What I really meant to write to you about today was to tell you that I
read your learned and technical and I am sure admirable denouncements of
Walt Whitman with a respectful attention due to so much earnestness; and
when I had done, and wondered awhile pleasantly at the amount of time
for letter-writing the Foreign Office allows its young men, I stretched
myself, and got my hat, and went down to the river; and I sat at the
water's edge in the middle of a great many buttercups; and there was a
little wind; and the little wind knocked the heads of the buttercups
together; and it seemed to amuse them, or else something else did, for I
do assure you I thought I heard them laugh.