Nalle has received a letter from BR. BR is writing "... more grim stories and adores doing it, my Dear, isn't it awful!" BR told her that he is sick of writing about politics.

"He used to tell me he wanted to write a book of history, how things really were, how kings and generals etc. really behaved and why—well I am sure he would have done that very amusingly, and it would have given him fun." Nalle jokes that BR wrote some of his best works (popular works) while he was with Patricia Russell (Peter): "...he wrote his best stuff during the reign of Peter!!" (S. Turcon note)