27 February 1911 – 5 March 1911

... The Doctor's orders "Cease Work" have brought on in an aggravated form my infatuation for zoological research. I lie in bed and manufacture rolling periods in praise of it, I get dithyrambic over the zoologists themselves--Huxley, Wallace, Brooks, Lankester. I chortle to reflect that in zoology there are no stock exchange ambitions, there is no mention of slum life, Tariff Reform is not included. In the repose of the spacious laboratory by the seaside or in the halls of some great Museum, life with its vulgar struggles, its hustle and obscenity, scarcely penetrates. Behind those doors, life flows slowly, deeply. I am ascetic and long for the monastic seclusion of a student's life.

From One Maiden Lady to Another. (Authentic) "My dear Sister,--You have been expecting to hear from me I know, I have had inflammation to my eyes twice in 3 weeks so I thought I had better let the Doctor see and he says it is catarrh of the eyes and windpipe. I am inhaling and taking lozenges and medicine. You will be sorry to learn Leonora Mims has been taken to a Sanatorium with Diptheria, we heard yesterday, she is better, poor Mrs. Mims herself quite an invalid, she has to walk with a stick, I believe you know she has had to have her breast cut off, they keep a servant as she can't do anything, old Mrs. Point is 87 I think it is so they too have a lot of trouble, Fred Mims has just got married.... "Poor old Mrs. Seemsoe is just the same, she doesn't know anybody but she talks, the nurse put a grape in her mouth but she didn't know what to do with it, I think it is very sad. She was taken about a fortnight before Easter. Will you tell me dear if this is right receipt for clothes 1/2 oz. carbolic in 1/2 pint of rose water. Harry Gammon's 2 little children have measles, poor Maisie has gone with her Aunt Susan, poor old Joe Gammon they say had very little to leave, we don't know where Robert gets his money from. I dare say you saw that Tom Sagg has married another of Ned Smith's daughters and we hear these Smith girls are rare housekeepers and this girl that has married Tom Sagg has made all her own linen. Mrs. Wilkins, the butcher's wife is going to have a little one after 15 years, our Vicar has been laid up with an abscess, he told us about his brother the other day, he says as brothers they love each other very much. We have 3 very sad cases of men ill in the village. We had 4 but one man died of cancer. "Yr loving Sister Amy." Voilà!