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My darling,
I wonder how you are getting on. It is beginning to seem a very long time since I have seen you. And it is I suppose the longest separation from the family that you have experienced since our marriage.
To-day has been another marvellous day. Bright sun in a cloudless sky shining through heat haze carried along by a strong and bracing wind. We bathed at our usual spot. It was wonderful.
There was a chorus of “Happy Birthday to you” over the wall this morning. I must say I think it is a most dreary and repulsive song. Perhaps I dislike it because one of the facilities offered to the American public is the chance of hiring a special messenger to go and sing the damned thing to the wretch whose birthday is being celebrated. It makes me hot under the collar even to think of it (and even without a collar on, I may say).
I can't go on saying I wonder when we shall see you, so I won't. But we think it. Parthenope hoped you might be getting a little social life to compensate for the hard work. It's a nice idea anyway – and we all acclaimed it. Goodbye my dearest; we all feel our love to you so perhaps you feel it too as if it came in gentle waves …