My dear Oscar,

Just a brief note to let you know that I have not abandoned you and that my tardiness is due only to sloth and diversion. Everyday seems to be filled with the nonsense of living – the need to do things you could not even imagine as being necessary. In your day there were no supermarkets, no cars, no air travel, no television – none of the things that fill our everyday. I believe there were telephones – oh if only you knew how great is their importance in this era, how they store and define each personality, how they have become the very existence of society – at least – in those countries where they are not being given a more significant usage. You met your boys in the flesh and spoke to them and charmed them and gave them gifts and did all that you did that got you into so much bother with actual people; now there is a virtual dimension to communication, to meeting, even to enactments of congress, playing a part, being the sort of person who …. everything sort of learned by rote so that before you even meet with them you know exactly what will happen and there are few surprises. Nowadays there is a need to escape reality, to take drugs more powerful than alcohol, to get lost in a hyper-reality, in order to feel that anything has happened at all. I will explain soon ….

Oscar, don’t worry … life goes on.

Your friend,

Algernon B. Duffoure.