"The only merit of your copy of The Coming Back is that it belonged to Elizabeth Russell. Yes, it is the book I 'wanted forgotten'. Sir Shane Leslie, Sir Winston Churchill's cousin (and just very lately dead), reviewed it very well, but few others did. The best said of it was that all the characters were full of life and vitality. It is vilely constructed book: my 1st effort at a novel."

"I once asked B.R. if he thought Dora's actions worse than Peter's. He replied 'both equally bad'—which was not true; as, by his own credo, Peter taking a lover ('X') was quite o.k., while Dora's bastards in marriage to B.R. were not included in his credo at all. He once said to me: 'If I could live by my beliefs, we cld be happy.' That was perfectly true. But he could not."

"BR.'s early draft of his Autobiog (upon which my 2 vols are based) gives his considered opinion of why his 3 first marriages crashed: because he cld not care for any woman—with his whole being—for more than 7 years. He cut that out of his final version."