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[V. Markham]

GOVERNMENT HOUSE.
OTTAWA.

9th March, 1936.

Mrs. James Carruthers, C.H.,
8, Gower Street,
Bloomsbury, London, W. C.,
England.

My dear Violet,

Your long, delightful letter gave Susie and me enormous
pleasure. I am afraid you have had a difficult and heavy winter,
but I hope your trip will do you all the good in the world. Your
account of the King's funeral is most impressive. I never realised
before the influence that simple goodness and dutifulness could have
in the world. There is much that I dislike about modern inventions,
but there is no doubt that things like the Wireless get a personality
across to millions who would otherwise never have realised it. The
last message he sent me (which arrived the day of his death) was to
beg me to remember that ski-ing was not a sport for a middle-aged
man!

I have just begun my correspondence with the new King, and
I have to feel my way pretty carefully.

John's health seems to be enormously improved, and we hope
he will be out here pretty soon to recuperate.

We have just come back from a tour in French Canada, where
I have had to make endless speeches in tolerable English and indifferent
French. I am sending you a copy of a little private note I
wrote on it.

Our friend, my Prime Minister, is wonderfully well again.