Letter from Walter de la Mare, Twickenham, to Edward Wagenknecht, 1951 April 23 : typescript signed with autograph manuscript postscript.

Remarking how long it has been he last wrote; feeling anxious to hear how he is and finding "what over here is called Secconal easy and effective" for sleep and that "it is not habit-forming"; describing last year's consequence of working too much; managing "to get to Oxford in February for the degree ceremony that had been deferred from last June owing to illness" and making friends with the Public Orator and spending "an enchanted hour examining his collection of sea-shells, which he began to make in '43 as a means of taking his mind, as far as possible, off the war"; asking if he has seen a "Harpa Imperialis"; wondering if he can tolerate the "idea that your 'brain' is your 'mind'"; saying "you are more loquacious than ever when you are in bed. That is where I am dictating this from"; discussing "the MacArthur crisis" and Aneurin Bevan; asking to be told everything and saying he hasn't forgotten Walter's book; saying the "Winged Chariot" is finally being printed.