Sydney
3 February 1913
Dear Miss Darlington
I am exceedingly pleased to receive your letter, the more so to find what a world of anxiety I have saved you through reporting favourably on Harry’s conduct. You see, I have a daughter of my own, and in any case I am a soft-hearted creature! That will explain matters.
Yes we had a fairly entertaining time incidental to business, but you will well understand there was something wanting all the time. In comparing notes Harry thought his complaint started with a "D". My own was somewhat of the same nature.
I may say though apart from frivolity that Harry & I travelled many thousands of miles together, dined at the same table, slept in the same cabin, all without a single cross word: & I know at many times I must have been decidedly irritating. To have had him with me and to have enjoyed his society for a few months was unanticipated and I can assure you his departure has left a void which can only be filled by the knowledge that I have one more friend on your side of the world.
Again I have rarely heard an amateur so clever on the piano, and so modest about it withal. To sit back and listen to such things as Grieg’s "morning" & Gounod’s Funeral march of a marionette, it required no imagination at all to see the mist stealing through the trees of the former and the quaint procession of the latter.
I am decidedly hard to please in music. I
can’t stand mediocrity. So you see how I miss him. And you will
have him all to yourself. Lucky girl Harry.
Yes I would be delighted to see you in Australia. I am afraid the possibilities of my visiting England are infinitesimal. My respected Commander-in-Chief replying to a suggestion that he should send me Home for a trip said he wasn’t selfish but when a trip Home was projected he was taking it. I am sure however if such a remote possibility eventuated my chief pleasure would be to meet personally one whose qualities I was so heartily tired of hearing about!
Yours very sincerely
Geo. C. J. Orr