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You need not worry very much about everything you do being selfish. Psychologists have pretty well proved that everything one does is selfish, even to the people who give thousands to charity anonymously or their lives for their ideals.
As long as your selfishness doesn't mean that you only do good to yourself.
About your wanting to teach elocution. Shaw said: "Those who can do; Those who can't teach" If you become really good at elocuting or acting you won't waste yourself by teaching it to school girls, you will act before wrapt thousands. All the great cities in the world will know you. Weeks before your arrival gigantic posters in Paris, Rome and Vienna will announce the coming of the Incomparable Mary Ormiston, for three performances only, steats bookable in advance 100 francs.
And I, the by then world-famous author of "Edwy the Fair", "Robin Hood" etc, will be proud to go back to my old job for the duration of your tour and meet you at the stations with a Rolls Royce to take you to your hotel and notify the police to keep back the crowds.
What about it?
Your spelling, my dear, has all gone to pieces.
It is futile the way most people just live in order to keep themselves interested until they die. But you won't be like that.
So September 16th was the day I first met you! I only remember what happened I thought of you before I got out the map of the Highlands by the fact that I picked on you to explain the excursions to first, and by the disappointment I felt when you seemed to be snobbish and difficult. I remember thinking: "A pity, because they looked so nice."
Meeting you at the station and coming up to the hotel I don't remember at all. But after the map I remember everything.
I love the way you speak of the "enjoyment of youth" as if it had all happened forty years ago.
The great thing for people like you and me is that we can be sure that we shall have a "perfectly happy" time again, and not once, but again and again; because it is inside us and not outside. We are lucky people born with the Joy of Living. It is having a season ticket to Heaven on Earth. Everybody can know the password, which is of course: "It's a great life". But, like the Jews who had to pronounce Shibboleth properly, they aren't let in unless they can say it with confidence and conviction.
I only said "How young you are!" because I was surprised to find you only nineteen, chiefly because I was under the impression that you were twenty but also because you seem a lot older than nineteen. As I once said to someone, speaking of you: "she's actually only twenty, but in many ways inside she is far, far older."
Yes I expect to be here the rest of the summer now. Say you will come and then I shall have another motive than mere efficiency to learn up all the history and legends of the Breton castles. If I could be thinking that my knowing all the facts would eventually add to the enjoyment of your annual holiday I shouldn't miss all the money I spend on books that the firm really ought to buy me.
So far I have bought "Anne de Bretagne", "Les Saints Bretons de la Cote d'Emeraude" and "Les Légendes du Mont Saint-Michel" and I have my eye on several other good ones.
I sent you a card today from Mont St-Michel. The reason I stopped sending them from Nice is that you had practically all the good ones and I couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't have intrigued the postman.
Goodbye' Come here.
Love
Terrick
xxx
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