BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 18 SEPT. 1920
BRACERS 19702. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

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Messageries
Maritimes
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Indian Ocean1
18 Sep. ’20

My Beloved

Your little letter to Djibouti2 did arrive although you thought it wouldn’t. I am more touched than I can say by your sending letters to meet me everywhere — they are the only ones I get and they make some touch with you and home.

Djibouti is a God-forsaken little place in French Somaliland, almost in Abyssinia. It is inhabited by Arabs and Negroes — the Arabs wear lovely turbans and the negroes have vile loin-cloths. They swim round the ship diving for pennies and singing Tipperary.3

The weather now is deliciously cool, with a fresh breeze — I am told it will remain so all the time. The heat in the Red Sea was awful — the head cook died of it, and two soldiers became insane. One could do nothing but gasp and drink iced lemon squash. Everybody sleeps on deck, and wears only pyjamas till after breakfast. Most of the passengers are very dull — I shall be glad when the voyage is over — There are four Chinamen who always dine together, though they cannot understand each other’s dialects, and one speaks only German, one only French, and two only English — One of them sleeps in my cabin, or at least did before it got so hot — a Hong-Kong merchant, snores 10 hours every night, is proud of making love to European ladies — they seem to like him, I don’t know why — The best is Prof. Liang4 of Peking whom I like very much. There is a young American who is doing the grand tour and reads Herbert Spencer5 — nice but mild — a lot of French officers and officials — and some high-class American professional ladies —

My Heart’s Love, I shall be glad when I begin to get new news from you and know what is happening to you — whether the dumb-show scheme6 came off — what is happening with Posted and Unposted7 — how you are getting on with selections from your letters8 — and all sorts of things. Please let me have oceans of personal news when you write — My Beloved, already I think of the time when we shall be together again — it shall be as if we had never been apart — I love you, I love you —

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200703.

• 2

  letter to Djibouti One of the letters she wrote on 14 August.

• 3

  Tipperary “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary”, written in 1912 by Jack Judge and Harry Williams, was popularized by British troops in World War I.

• 4

  Professor Liang K.T.J. Liang, professor of commercial law at the Government University of Peking.

• 5

  Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), philosopher and sociologist. His books had been marketed in North America by mass subscription since 1859; his most popular work was First Principles (London: Williams and Norgate, 1862), the first volume of his synthetic philosophy.

• 6

  dumb-show scheme Colette had been offered a role by Dame Adeline Genée (1878–1970), a former ballerina. In 1920 she became the first president of the Association of Operatic Dancing. The mime play was to run for six weeks in the West End and then go to Paris. In the end Colette turned down the offer because her agent did not want her to do it (BRACERS 116415).

• 7

  what is happening with Posted and Unposted For information on these letters published in The English Review, see BRACERS 19580, n.3.

• 8

  how you are getting on with selections from your letters This was a different project. BR first proposed a book of their letters  on 22 November 1919. For information, see BRACERS 19585, n.6.