Get Enough Rest

During the earliest years of his marriage to Elodie, Hilaire Belloc would sometimes travel from his home in Littlemore to the north of England to give lectures. This kept him away from home for several nights at a time; often a member of the audience would offer him dinner and a bed for the night. G.G. Waterhouse in a letter to Robert Speaight recalled the unexpected joys of hosting Belloc for an evening:

On our return from the lecture hall he was greeted by my father, a very well-read man but too busy to attend lectures and I was firmly despatched to bed. The next morning my father complained that this very postitive young man had not only kept him up talking until two o'clock but when informed that breakfast in the household was at seven-thirty had blandly announced that he always took eight hours sleep and that he would come down when he woke. [Robert Speaight. The Life of Hilaire Belloc. p.109]