“Diamond Brooch, 15 cwt., set with three blue white diamonds; make a
    handsome present; L9 9s.”—­Derby Daily Telegraph.

It seems a lot for the money; but personally we would sooner have the same weight of coals.

* * * * *

THE WAY DOWN.

SYDNEY SMITH, or NAPOLEON or MARCUS AURELIUS (somebody about that time) said that after ten days any letter would answer itself.  You see what he meant.  Left to itself your invitation from the Duchess to lunch next Tuesday is no longer a matter to worry about by Wednesday morning.  You were either there or not there; it is unnecessary to write now and say that a previous invitation from the PRIME MINISTER—­and so on.  It was NAPOLEON’S idea (or Dr. JOHNSON’S or MARK ANTONY’S—­one of that circle) that all correspondence can be treated in this manner.

I have followed these early Masters (or whichever one it was) to the best of my ability.  At any given moment in the last few years there have been ten letters that I absolutely must write, thirty which I ought to write, and fifty which any other person in my position would have written.  Probably I have written two.  After all, when your profession is writing, you have some excuse on returning home in the evenings for demanding a change of occupation.  No doubt if I were a coal-heaver by day, my wife would see to the fire after dinner while I wrote letters.  As it is, she does the correspondence, while I gaze into the fire and think about things.

You will say, no doubt, that this was all very well before the War, but that in the Army a little writing would be a pleasant change after the day’s duties.  Allow me to disillusion you.  If, three years ago, I ever conceived a glorious future in which my autograph might be of value to the more promiscuous collectors, that conception has now been shattered.  Three years in the Army has absolutely spoilt the market.  Even were I revered in the year 2,000 A.D. as SHAKSPEARE is revered now, my half-million autographs, scattered so lavishly on charge-sheets, passes, chits, requisitions, indents and applications would keep the price at a dead level of about ten a penny.  No, I have had enough of writing in the Army and I never want to sign my own name again.  “Yours sincerely, HERBERT ASQUITH,” “Faithfully yours, J. JELLICOE”—­these by all means; but not my own.

However, I wrote a letter the other day; it was to the bank.  It informed them that I had arrived in London for a time and should be troubling them again shortly, London being to all appearances an expensive place.  It also called attention to my new address—­a small furnished flat in which Celia and I can just turn round if we do it separately.  When it was written, there came the question of posting it.  I was all for waiting till the next morning, but Celia explained that there was actually a letter-box on our own floor, twenty yards down the passage.  I took the letter along and dropped it into the slit.