"My dear Stephen,
"Your long letter was all too short for my liking. I feel you are really better, and I can't tell you how happy that makes me. About your coming I hardly dare to think. How good, how good it will be! There is a brass band of sorts playing under my window, and I wish it would stay and play all day. That shows how happy I am. And to that end, I am wondering whether it would be better to pay or to refrain from paying. I am uncritical enough at the moment to feel that any music is good music.
"How pleasant it would be if we could have appropriate music at all crucial, or difficult, or delightful moments in our lives! When one is first introduced to one's husband's relations, for instance. I think Chopin would help to tide us over that. In a bloodless battle with one's dressmaker over a bill, I would recommend Tchaikowsky, or Rimsky-Korsakov. For moments of deep feeling, for love, we would each, I imagine, choose something different. I think I would choose Bach, for Bach is too great for sentiment. As for dying—every one should die to music. I should think young people, for instance, would choose to drift into eternity upon the strains of the loveliest and latest waltz. At least I have often heard them