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Impassioned letter to Celia, acknowledging her prior attachment, makes out this is his reason to flee to Burma-Tibet. ‘Now must flee for a perilous safety into the Alps of Burma-Tibet where whatever claws of tigers or bears…’
Pleased to get letter from Ernest Gye, nickname Poison - shared letter with Jumps [Euan H.M. Cox]. Speaks of the restless desire to impress & seeks gossip of English friends. Ernest writing of going to Tangiers. Describes at length he and Jumps picking raspberries to make jam, concoction insipid. Then reverted to making better jam with wild white strawberries. Writes of Jumps as youthful, unlike him who is becoming of crabbed age. Describes how a brace of young boys, Gurkhas have joined their camp. Painting primula in a tent, through a dense fog of midges and smoke. Requests from Ernest to purchase 2 or 3 Everyman volumes of Floris's Montaigne, delights in the first one. This letter is signed your loving Poppet. Jumps cooking until the Chinese cook has recovered from his cliff fall. ps Gossipy enquiries and comments. Encouraging E. Gye when writing, to be thoroughly indiscreet and viscous. Speaks of his own return to a de-Poisoned London. [Poison = E. Gye] Describes the place abounding in the most preposterous brambles - titanic wilderness of thorns, beset with raspberries in almost every colour & degree of nastiness. Wondering if Jumps [Euan M. Cox] is like all Scotch lower (or middle) class minds, are alike in a sort of Jackdawish unassimilating appetitiveness.
Delighted with receiving letter from Celia and hearing her homely gossip. Goes touring and camping in the mountains. On return, describes trying to paint a primula in his tent-door, holding an umbrella with a dense fog of midges and smoke around. Saw great snowy trumpet-lilies on steep brackened hillsides when tramping the long leagues back. Describes the cook getting drunk, falling over a cliff, injuring himself & a pleasant Scotch youth with the staggers, called Jumps [Euan H.M. Cox] taking over- making astonishing concoctions with the jam of little wild white strawberries. ‘And yet it was delightful, the solemn enormous loneliness of the heights, & the silence & the invariable alpine feeling of clean peace & remoteness.’