BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [27 JAN. 1919]
BRACERS 135304. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<London?>1 ^, 2

Beloved

I am already sorry I wrote you such a beastly letter. All that is wanted to make things right is time and patience and above all the spring. I love you my Heart’s Life — I want to share all my inner life with you, and lately I have found it difficult, but that must pass. It was impersonal things as much as personal ones that made the feeling — But I love you too deeply for such things to last, if you go on being so kind and good as you have been lately. I don’t want the deep things in your nature to die — the sort of things that belong with that Carpenter night3 in our very early days — the hope of a better world, the feeling of pity for human suffering, the sense of being one with the whole race of Man, out of which the deepest love grows — Dearest I want to feel you with me in these things — I love you — I don’t meant to give you pain — Bless you my dear one —

B

Notes

• 1

  [document] Document 200411a. Written to apologize for his “beastly letter” (BRACERS 19421).

• 2

  [date] The date is taken from its relation to an earlier letter (BRACERS 19421).

• 3

  Carpenter night When this night took place is not known, although BR later referred to it as very early in their relationship. It may refer to a meeting with Carpenter, but their correspondence only reveals two meetings: the first time Colette met Edward Carpenter (1844–1929), at lunch on 3 November 1916, and tea with him on 27 July 1917. Or the phrase may refer to reading one of Carpenter’s books.