January 1963. He's reading "This Little Band of Prophets," by Anne Fremantle. I remember reading it years ago, after I dumped him, I think I took his reading list with me. The "Prophets" were the Fabian Society of England in the late 19th, early 20th centuries - Socialists, basically - and they included George Bernard Shaw, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, H.G. Wells, Annie Besant (later of the Theosophical Society) and Emmeline Pankhurst, heroine of the suffragettes (there's a statue to her now outside the British House of Commons, to which iron gates she once handcuffed herself). Later members were Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes. Apparently, the Fabian society is still active (Google is God), influential in Labour politics, and includes Tony Blair as a member.

Anyway, I knew nothing of them in 1963. He writes of Sidney and Beatrice Webb (founders of the London School of Economics). "Theirs was one of the famous and most unusual marriages of their time. Deeply devoted to one another, close always, and each equally intelligent in their own way."

Was he thinking of our marriage in similar terms? Did it hold similar possibilities? No dreams of founding a School of Economics or any such thing - and, remember, the 60's had not really begun - but did he have a similar dream of us? I keep thinking of him as an "older man" and indeed he is older than I am, but I have to remember, he is only about 21 - 22 at the most - in these letters. How very young we are indeed.

He talks of Philadelphia, as if we are to meet there - but we never did. I don't know why. I don't remember anything about our Philadelphia story. He ends the letter, "We will be so happy there, together again as we should be, and I think, as we are meant to be." Beatrice and Sidney?