His work is going well when in 1909 Stephen receives a letter from Lady Mary Justin. She asks him to resume writing to her, and over a period of two years challenges him to integrate the problem of sex into his world-historical reflections and plans, warning that "All this great world-state of your man's imagination is going to be wrecked by us if you ignore us, we women are going to be the Goths and Huns of another Decline and Fall." Their correspondence addresses personal as well as religious and political matters, but they have no intention of seeing each other again.