I do,
as is contemplated, weekly articles and thumbnail sketches, they
cannot give me less than L 100 a year. This would bring the whole to
L470 a year, or within L30 of your standard. Of course I know quite
well that this is not like talking of an income from a business or a
certain investment. But we should live a long way within this income,
if we took a very cheap flat, even a workman's flat if necessary, had
a woman in to do the laborious Daily work and for the rest waited on
ourselves, as many people I know do in cheap flats. Moreover,
journalism has its ups as well as downs, and I, I can fairly say, am
on the upward wave. Without vanity and in a purely businesslike
spirit I may say that my work is talked about a great deal. It is at
least a remarkable fact that every one of the papers I write for (as
detailed above) came to me and asked me to do work for them: from the
_Daily News_ down to the Manchester Sunday Chronicle. I have, as I say,
what seems to me a sufficient income for a start. That I shall have
as good and better I am as certain as that I sit here. I know the
clockwork of these papers and among one set of them I might almost
say that I am becoming the fashion.

Do not, please, think that I am entertaining this idea without
realising that I shall have to start in a very serious and economical
spirit. I have worked it out and I am sure we could live well within
the above calculations and leave a good margin.

I make all these prosaic statements because I want you to
understand that I know the risks I think of running. But it is not
any practical question that is distressing me: on that I think I see
my way. But I am terribly worried for fear you should be angry or
sorry about all this. I am only kept in hope by the remembrance that
I had the same fear when I told you of my engagement and that you
dispelled it with a directness and generosity that I shall not
forget. I think, my dear Mother, that we have always understood each
other really. We are neither of us very demonstrative: we come of
some queer stock that can always say least when it means most. But I
do think you can trust me when I say that I think a thing really
right, and equally honestly admit that I can hardly explain why. To
explain why I know it is right would be to communicate the
incommunicable, and speak of delicate and sacred