BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [2 NOV. 1916]
BRACERS 19070. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
57 Gordon Square1
W.C.
Thursday evg.

My Beloved

Your dear little letter2 has just come, with the Hansard. I have sat at home almost all day, writing and dictating letters — I have nearly caught up. I grudge the time it takes.  I am dining with Mrs Eliot tonight. I rather dread it. I don’t wish to take less interest in the Eliots3 than I have done, but unavoidably it works out so. You fill my heart and mind so full that it is very difficult to find room for anything else.

It turned out last night that Hobson’s Choice was off so we went to Her Husband’s Wife.4  I didn’t know till we were at dinner so I couldn’t tell you.  I wonder what you did.

Yesterday remains with me, shining and wonderful — I feel very humble, because all I have is so much less than I want to give.  When I sit down to write to some learned philosopher, your image comes and dances between me and the page — usually gay and a little mocking, as if it enjoyed turning my thoughts away from dull things — and then at other times it comes mingled with storm and rain and wildness, full of passion and fire — but always it comes.  Goodnight my love, my joy, my soul — I am with you in spirit every moment.

B.

Addresses

Friday to Monday [3–6 November <Colette’s dating>]
Holland House,5 Selly Oak, Birmingham
[Don’t address there after 5.30 Saturday]
Monday night
c/o Principal Graham,6
Dalton Hall,
Victoria Park,
Manchester.

I get home 1.30 Tuesday.

• 1

  [document] Document 200037.

• 2

  Your dear little letter Possibly her letter of four lines, 2 November 1916 (BRACERS 112956). However, in it she thanks him for sending the Hansard.

• 3

  the Eliots For information about them, see BRACERS 19062.

• 4

  Hobson’s Choice … Her Husband’s Wife Hobson’s Choice by Harold Brighthouse was a Lancashire comedy which opened at the Apollo Theatre in June 1916; Her Husband’s Wife by A.E. Thomas was also a comedy, which opened in September 1916  at the New Theatre.

• 5

  Holland House A Quaker college.

• 6

  Principal Graham John William Graham (1859–1932), author after the war of Conscription and Conscience (1922). He was in the chair for BR’s third “World as It Can Be Made” lecture (https://olioweb.me.uk/echoes/?page_id=432).