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I should perhaps give a passport description of myself and let the items enlarge themselves. Date of birth...I have already given that. Place of birth...Wimbledon, London; a place to which nobody can harbour too deep an attachment or loyalty. Profession...in my passport I am down as 'University Professor'. That was a convenience for 1926, when I first took out a passport. I thought of putting 'Writer', but passport officials often have complicated reactions to the word. 'University professor' wins a simple reaction: dull respect. No questions asked. So also with 'army captain' (pensioned list).

Naturally, any mention of the fact that I am a poet provokes still more complex reactions. The mention of my being one of two poets doubly complicates the situation. For this reason, the latter thing especially is kept generally on the quiet - except when I can't help myself. Siegfried would argue that evidently, then, the entirety of Fairies and Fusiliers represents a period of mental breakdown during which I was positively helpless before the urge to wave this thing in the face of anybody who cared to look, but you needn't listen to him. Certainly I never do.

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