Letter from Edward Thomas to the poet Gordon Bottomley. Sent from Elses Farm, The Weald, Kent. Archival ref: 424/1/1/1/10/53
The Weald
1 iii 06

My dear Gordon

I would have sent you at least a word before,
but for a tussle with Dent which has been added to my
other amusements. He promised by word of mouth (I cant
say to my face,because he has never looked me in the face)
that I should take 100 guineas for my book, or 35s.
a 1000 words. Then I give way & said he should have
more than 60,000 words . finally he wrote & wthout
explanation & assuming that I should agree , & said that
I was to have £100 instead of guineas. I had 5 minutes
to decide & no one else in the house; so I said no &
feared the reproaches of my elderly minded friends for
refusing
£100 in my present condition. So what a Summer I have to look
forward to! I confess that I was secretly rejoicing at
the possibility of a careless holiday with you ; but now I
must take some long walks roumd Cartmel and try to
get a tradesman to drive me about. By the way neither
you nor I said anything about the length of my holiday.
May it be 10 days or a fortnight? I want you to
do a small thing for me - to order the 'Daily Chronicle'
at the shop where I had it before. Will you?

Yes, I had read about Margaret Hay a beautiful
name I never forgot. I can hardly hope that she will live,
much though the minister is probably praying that she will

Ransome has been seeing [illegible] Moore , which
is lucky for him . He says that S.M. was talking
against those who write about 'Lamb & FitzGerald & others
who don't count' ; so I shall hardly dare to meet him, since
such writing is my profession & I don't like explanations.

William Davies thanks you for the Browning. He
looks most solmenlly happy whenever I pass through his
room to mine , & he says he is happy. But I leave him
mostly to himself ; we are not born for one another.
He says he has been writing verses.

[illegible] with my love to you both.
Ever[illerg]
Edward Thomas