Typed Letter Signed ('Dorothy Black') to [Kathleen Cruise O'Brien] O'Duffy, the wife of the Irish writer Eimar O'Duffy.

4to: 3 pp. Text clear and entire on creased, chipped airmail paper. A chatty, vivacious and entertaining letter, casting light on the state of mind of an English colonial wife. Thanks her for her 'kind remarks about my stories. May I say, in return, that I also like your story very much, and it appears to have what all the Editors are clamouring for all the time, - a happy ending!' Congratulates O'Duffy on her marriage ('You say they told you that you were mad to get married, and without a certain amount of madness, I do not see how any of us would ever take that awful step!' But you were not half as mad as people who marry for money, or position, or a shooting in Scotland, or a motor car, or a diamond tiara'.) The Blacks 'live, as a rule, in Rangoon, Burma, a very hot place indeed, where beads of honest sweat decorate every brow all the time.' Finds 'the opportunity of giving a description of [herself] a rare and glorious one!' Gives a physical description (she has 'the slightly wilted appearance of all women who have to live in the Tropics for any length of time') and describes her career as a journalist before marriage. ('I used to look down from the tops of busses into motor cars where the Really Wealthy sat, and think how nice life must be from the back seat of a Rolls. And when last I was in England, I sat in the back seat of a Sunbeam, and looked up onto the top of the passing busses, and thought what fun life could be on 2d all the way. If you are still fairly poor, remember that. I am not sure one does not get a great deal more pleasure on 2/6d, saved up, than on trips to Paris when expense is no object. I have tried both, and this is my candid opinion.' Explains how 'the only story I ever more or less lived, is Marcia's'. 'For last summer I had been working very hard, and one day I put a suit case into the back of my two seater Standard, and threw my children to the Nurse, and went off into the blue.' She has no photograph to send ('I have, as I already said, one of those Noses.'), but says that there is a photograph of her in the June number of the Ladies' Home Journal. As for her age, her seven-year-old son says she is twenty-one, 'or at the very most [...] she may be twenty-two'. 'Shall we leave it at that? It is so much kinder.' Wishes she could visit O'Duffy at Daffodil Cottage. 'Here we are perched, so to speak, upon the kettle lid of the world.' Mentions earthquake, jungle, jackals. 'And it rains, rains, rains, and the newspapers say "The Monsoon is progressing satisfactorily in Assam."' Short autograph postscript.