BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 21 SEPT. 1917
BRACERS 19217. AL. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<London>
Friday 21 Sep ’171^, 2

My loved one

I wait for your new address3 and your promised long letter — Meanwhile I must write — I love you so much — I have only now begun to know the love I have for you — you are the sun by day and the stars by night — It is through you that I love the wind in the tree-tops and the beauty of evening skies and whatever has been noble in the works of man or splendid in the abstract world — You are my window into all the glory of the universe — through that other window which is my Self I look only into horror and black darkness and the red pit of Hell. Sometimes my love for you is hot and raging like a forest fire — sometimes it is gentle as a spring shower kissing the timid flowers. The world lives by a great Desire — a reaching out after some thing unknown — we are all channels for the hunger and hope by which the world moves — all of it that passes through me reaches the world again through you, and in no other way — I tried to tell you something of it all that last night in the lane near Ashford Carbonel4 — but how can I? It cannot be told — But O my Love, love me or I must perish — without you I am nothing, nothing — an empty shell — with you I am a God —

• 1

  [document] Document 200197.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 6 Mecklenburgh Square | W.C.1. Unfranked.

• 3

  your new address Colette had not been able to send her address in North Wales where the film company was moving after their shoot in Lancashire. He sent this letter to her London address.

• 4

  Ashford Carbonel Colette and BR vacationed in a house, The Avenue, owned by Mrs. Agnes Woodhouse, in Ashford Carbonel, near Ludlow, Shrops. They nicknamed the house “Boismaison”.  Their first visit there from 31 July to 17 August 1917 was idyllic. They returned for other vacations in 1918 before BR entered Brixton Prison and in April 1919. They discussed returning in the summer of 1919 — a booking was even made for 12–19 July — but in the end they didn’t go.