BRACERS Record Detail for 19368

To access the original letter, email the Russell Archives.

Collection code
RA3
Recent acquisition no.
596
Document no.
200360
Box no.
6.65
Source if not BR
Malleson, Constance
Recipient(s)
Malleson, Constance
Sender(s)
BR
Date
1918/10/16
Form of letter
ALS
Pieces
1E
BR's address code (if sender)
TRN
Notes and topics

"Beloved—I managed to get an envelope at the station so I am writing after all—"

[Letter is pmk. "High Wycombe".]

Transcription

BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 16 OCT. 1918
BRACERS 19368. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell


In the train
16 Oct. 141, 2, 3

Beloved

I managed to get an envelope at the station so I am writing after all — the country looks very sad and autumnal but there is joy in my heart — the evening when we read the Love of the Unknown Soldier4 was wonderful and all the time since has had a great quality. We will be divinely happy by the sea.5 Let us forget problem — Little Theatre,6 our own future, etc — and live with the sea and sky and external things.

We meet at Waterloo —

I will take the tickets as I have money now — I long for the breath of freedom: wind on headlands by the sea — there will be a full moon.

Essential moments: the Carpenter evening,7 Lewis platform,8 the reading of The Love of the Unknown Soldier — We must keep what goes deep in those moments, throughout the future.

I feel the world cold away from your arms my dear one. I long to be back in them. Goodbye my heart’s Love — Take care of yourself, please, my precious one —

B —

  • 1

    [document] Document 200360.

  • 2

    [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 34 Russell Chambers | Bury Street| London W.C.1. Pmk: HIGH WYCOMBE | 7 PM | 16 OC | 18

  • 3

    [date] The year is 1918, not 1914.

  • 4

    Love of the Unknown SoldierLove of an Unknown Soldier, Found in a Dug Out (New York and London: John Lane, 1918), published anonymously. John Lane’s explanatory note states that: “The ms. was submitted ... by a young officer of the R.F.A.” who had found it in France in a red box. The book is now classified by the Library of Congress as fiction.

  • 5

    will be divinely happy by the sea At Lulworth Cove Hotel, Dorset.

  • 6

    Little Theatre BR is referring to the Experimental Theatre started by Miles Malleson. There were funding problems. For more information on the Theatre, see BRACERS 19458, n.2.

  • 7

    the Carpenter evening When this evening took place is not known. It may refer to a meeting with Carpenter, but their correspondence only reveals two meetings: the first time Colette met Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) at lunch on 3 November 1916 and having tea with him on 27 July 1917. Or it may refer to reading one of Carpenter’s books together.

  • 8

    Lewis platform BR should have written “Lewes”. The first mention of this event which shook up both of them was in BR’s letter of 7 January 1918 (BRACERS 19266); they reminisced about it several more times in 1918 and even as late as April 1920 (BRACERS 19643).  BR writes about it in his Autobiography. He and Colette had spent a Sunday walking on the South Downs. They were on the train platform waiting to return to London. “The station was crowded with soldiers, most of them going back to the Front, almost all of them drunk, half of them accompanied by drunken prostitutes, the other half by wives or sweethearts, all despairing, all reckless, all mad. The harshness and horror of the war world overcame me, but I clung to Colette” (2: 26).

Permission
Everyone
Transcription Public Access
Yes
Record no.
19368
Record created
May 26, 2014
Record last modified
Jun 23, 2025
Created/last modified by
duncana