BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [29 AUG. 1919]
BRACERS 19543. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<West Lulworth>
<letterhead>
70, Overstrand Mansions,
Prince of Wales Road,
Battersea, S.W.1^, 2
Friday.3

My dearest Darling

Thank you for your little line4 this morning — You are good, always writing — it is such a joy to see your handwriting every morning.

C.A.5 is going to stay a night at Alton with his sister on the way home, so he will get back Tuesday. I don’t think he is very well — he is overworking, and has grown grim and farouche again, God knows why.

Bob6 has been translating Lucretius,7 and reads it aloud to us in the evenings. It is very fine stuff —

I ought to tell Randall8 soon definitely whether Clare9 wants this place. I am glad Donne came.10 Read the poem called “The Ecstasy”. — It is wet and cold here — we do more work, but get less pleasure — I keep thinking of you day and night, wishing I were with you — I love you with a great strong steady love, that never grows dim for one moment — Goodbye my Cherub, my lovely Darling, my heart’s Life —

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200530.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 6 Mecklenburgh Square | London W.C.1. Pmk: WEST LULWORTH | 29 AU | 19

• 3

  [date] Colette wrote “29 Aug 1919” on the envelope.

• 4

  your little line Not extant.

• 5

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

• 6

  Bob Robert Calverley Trevelyan (1872–1951), poet and translator, a friend of BR’s from Trinity College.

• 7

  Lucretius Roman poet and philosopher (c.94–53 bc), author of De Rerum Natura [“The Nature of Things”]. Robert Trevelyan’s translation of selections from it were published in 1920 by Allen & Unwin as Translations from Lucretius.

• 8

  Randall Mr. Randall handled the rents at Newlands Farm.

• 9

  Clare Clare Annesley (1893–1980), Colette’s sister.

• 10

  Donne came A few days earlier BR had written that he had ordered a book of Donne’s to be sent to Colette (BRACERS 19540).