE MY DEAR HAZEL,—My last letter too, on this subject, but you must answer it. There is much in yours with which I sympathize and I think I understand all of it. There is a vein of almost fierce fastidiousness in our family (your grandfather had too much of it) which is discernible in you, but I don’t despair of seeing a deal of it broken down when you meet the right man. So much of what you say about things seems to me to be due to your manlessness. I don’t believe that any wholly right view of life is possible to celibates or those who have never loved. They must see it piecemeal. I don’t despair of you at all, but you must get out of the habit of expecting perfection. And where would the fun of marriage be if it was not partly warfare—give and take?—Your truly loving and solicitous AUNT V. _P.S._—Don’t stop writing about yourself if you have any prompting to. What is an old bed-ridden woman for but to try and help others? XLIV PATRICIA POWER TO CLEMENCY POWER