BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 5 JUNE 1917
BRACERS 19171. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<London>
5 June 1917.1^, 2

My Beloved

Your wonderful letter3 came very soon after I got back here. I cannot tell you how I loved it.

My dear one, words seem weak things to try to tell you the hundredth part of the love and joy in my heart. I seem to feel you still in my arms — you have taken away the ache and pain and cold loneliness out of my soul, and put warmth and the sense of your intimate inward presence in their place. The power of your love is beyond all belief. — The moment after you had read that little poem4 I seemed to enter more fully than ever before into the temple of love — to know its heights and depths, and how all its beauty is built upon the outward helplessness of Man, making us give love and need it. My dear, I am filled full of new hope and new life — I want our love to shine in all we do; to bring some hint of the beauty of our hidden joy to all whom we meet — I want it to colour all I write and all I say — I want my life to body fortha the love that aches to find expression.  Goodnight my Heart’s Comrade.5 I wish I could become an invisible spirit and be with you always, surrounding you unseen with tenderness and loving care.

B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200147.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 43 Bernard Street | Russell Square | W.C.1. Pmk: LONDON.W.C | 1.15 AM | JUN 6 17A

• 3

  Your wonderful letter Her letter of 5 June 1917 (BRACERS 113028).

• 4

  little poem Possibly “ L’Infinito” (The Infinite) by Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1839) which she had mentioned in her letter of 5 June, quoting the second last line. BR quoted the last line of the poem in his letter of 28 September 1916 (BRACERS 19046) and wrote out the poem for Colette (BRACERS 107339) in Italian. Translations from Leopardi, by R.C. Trevelyan (Cambridge UP, 1941) is in Russell’s Library (no. 0802) with this page book-marked. He transcribed Trevelyan’s translation in his letter to Colette of 1 June 1941 (BRACERS 19810).

• 5

  Heart’s Comrade For use of this term see BRACERS 19145, n.12.

Textual Notes

• a

  body forth This letter may have been copied from a draft, with “body” used rather than “bring”.