Time is scarce and sugar and butter and a quiet place where I can gather thoughts and recognise myself. Do not expect from me letters, or anything else. The fury of social engagements is on me. It is a thing on which you cannot compose an ode, like that on the West Wind. I am willing to try, if it only would allow me some time to do it. The poet Hafiz was willing to exchange the wealth of Samarkand and Bokhara for a mole on the cheek of his beloved maiden. I am willing to give London away for my corner in Uttarayan. But London is not mine to dispose of,—neither was the wealth of Samarkand and Bokhara the Persian poet’s. So our extravagance does not cost us anything, nor does it bring us any help.
I am going to Oxford to-morrow. Then I shall be knocking about in different places. Just at this moment, I am starting for a tea party given in my honour, from which I cannot absent myself on any pretext, unless I can manage to be run over by a motor car in the London street. It is a matter of eternal wonder to me why this does not happen to me four times a day. You won’t believe my scarcity of time, if I run on to the end of this note-paper. So I hastily bid you farewell.