BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 7 JUNE 1960
BRACERS 19899. ALS. McMaster. SLBR 2: #557
Edited by S. Turcon and N. Griffin. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<London>
June 7, 1960.1^, 2

Dearest Colette

It was a great joy to get your dear letter of May 23,3 written on the 58th anniversary of my finishing The Principles of Mathematics. The sweet lovely roses4 were just half way from my birth to the present time — After many storms my life has reached a peaceful harbour, except for public affairs. My wife Edith5 has an extraordinary capacity for affection and makes me very happy. She is 58, and used to share a house with Lucy Donnelly,6 who was a close friend of mine, especially from 1894 to 1911. Edith wrote a life of Wilfrid Blunt,7 who, on the one hand, was a poet, a rebel, and an inmate of an Irish prison, and on the other hand was the owner of a famous stud of race horses and would never vote for any one who was not both a Tory and a Sussex man.

As you so seldom come to London, do you feel you could enjoy coming to visit us is Wales? Edith told me to say she would be glad if you would — The country is lovely, our house is pleasant,8 and we look across an estuary to a house where Shelley lived9 — I should love it if you would come for a visit — If you would, do not put it off too long, as I grow older. I am almost as busy with anti-war work as I was in 1916, but not quite — I still see the same faces at pacifist meetings.

Goodbye dear Colette — with very much love —

B —

• 1

  [document] Document 200903.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | Sundborn | Sweden. Pmk: CHELSEA | 5.15 PM | 7 JNE | 1960 | S.W.3.

• 3

  your dear letter of May 23 Written from Sundborn, Sweden (BRACERS 98458).

• 4

  sweet lovely roses See BRACERS 19235, n.10.

• 5

  Edith BR’s fourth wife, née Finch (1900–1978). See BRACERS 19894, n.4.

• 6

  Lucy Donnelly Lucy Martin Donnelly (1870–1948) had been a Bryn Mawr student and contemporary of Alys Russell, BR’s first wife. For many years Donnelly was Professor of English at Bryn Mawr. She maintained an extensive correspondence with BR until her death.

• 7

  Wilfrid Blunt Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840–1922). Edith’s biography of him was published in London by J. Cape in 1938.

• 8

  our house is pleasant Plas Penrhyn. BR and Edith had leased the house in 1955 and made it their main residence in July 1956. They also kept a town home in London on Hasker Street.

• 9

  a house where Shelley lived Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) was a favourite poet of Colette and BR early in their romance; BR had read the poem “Epipsychidion” (1821) to Colette when they vacationed at Ashford Carbonel in 1917. The house, Tan-yr-allt, across the Glaslyn Estuary near Tremadoc, was home to Shelley in 1812 and 1813.