13 March 1921

Villa Isola Bella, Menton, France

Yes, I feel you are going to write. Its in your letters. They have that curious deliberate quality of one who is revolving something in his mind. What is it? I feel that you can afford to, and you do, see Life as you see it at present because you are absorbed in something else.
And heres a queer idea for which I’ve no justification. I feel certain that one day you’ll write a play. But a very fine play. Or is that wide of the mark.
You see, as I ‘see’ you (forgive me if I ever sound impertinent. Its so hard to speak from a distance) you have been moving hidden through Life. You have been a hidden, secret spectator when les autres did not even know that YOU were by. You have lived by apprehensions far far more than most people, I imagine. But I am timid of talking to you about yourself — even though I want to so much. You may dislike it extremely.
Is your new room your real writing room? Will you be working late there at the weekends? And what do your windows look out on. It will be lovely as the spring advances. I love a room that is a fortress and I love to work at night. To be free to get up and lean out of [the] window into that dark, airy stillness — is happiness. Dear Heaven! How little has been written about the extraordinary charm of NOT going to bed at night! Only to think of it and one passes into a whole strange world where to be awake is enough. As long as one isn’t at a London party, or taking dinner with the Hutchinsons.

[To Sydney Waterlow in Collected Letters, 16 March 1921.]