up in the morning as soon as it is daylight, dress, and put on a coat—for the mornings are cold now—sit down and scribble for a priceless hour. I didn’t choose that Aunt Ruth should discover it and call me sly so I told her I was doing it. She gave me to understand that I was mentally unsound and would make a bad end in some asylum, but she didn’t actually forbid me—probably because she thought it would be of no use. It wouldn't. I’ve got to write, that is all there is to it. That hour in the grey morning is the most delightful one in the day for me.
“Lately, being forbidden to write stories, I’ve been thinking them out. But one day it struck me that I was breaking my compact with Aunt Elizabeth in spirit if not in letter. So I have stopped it.
“I wrote a character study of Ilse today. Very fascinating. It is difficult to analyse her. She is so different and unexpectable. (I coined that word myself.) She doesn’t even get mad like anybody else. I enjoy her tantrums. She doesn’t say so many awful things in them as she used to but she is piquant. (Piquant is a new word for me. I like using a new word. I never think I really own a word until I’ve spoken or written it.)
“I am writing by my window. I love to watch the Shrewsbury lights twinkle out in the dusk over that long hill.
“I had a letter from Dean today. He is in Egypt—among ruined shrines of old gods and the tombs of old kings. I saw that strange land through his eyes—I seemed to go back with him through the old centuries—I knew the magic of its skies. I was Emily of Karnak or Thebes—not Emily of Shrewsbury at all. That is a trick Dean has.
“Aunt Ruth insisted on seeing his letter and when she read it she said it was impious!
“I should never have thought of that adjective.
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