Page:FM Bailey letters from LA Bethell.pdf/30

Letter 19, 8th August 1938 garden tidiness, at least half the furnishing, drains maintenance, water rate, onto the shoulders of the landlord – whereas, by taking a house, the landlord piles them all onto you. You may say that I'm making a song about a list of trivialities – quite true, individually, but in

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sum total they add up to a respectable lump of worry and time expenditure. But mind energy and time are two things, nowadays, worth their area in five-pound notes. You've only got to think of the interesting, of the necessary, things you could be doing, if you weren't throwing away time and energy on avoidable matters. This funny old village of London is packed with worthwhile things to do see, hear, and engage one’s energies in – and for a first-class brain like yours to let anything come in the way of them, is, I suggest, plain crime.

Different for a man who's half vegetable – there are many of them. But not you or I.

I know, now, I'd ten years of house, in probably the most worthwhile corner of the best county in England, but I wouldn't go back there now, and chuck what there is to do in Town, for anything.

However, as I say, my apologies. It's no business of mine, and I oughtn’t to butt in.

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The book – “The Blind Road” – is finished, typed, sent to George Blackwood, accepted, given a final polish-up and a “map” and outer jacket, and should be out in 6 weeks’ to 2 months’ time (all proofreading still to do). Once again, my sincere thanks for the carte blanche you gave me to say what I liked. When you see it (I'll send a copy) I think you'll find I've said nothing offensive. And though the thing will never read as anything but fiction, it may (if it sells well) act as an efficient curtain raiser to your volume of memoirs, by stimulating interest in the man I've made my central character. As you, reading, may see.

Best luck, and write again when you're nearer coming back.


 * As ever


 * L.A. Bethell

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Letter 19, 8th August 1938

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107, Hillfield Court,

Belsize Avenue,

N. W. 3

8 . VIII.