BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 31 JAN. 1919
BRACERS 19425. AL. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<Garsington>
31.1.191^, 2

My Beloved

2 letters3 from you this morning, one which should have come yesterday — You are quite wonderfully long-suffering — I can’t think how you manage it — it does touch me and make me love you infinitely — I am glad the dentist4^, a

kind — Thank you so much for getting these things for me5 — how I shall love them, feeling them all full of you — I shall need one hard chair to sit on at my desk — How lovely your Norwegian film6 sounds — Some one sent me a number of the American Nation with a whole set of the Bolshevik decrees — very interesting — I am sending them to C.A.7 Either party to a marriage can get a divorce by merely asking for it, without having to assign any reason.

My work keeps on going well — The dramatic moment has passed, but I feel contented and happy — I know that I still can do philosophy. It is 5 years since I last did any good work,8 so I was anxious —

Dear Heart’s Life I love you love you love you — all my tenderest thoughts are with you — I am very very happy in the thought of your love — You have brought me all this good work too — a 1000 blessings on you.

• 1

  [document] Document 200415.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 34 Russell Chambers | Bury Street | LONDON W.C.1. Pmk. CUDDESTON | 31 JA | 19

• 3

  2 letters Her letters of 28 and 31 January (BRACERS 113169 and 113171) based on the remarks he makes. Presumably her letter of 30 January (BRACERS 113170) had also arrived.

• 4

  the dentist Colette had written that her “new dentist turned out not at all murderous” (BRACERS 113169).

• 5

  getting these things for me Colette had purchased a comfortable armchair with matching floor-cushion from Heal’s department store for BR at the Battersea flat he was to share with Clifford Allen.

• 6

  Norwegian film Colette had taken her sister to see a film based on an Ibsen poem (BRACERS 113171).

• 7

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

• 8

  5 years since I last did any good work I.e., since January 1914, when he returned from Rome and authored “The Relation of Sense-Data to Physics” (1 in Papers 8).

Textual Notes

• a

  dentist The letter has been cut into two parts after “dentist” and then taped together, removing text and creating a nonsensical sentence at the join. The foot of the second part is trimmed.