'This last week many little amenities have softened our lot; after a fornight's detention we had the good fortune to have our grand-motherly sergeant as chief of the guard. In our recent tour of the home counties under his superintendence we had established a certain authority over him by reason of his dependence upon us for remembering his documents, catching trains, and most principally, not losing ourselves! Thanks to this moral ascendancy, we were able to raid our kits and get almost anything we wanted — toilet things and books were the greatest desiderata — and since then I have been enjoying Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher. I hope to finish this and then do Sartor again, so as to take Browning's and Carlyle's philosophies of life with me to think over during the Scrubs [detention] months.'