BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 16 APR. 1918
BRACERS 19304. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

Tuesday April 16, 1918.1 ^, 2

My Beloved

I don’t know what will happen tomorrow,3 but I am bound to have to be parted from you for a time — that is the only thing I really mind. But I don’t mind even that as I should have a little while ago. You will have work, and you won’t sink into despair. And I feel your life more firmly knit than it was. Until quite lately, I should have been anxious about you, but now I shan’t be.

All the time that I am in I shall feel your arms about me and your love surrounding me. The world is more utterly black and despairing than it has ever been, but I am kept from despair by you. Your love is so great and generous, so full of tenderness beauty — I don’t believe there ever was a more wonderful love in the world. I feel so ashamed of littlenesses and roughnesses in me. I think they will all fade away — you dispel everything of that kind. I have so many kinds of love to you. Perhaps the one that holds me to you most of all is the feeling of the little boy being led through the dark, a little frightened, but feeling protection always near. The world is so fierce and terrible — not in what it does to oneself, but in what it does to the weak and defenceless — there is so much ruthlessness and cruelty, and it all hurts so dreadfully — and while I can walk through it holding your hand I feel it can’t hurt beyond what can be borne. And sometimes I feel just the opposite, old and protective, as if my love could do something to keep you safe — and I want to feel that, and I want to be always gentle so that you can trust me. And then I feel you are the epitome of all the life and beauty in the world — all that at most times I reach out to across a gulf, with a sort of distant worship — but you lead me over a bridge to your side of the gulf, and life is no longer a stern and lonely battle, where one has to be too strung up for beauty and joy. Dear one there is so much for me still to do — I must not go out of the world till I have put things into it that are far better than anything I have done yet — and I know that through you I can do great things. You give me life, and I believe I can give you things too that are worth your having. — And then I have the most wonderful sense of comradeship — when we are just two souls close together, equal and loving and intimate — you are my Heart’s Comrade4 even more than when I called you so first. Dearest, the time apart will be short, and life is long, and we both have great things before us. And I am happy and at peace, resting in the great wonder of your love. Goodbye. All blessing on you, my lovely and tender Comrade.

B

Notes

• 1

  [document] Document 200293.

• 2

  [envelope] The envelope found with this letter has been moved to join BR’s letter of April 1918, document 200292, BRACERS 19303.

• 3

  I don’t know what will happen tomorrow It appears that BR is referring to his appeal. If that is the case, he either misdated the letter or the appeal was postponed, which does not seem likely. When the literary version of the letter was typed, it was given the date of 1 May 1918, the true day of his appeal.

• 4

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