My pony and dad[?] are away, so no outlet in that direction. Have no friends/ within or co companion & no friend within hail; poor mother, sets too many over doses of me so I have become inflamed with the idea of taxing yr. good nature by the inflicting a little of myself upon it. I wish you were a gram "record" & I had a gramophone full of that record. What a grand time I could then have when suffering those fits of overdone dispiritment. Have been delving so hard with the pen that my nights' rest are disturbed by nightmares of ink famine & reams of paper which I can never fill with scrawling. Dived into our Australians several of our later Australian poets copies of whom Mr A. G. Stephens so kindly loaded me up with when in Sydney - First feeling pleasure then, surfeitment. To use a slangism they are so [indecipherable] The lad & the lass business - the kiss & sigh & regret affair - am weary of this in song & story - wish there was something else or that I could be waked up in the point[?] & so grow in touch with the theme. Among our living Australian writers I always return to my two tried & trusty comrades (mental of course) Lawson & Paterson - No philandering here A good[?]to me sense & comfort. What say you?

Am in receipt of a letter from the lady for whom [indecipherable] my name. She wants my photograph. Blessed are those who give when they are asked for they shall be asked again. What think you of Amy Castles? Is she really a Patti? I have heard so few singers and one can only tell the weights & measures