My Dearest Archibald,
Disaster has struck! As you well know, I have of late been enrolled in an English literature course in the land of Her Majesty. Before today, it was all as one leisurely sojourn through the halls of history. Ah, do I espie William’s noble ghost around the corner? Ha, Mr. Dickens! So like you to lie in repose in the sun-dappled square. Ms. Austen, out for a lark about the park (Archibald, you know the titillating temptation of a rippling rhyme never fails to seduce me!) are you?
You will remember, I’m sure, my youthful resistance to the stone columns, tragedies, and skirmishes of antiquity (intellectual giant though he was, you would not deny me the modest assertion that Sir Robinson’s lectures on the classics lacked the fine patina of Sir Chesterton’s rollicking adventures amidst the swirling depths of 19th century literature, would you? Ah, but this tepidity towards esteemed Homer, Herodotus, Euripides was always a vice of mine, I admit it) but over this day a shadow now looms, and I cannot help but recall it: “Et in Arcadia Ego” – even in Arcadia, there am I!
I shudder to tell it – I was walking through St. James Park in the highest of spirits! I will have Clara enclose some photographs (you must visit soon, if only to see her again. She has shed the turbulence of her youth – I am loath to recall from no doubt the darkest corners of your memory the incident wherein a single terrible jolt of her impish hand uprooted a serene clump of Mrs. Abernathy’s finest petunias – and become a girl, nay, a woman (Et in Arcadia!) of the highest order. If I may indulge in a bit of rumour, I hear word that Mr. Fartforth’s boy – Winchester, who has taken to falconry with all the fervor one would divine given his pedigree – seeks her hand!) of the nascent period of my peregrination (for my stride did have a certain avian lilt to it) amongst its lanes and oak trees.
Oh, I was veritably consumed by merriment! Gaze upon this last photograph for a grisly portent of the horrors which awaited me:
For I did indeed have to relieve myself (the frequency with which I am called to my natural duties has always been a weakness of my constitution). And so I strolled directly into those facilities and, alas, the dull hum of the absence of urinals did not reach such a degree as to alert mine consciousness. Thus it was that I urinated in the ladies restroom.
A most ignoble act for one such as I! Oh, shame upon my name! Archibald, surely you know this was but a momentary aberrance from my otherwise dignified manner. No, no: to consider myself a cultured man – fie! I must bear in full the heavy weight of my deviance.
Oh, but my candle dwindles, and the cool moonlight softens my dismay. It is a gentle night here in the great heart of the world. Yes, yes, I will bear this deed with me – but variety is the spice of life, no? Besides, I should let nothing mar such a joyous day!
And so I bid you adieu, dear Archibald. My sincerest thanks for hearing my tale – transferring it to the page has done wonders for the weight on my soul. You must visit the manor in due haste!
Yours Truly,
The Honourable Tobias Clutterbuck
– Joe Brommel, ’18
