Emile,

Just a brief letter to thank you for the loan of Africa’s Dark Sects and to extend a warm invite for you to come and stay in Hampshire if you ever return to Europe. I am very grateful for the hospitality that you extended to us in New York and I must stay I immensely enjoyed our late night conversations and discussions. It is a relief to find someone who is as understanding as you have been; all too often one encounters rejection and hostility, although I have too say I have noticed a distinct change in Paul’s attitude towards my ramblings on the return journey :- the detached, scientific, attitude that he used to exhibit has been replaced by an almost missionary zeal. I think that he has found a purpose to life again after so long and I am pleased for him.

I have to say that I have found the sea-air enervating again after the close and draining atmosphere of New York; it is a pity that you felt that your professional ties made you unable to accompany us; the sea voyage would have done you no end of good.

The events of the last few days seem very blurred to me already, so I have already typed them up to place them in my journal. I enclose a copy of the first drafts here and would ask you to check them against your keen memory to see if they tally with your version of events.

Yours sincerely,

Sebastian Ashley