BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [8 FEB. 1920]
BRACERS 19613. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
70, Overstrand Mansions,
Prince of Wales Road,
Battersea, S.W.1^, 2
Sunday3

Beloved

Thank you for your little line — I hate your going away4 — I am all alone here (Allen5 is away speaking) and have nothing to do but brood. The natural result is that I am melancholy. As long as I continue to love you (which will be as long as I live) my life must be very unhappy, because you demand continence from me towards you, and (as I am finding with Miss Black)6 it is misery to try to have to do with other women. Ever since we went to Lynton7 I have been so worried about Miss Black that it has made me incapable of good work — I feel I ought to break with her, but it seems too cruel and I shrink from it.

But although these things worry me, they don’t touch the fundamental happiness that comes to me through you — that is something like what religion is to those who really believe it — it is something deep and constant, altering the whole way in which I feel the world — it is unalterable and essential, quite independent of happiness or unhappiness in less vital ways. The time of lyric delight is gone, I suppose for ever, as you are hardly likely to fall in love with me all over again. But something else has come, which is really far more rare and precious. While that remains, I can never feel lonely in spirit — It is that that makes you really my Heart’s Comrade8 — and it is quite untroubled by passing events —

Goodbye my lovely Joy —

B

I shan’t write much because of my shoulder.

• 1

  [document] Document 200606.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 6 Mecklenburgh Square | W.C.1. Pmk: BATTERSEA S.W.11 | 11.45 PM | 8 FEB 20

• 3

  [date] The date is taken from the envelope’s postmark.

• 4

  I hate your going away Colette was touring with a theatre company headed by Frank Forbes Robertson.

• 5

  Allen (Reginald) Clifford Allen (1889–1939). For information on him, see BRACERS 19046, n.7.

• 6

  Miss Black Dora Black (1894–1986). BR was soon to travel with her to Paris and Barcelona. She and BR were married from 1921 until 1935. For information on her, see BRACERS 19506, n.3.

• 7

  went to Lynton BR is referring to the most recent Christmas he spent at Lynton with Colette and Clifford Allen, after spending part of December in The Hague with Dora Black.

• 8

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