BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 16 DEC. 1968 [NOT SENT]
BRACERS 19931. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

Dec. 16, 19681

Dearest Colette

I hope this may reach you on New Year’s Day, but whenever it arrives it brings love and good wishes.a You are very often in my thoughts, and I wish there were something I could do, but so far my ideas have fruitfulb not. I feel a kind of irrational guiltc in the way things have worked out, though not over any specific item. If there is anything that wouldd add to your happiness and make your days lesse cheerless, please let me know —

With love as always

ever yrsf
BR

• 1

  [document] Document 111274AN, box 6.69. This letter is an attempt and was not sent. It is similar to a letter which was sent (BRACERS 19926). Another attempt at the letter is in BRACERS 98520. They are not the only indication at this time that BR had trouble with his eyesight. Both “drafts” are folded as if for mailing in a small envelope. Before Colette’s files of BR’s letters to her arrived at McMaster, Blackwell asked Colette “Did BR send you a handwritten letter on 16 Dec. 1968? I ask because there is what seems to be draft here” (26 Feb. 1973, RA). She replied that she didn’t know, because all of BR’s letters were in her lawyer’s bank (3 March 1973). This supports Blackwell’s note of 1 March 1991 with the two unsent attempts at a letter that Christopher Farley sent the “drafts” to McMaster.

Textual Notes

• a

  wishes. period supplied editorially

• b

  fruitful period editorially deleted

• c

  guilt corrected editorially from guite

• d

  would after deleted false start of illegible word

• e

  less after deleted more

• f

  ever almost indecipherable, but “ever yours” is BR’s usual closing in the final decade of his correspondence with Colette.