BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 24 DEC. 1920
BRACERS 19719. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

Xmas Eve 1920.1

I wonder, my Darling Love, where you are for Xmas2 — I hope you are somewhere in the South with C.A.3 I keep on thinking and thinking of you, remembering Lynton,4 homesick for the soft English air and the sound of the sea and the green hospitable country — homesick above all for the warmth of your loving-kindness. It is strange spending one’s Xmas in this remote place, where the people are so remote that one cannot like them and can hardly even dislike them. The Europeans are mostly diplomats or missionaries, in either case very little comfort. I sit brooding on the evil in the world — our own people murdering the Irish and devastating their country, stopping ships on the way to Russia while professing virtuous indignation that the Russians have submarines; America wantonly building a big navy, simply for the purpose of world-dominion, involving conflict with us and ultimately a new vast world-war; France encouraging every imaginable villainy in Polanda in order to punish the Bolsheviks for repudiating Tsarist debts; the Bolsheviks themselves bent on empire, using professions of communism to obtain easy entry into nations which they hope afterwards to enslave — the whole world going steadily down hill because everybody is fierce and ready to fight.  I do not at the moment see any hope anywhere. I do not see how a civilized or kindly manner of life is to remain possible anywhere, or how we are to avoid going right back to the dark ages. It is the feeling I had on Lewis platform, and it always makes me want you desperately — no one else that I know has enough of sheer human love and tenderness to bring comfort when one is hurt by the roughness and brutality of the world.

My last letter from you is Nov. 4, from the Attic,5 written in bed with a cold. I wonder whether you got the leading part on tour6 that you speak of.  So glad Priscilla was happy in Holland — after all this time it must have been doubtful. I telegraphed to you7 for Xmas 2 days ago — I hope it will reach you in time. I am surprised that you have had no letters from me since Port Said — I posted letters at every port. — Now I must stop. Goodbye my Beloved — I shall now at last have time to go through the typed letters,8 because there is a short holiday for Xmas. Till now I have been most fearfully busy. Bless you my Darling, my Heart’s Comrade.

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200720. The letter is written on BR’s standard manuscript paper, of which the bottom 1 7/8 or so inches have been unevenly sliced off.

• 2

  where you are for Xmas She did not join Clifford Allen in Cannes for Christmas; instead she went to Lynton on her own.

• 3

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

• 4

  Lynton Lynton, Devon. BR and Colette spent Christmas at the Cottage Hotel there in 1918 and 1919 with Clifford Allen.

• 5

  Nov. 4, from the Attic See BRACERS 116423.

• 6

  leading part on tour There is no mention of this in her edited letter of November 4. But earlier (10 Oct. 1920; BRACERS 116420), Colette had written that she had refused a job in South Africa because “it was an adventuress they wanted, not a mere actress.” Colette had been on three different tours during 1920, playing a variety of leads. See Sheila Turcon, “A Bibliography of Constance Malleson”, Russell,32 (2012): 189. Her letter of 4 November (BRACERS 116420) indicates that she was at the Brixton theatre on 3 November — “Lewis [Casson] came to the show last night, and was very encouraging”. This appearance is not listed in her list of roles compiled by Turcon; no further information could be found about it.

• 7

  telegraphed to you The telegram reads: “Happy Christmas All Love” (BRACERS 19718).

• 8

  the typed letters This must be a reference to their literary letters project, which became too full of private things for BR to bear. See BRACERS 19585, n.6.

Textual Notes

• a

  Poland above deleted indecipherable word