bedtime doesn't leave much time for sport.

The farm--the farm--the farm--it's yours and Mother's to plan and
make and do with as you wish. I shall be happy whatever you do,
even if you put the roof in the cellar and the cellar on top of the
house.

If you have room enough (16 X 10 plus a fire and a bath are enough
for me), I'll go down there and write a book. If you haven't it,
I'll go somewhere else and write a book. I don't propose to be made
unhappy by any house or by the lack of any house nor by anything
whatsoever.

All the details of life go on here just the same. The war goes as
slowly as death because it _is_ death, death to millions of men.
We've all said all we know about it to one another a thousand
times; nobody knows anything else; nobody can guess when it will
end; nobody has any doubt about how it will end, unless some
totally improbable and unexpected thing happens, such as the
falling out of the Allies, which can't happen for none of them can
afford it; and we go around the same bloody circle all the time.
The papers never have any news; nobody ever talks about anything
else; everybody is tired to death; nobody is cheerful; when it
isn't sick Belgians, it's aeroplanes; and when it isn't aeroplanes,
it's bombarding the coast of England. When it isn't an American
ship held up, it's a fool American-German arrested as a spy; and
when it isn't a spy it's a liar who _knows_ the Zeppelins are
coming to-night. We don't know anything; we don't believe anybody;
we should be surprised at nothing; and at 3 o'clock I'm going to
the Abbey to a service in honour of the 100 years of peace! The
world has all got itself so jumbled up that the bays are all
promontories, the mountains are all valleys, and earthquakes are
necessary for our happiness. We have disasters for breakfast; mined
ships for luncheon; burned cities for dinner; trenches in our
dreams, and bombarded towns for small talk.

Peaceful seems the sandy landscape where you are, glad the very
blackjacks, happy the curs, blessed the sheep, interesting the
chin-whiskered clodhopper, innocent the fool darkey, blessed the
mule, for it knows no war. And you have your mother--be happy, boy;
you don't know how much you have to be thankful for.

Europe is ceasing to be interesting