An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY on the 28th September, and on the 30th of October left England. In October I went to London on business, and took a day off to Sel borne, and thence to see a fine old l.10use at Petersfield, which my third son had bought. The Norwich flood caused me a considerable loss, for having at first offered to give the Corporation the dangerous corner at St. George's Bridge, to widen the river, I was. induced to sell them all my river frontage at a very low price, so as to prevent a possible litigation as to my suggested liability to rebuild the washed away river bank along my water frontages. I felt convinced that I could have resisted this, if only on the precedent of what was done some hundreds of years before, when so much of the bank was destroyed by the great fire, but I had by this time lost my old taste for expensive litigation, and especially when I should practically have been fighting a Corporation which was safe to get the costs in any event out of me and the other ratepayers! I was very seedy all the autumn but was pushing on with ''Norfolk Families" of which I left the MS. to end of R on 23rd of November, for I had an unpleasant, though unfounded, presentiment I might not live to finish it. On 27th I went to a notable clever entertainment, "Maidens in Mars,'' acted at Aylsbam, written by Anderson~ the grandson of Clare S. Read, in which Hales, jun., acted extraordinarily well. Hubert and bis wifo and Kitty came down for Christmas, which was a very dismal one. In spite of depression and illness I had managed to have 54 long cycle rides during the year. During this year I only issued parts of my Norfolk Families. By the 4th of J anttary, 1913, I bad finished the Monck book previously referred to, and left the copy at J arrold's. The spring was bitterly cold, and I far from well, and I continually got dog-tired for no apparent reason. On the 2nd of March I rode as far as Horning Ferry to lunch and back, but was very tired returning, and again to North Walsbam and back on the 9th. In the middle of March much stomach trouble, and I fancy a slight touch of influenza. On the 27th I drove over to Catton and saw an aeroplane for the first time, for all the world like a dragon– fly, working very low, under the telegraph wires !