I’ve been tongue tied lately by a dearth of these AMLCs. I have been reduced to Airgraphs for Mother & you. This is the only one I have. I’m expecting two tomorrow. I’ve been blessed with three letters, and the last two the most exquisite & sensitive letters you’ve ever written. It told of the visit of Fitzpatrick to your bedside and of his enchanted spell with our son. You wrote of this child in moving language, and I could see how suffused with love and sublimated fondness you are. It has made me very happy. The other letter told of the Christening, delicate & penetrating descriptions, of the scene, of our Christopher’s benign presence, of Honor & Gwendoline & of the tea party, aptly completed by Mrs. Anderton & Candy. I have read & reread that letter many times, it epitomises all that is precious & personal in our life. Chris cuts the cake, Candy has a piece, Mrs. A sits on the edge of her chair. You, cause of it all, delighting everyone, & our baby, blissfully unaware of the function but not unaware of the niceness of everyone. May he always think it’s so.

                        These letters are treasures. For Fitz to be so attracted is a stirring thought. He’s so worldly, & must see so many babies ! What is this child you have created. I’m so very fortified & proud & purposeful because of him. Also I am not unanxious to see him, to touch & smell him. And for you I am often love-lorn, so fond that if I knew you were coming through a door, that door would have for me a special significance & meaning. And this gracious presence of the child completes my profound gratitude for my lot. If only I can be worthy of you & he. He, I wonder if my imagined picture of him, I mean the three dimensional one, is at all true.

                        8 new photographs ! Hooray indeed. Speed through the seas, oh ship. In the pram. That Fitz & Chris like Richard is a fine tribute.

                        I had a letter from Bertha, & Dorothy Arnold & from Mother, with your last two, I’ve airgraphed to them all. I hope all these M.S.S. aren’t causing you too much trouble. If they don’t come off, don’t be sad. It’s worth it, as a sheer gamble. I wonder if my play idea will come to anything. Is changing in my mind all the time like a vague coloured cloud of fancy.

                        It’s difficult for us British to realise what war can mean to less well disciplined nations – take this Italian teacher of ours. She’s a Bertha-ish person, only not nearly so nice. She’s a schoolteacher completely. University connections, & lives in a flat with her professor of a father & her busy elderly mother. In conversation today I found that she & her parents live on carrots & cabbage, a little bread & sometimes some apples. Never two of the same foods at one meal. Today their dinner was carrots. They shop all day for an egg, at 15 lire (1/3) & that is the general rule. Do people at home grumble at the rations ? Our men do sometimes. Italian soldiers get one tin of bully for five men twice a day. Without British Bully they’d have scraps of spaghetti only. It’s a disturbing thought. And compared with other European nations Italy is well off. What a confused world Richard is to grow up into. Maybe – this is the constant wish & hope & marks our advancing years – maybe his generation will be wiser. We of ours must fight on for sanity & the sane patriotism which is love of fellow men & not national self seeking. Love of the family & in the family is not selfish & externally cruel, why should Patriotism, the same writ large, be selfish & evil. I have seen but little of actual war, but I have seen enough to judge it dispassionately, & I have seen plenty of the effects of war, the hopelessness, hunger & despair of innocent people. But all this is of the outside. We have so much of the domestic to consider. And, selfishly perhaps, ourselves concern us most.

                        Yes, I knew about the storm. I was here, on the jetty. Do they tell you about that ? Are we so important ? Just a storm you know. Good job there were no apple trees with apples on. Any more parcels yet ? And does the bilateral bone agreement still works smoothly. Do they take it in turns to be first? Does Dickie dream d’you think?

                        Our Italian cock still performs miracles thrice a day. But I know of better cooking. You’ll like Italy, when I bring you around. But I hope it’s a happier Italy. It’s more than soup kitchens they need, it’s an honest “restorgimento”. But only in Italy would you have a cream stone barracks with a pink tower & a green faced clock ! And I saw a schooner today with her sails in bright green sail covers !

                        Oh, they say we are all going to get a medal ! Bless us all. The 1939 – 43 star. Special dispensation because of our little shows. So they say.

                        Spring will come soon, nostalgic for you, daffodils & primroses. Richards accelerating awakening will be amid spring scents & sounds, and blossom. May your fortitude continue & your courageous absorption in the Present continue. I am fortunate indeed in the knowledge of your sublime confidence in my devotion, a confidence which is founded on whatever is good in my spirit. For you are poetry and music, light & all sweetness to me. I have, as yet incipiently maybe, all the primitive pride & love for my son, but in addition there is in it the bloom of our own fresh and ever new love. To see him well, happy & kind will be another facet of you & me, of our blessed union. For indeed I am a fond Benedict. Bless you, sweetest, be well, be happy & relish the present & look, at times, to the future, our future. All my love –