Agatha Milsom to Olive Farebrother
15, Whittington Terrace, Bayswater 25.10.28
Dearest Olive,
We are all breathing again! The Bear has taken himself off for one of his camping holidays, complete with painting outfit and half a dozen scribbling pads. He is actually going to write a book!—telling people how to live on nettles and toadstools and that sort of thing, and how in case of another Great War we could support the entire nation on boiled hedgehogs or some such nastiness. My dear, it is such a relief to get him out of the house! Of course, he couldn’t go off without creating an unpleasantness. He was absurd enough to suggest that Mrs. Harrison should go with him—the idea of it! in a horrible little shack, miles from anywhere—damp as a well, I shouldn’t wonder, with no proper water or sanitation or anything. Did you ever hear of such a thing? Naturally, Mrs. Harrison said she didn’t think she would care about it—what did the man expect? He didn’t say anything more about it then —I think I’ve taught him not to bully his wife when I’m about!—but he took it out of her when they went upstairs. She came in crying at 12 o’clock at night to sleep with me because she couldn’t stand it any longer. “My dear,” I said, “why do you take notice of it? If he wants your company so badly, why can’t he sacrifice himself for once and take you to Brighton or Margate, or some nice cheerful place? He just likes to make people miserable, that’s all.” So then I told her a little about what Dr. Trevor said about the people who enjoy inflicting torture on others. I said, “You must just look on it as a kind of disease and not resent it if you can help it. Build up a wall of protective thought about yourself and determine to be quite detached about it.” We had a very interesting little talk about repressions,