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The thing I am supposed to be writing, thanks to Mummy's efforts, is I think about done.1 It seems pretty unreadable to me but I hope it's not as bad as it seems. I cannot say I feel any real hope about getting it published, let alone sold after that. The one book that I couldn't be bothered with, even when pressure was put on me ten years later, has been a continuous success.2 But writing books is no way of making a living – that's clear.
If you are to get a job you will have to fight for it – nature red in tooth and claw. All the other claws and teeth will be in good working order too. In England just as much as here; here just as much as there. In fun as well as in fight. Even in love claws and teeth are out – in action, I don't mean ‘ruled out’. Stalin was asked if he would support the English Communists. “Yes!” he said, and then added, “As much as a rope supports a man who is hanged”. Franco said much the same about how he would show his gratitude for the help that the Nazis had given him. “When I have won”, he said, “the world will be amazed at my display – of gratitude of course.” Someone thought he winked but it may have been a speck of dust.
We were glad to hear that you are finding the medical course more interesting now you have got on to the clinical stuff. I often wish I had made more use of it when I had a chance. I was not in fact very bright and had my mind too much fixed on psychological stuff, to see my chance to do quite a lot of things which I might have been doing with a less one-track mind. However, regretting one's misspent youth is a very easy way of mis-spending other opportunities and is extremely boring as well. So I will desist.