BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [2 FEB. 1917]
BRACERS 19118. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<London>
Friday1^, 2^, 3

My Darling

I keep thinking about you and wondering how things are with you. My thoughts are with you perpetually. I understand what you say about feeling alone, and the dignity it gives to life and the tenderness it brings — it is a feeling I live with always. Yes, perplexed times must come, and just be lived through — but you know, my dear one, that I am here waiting for you,4 longing to help if only I could, longing to give you love and a great tenderness — I miss you dreadfully — in spitea of the fact that I have been so busy I should probably not have seen you if you had been here — still I should have felt you near me. — The world looks very black again, after the little gleam that Wilson brought.5 God help us all!

Dearest, I love you. Goodbye.

B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200091.

• 2

  [envelope] Colette O’Niel | c/o Miles Malleson Esq | Repertory Theatre | Birmingham. Pmk: LONDON. W.C | 3 15 PM | B 2 17B

• 3

  [date] Colette wrote “2nd Feb 1917” on the envelope.

• 4

  waiting for you Colette was away with her husband, Miles Malleson, in Birmingham. For information on Miles, see BRACERS 19046, n.4.

• 5

  little gleam that Wilson brought BR surely refers to Woodrow Wilson’s  speech before the U.S. Senate on 22 January 1917, calling for a “peace without victory” settlement of the War and proposing a World League for Peace. Germany’s response was to declare unrestricted submarine warfare.

Textual Notes

• a

  spite BR wrote “spit”.