exclude him from the old activities of local
life.

He finished revising the manuscript of his _Memories_ in July, and then
went down, while the actual transference of his home was taking place,
to the Royal Yacht Squadron Castle, Cowes, where he had been accustomed
to spend some of the most enjoyable hours of his life. But this scene,
habitually thronged with people, and palpitating with gaiety, in the
midst of which Lord Redesdale found himself so singularly at home, was
now, more than perhaps any other haunt of the English sportsman, in
complete eclipse. The weather was lovely, but there were no yachts, no
old chums, no charming ladies. "It is very dull," he wrote; "the sole
inhabitant of the Club besides myself was Lord Falkland, and now he is
gone." In these conditions Lord Redesdale became suddenly conscious that
the activity of the last two or three years was over, that the aspect of
his world had changed, and that he was in danger of losing that hold
upon life to which he so resolutely clung. In conditions of this kind he
always turned to seek for something mentally "craggy," as Byron said,
and at Cowes he wonderfully found the writings of Nietzsche. The result
is described in a remarkable letter to myself (July 28th, 1915), which
I quote because it marks the earliest stage in the composition of his
last unfinished book:--

"I have been trying to occupy myself with Nietzsche, on the theory
that there must be something great about a man who exercised the
immense influence that he did. But I confess I am no convert to any
of his various moods. Here and there I find gems of thought, but
one has to wade through a morass of blue mud to get at them. Here
is a capital saying of his which may be new to you--in a letter to
his friend Rohde he writes: 'Eternally we need midwives in order to
be delivered of our thoughts,' We cannot work in solitude. 'Woe to
us who lack the sunlight of a friend's presence.'

"How true that is! When I come down here, I think that with so much
time on my hands I shall be able to get through a pile of work. Not
a bit of it! I find it difficult even to write a note. To me it is
an imperative necessity to have the sympathetic counsel of a
friend."

The letter continued with an impassioned appeal to his correspondent to
find some definite intellectual work for him to undertake. "You make me
dare, and that is much towards w