'There was nothing for me to do but lie in my sleeping bag,write up my botanical notes, read and in between whiles eat chocolate.[...] Among the papers I had received by mail were copies of "The Spectator" and "The Times". The news of the day was, as usual, depressing, but I got a certain amount of kick out of the literary reviews, especially as`regards one book which "The Times" praised highly, and "The Spectator" damned to perdition. Such contentiousness seemed to me symbolical of the distant combative world. Another paper, an illustrated weekly, told me in a wealth of detail and many diagrammatic drawings, how to make my house gas-proof, but it said nothing about tents. It all seemed utterly fantastic viewed from the Valley of Flowers.'