BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [3 OCT. 1916]
BRACERS 19049. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
57 Gordon Square
W.C.1
Tuesday night.2

My dear dear Love,

No, I have not been giving you too much of my time — and I am not so busy as all that! Mrs Eddy, who founded Christian Science,3 told a friend of mine that she thought she would become the second Incarnation if she had more leisure, but she was too busy — I will never be too busy for that! I wanted to drink deep of your spirit, to be filled full with you, to wake with you and work with you and sleep with my dreams keeping you near me — and now, if I never saw you again, I should have you with me for ever — your image is bright within me, and I know you exist. The joy of you is like the joy of sunrise in summer — with the birds and the dew and an intoxicating fragrance — and over it all a great calm, with promise of a long happy day. All the beautiful youth that is being destroyed or dimmed in the war is so terrible — Cambridge, which used to be full of glorious young men, grew so horribly empty, with silent courts, and only a few cripples and old men left — at last the place began to drive me wild. I feel all the promise of a new world in you — all that I have worked for and hoped for and dreamt of — just the thought that you are in the world is an unutterable joy. At times I feel almost afraid to come near you — a sense of reverence makes me almost want to stand aside and be just a happy onlooker while you live and give life — But not quite.

Yes, Friday evening let it be — Miss Marshall4 has played me false and announces that she won’t go away tomorrow, but she still wants the evening. — You shall settle what we do Friday — I shall love anything.

Some time I want to go about the streets by day with you and find some oriental shop where they have beautiful things — I have been feeling starved for lovely things, and I want to find something that would suit you — but I am shy about it — terribly shy. Forgive my silly thoughts.

Goodnight my Beloved.

B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200012. There is also a typed copy, document 201106, numbered “5”. The number is unclear with a “6” possibly typed over it.

• 2

  [date] Colette wrote “3 Oct. 1916” on the letter.

• 3

  Mrs Eddy, who founded Christian Science Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), an American, founded the Christian Science religion in 1879 and its newspaper, the Christian Science Monitor, in 1908.

• 4

  Miss Marshall For information on Marshall, see BRACERS 19043, n.5.