BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [29 OCT. 1916]
BRACERS 19068. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<57 Gordon Square
W.C.>
Midnight.1^, 2

Beloved

Your wonderful divine letter3 was here when I came home.4 Can you ever know the burning joy of it? I am yours — utterly yours, absolutely — As the time to part came near, I felt with agony, more and more every moment, how all my life is centred in you. I give you all of myself. I want to live through all great and deep things with you — to grow within you and have you grow within me — more and more and more — to the utmost bounds of human capacity. I love you — but I want some new word — it is all the tenderness, all the longing, all the passionate search, the adventure and the burning flame that makes my life — it all goes out to you. Your love is so beautiful and wonderful and great — you have such infinite capacity of love — and I want it all, all, and my love is great like yours. When I am away from you, I live for the moment when I shall be with you again — to feel your arms about me, and your kisses — and the strange stillness that comes over me when we seem to enter some world beyond passion — more passionate than any passion — My Beloved, I feel we are one eternally — I want to travel with you through all the lands of the spirit — heights and depths and wildernesses — to pierce with you to the mystic heart of the world. I long to be with you in wild and lonely places — to gather up in one eternal moment all the ages of man and all the abysses of space — I long to be great for you, to have always more and new gifts to lay at your feet — to grow and grow. My loved one, goodnight. My heart blesses you and my spirit is singing with the joy of you.

B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200035.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 43 Bernard Street | Russell Square | London W.C. Pmk: LEEDS | 1.5? ?M | OCT 30 16A

• 3

  Your wonderful divine letter Of 28 October 1916, BRACERS 112953. She informs BR that she has now told her husband of their relationship. The couple had an open marriage, and Miles was involved with a young woman identified only as “G”. With this confession completed, Colette wrote that she felt “utterly one with you now, not only as lovers but in an almost deeper way.”

• 4

  when I came home To 57 Gordon Square.