Dear Mary | 11 October 2018

Q. An old friend shares aesthetic sensibilities and tastes in people. Hence we have sustained a highly enjoyable correspondence over some decades. However, having recently had significant professional success, he is no longer fulfilling his side of the bargain. Even 1,000 words from me will now elicit only a perfunctory response. Yet whenever we meet in London he apologises that he is too busy to respond at length and begs me to continue with my own musings, on which he insists he ‘depends’. Mary, how, without seeming querulous, victimy or even ‘queeny’, can I make him see this has become an unfair exchange?
— Name and address withheld

A. While the disparity in word count might seem unfair, you can be reassured by your friend’s real enthusiasm at close range. Moreover, you could take heart from David Batterham’s recently published book of his letters to Howard Hodgkin (Dear Howard: Tales Told In Letters).