An excerpt from a letter to Sir John Barran found in the Charles Hamilton Auction catalogue, no.1 (16 May 1963).

BR vows to return to England again, writing: "America is fun: ... Chicago (where I haven't been) is exactly like Florence in the Renaissance (where, also, I happen not to have been present). Boston is like England, Washington is like Paris, New York is like Ricardo's theory of rent (the houses are 20 stories high), & the people generally are quiet, timid idealists, very impractical & sentimental, & despising wealth ... I flourish, as the parson put it, like the green bay horse...."