Letter from Edward Thomas to the poet Gordon Bottomley. Sent from Wick Green, Petersfield, Hampshire. Archival ref: 424/1/1/1/10/141
Week Green
Petersfield

14.xi 09

My dear Gordon,
This is the new address. The rhythm of
it is quite modern at any rate, though Barnett
put the house down to the period of King Stephen.
We move in on Saturday & I have just packed
all my books & take the children to town to-
morrow to be rid of them for the move. We
are in a pickle. I am dirty & my hands are
all chipped & scraped & stiff. So I doubt if
I can write. But I want to send you Masefield's
book. I think Ivan a very fine thing &
so did you.
I was glad to have some news of you
though it was bad. I guessed it would be. This
must have been a deadly year for you. It has
a great weight to bear continuously & I hope for
a crisp inter to clean the earth & help
you. For two months nearly I have been better,
chiefly because I have had to work hard &
regularly in the new garden clay. I don't
really care about it, but it had to be done &
I kept at it day after day & it did me
good almost against my will. I got a hard
hand and my fatigues were more purely
physical than usual. I had to do my reviewing
badly & to do very little else. Still, one or
two stories I worked at did not turn out
badly. I used some old Welsh fragments of
legends. you shall see them some day. I always
feel that when I treat these rational things
my approach is very literal & mostly of facts
but I hope not. Perhaps I am not quite just
to myself in finding myself very much on an
every day ordinary level except when in a
mood of exaltation usually connected with
nature & solitude. By comparison with others
that I know - like de la Mare - I seem
essentially like the other men in the train &
I should like not to be. This is quite genuinely
naive & will amuse you. It may be only
because I am inarticulate & that I can
usually only meet others on ground where I
have no real interest - as politics, social
& current literary affairs.
I am perhaps about to begin a book
on poets & women. Originally it was to have
been the influence of women on English poets. But
that is too difficult. So it will be mainly
the attitude of poets to individual women &
the idea of woman & so on. Please send
suggestions, warnings etc as they come to your
mind. I have been dangling after publishers with

all sorts of proposals but could not come to
terms. This looked bad & I was willing to
accept anything especially as our move means
an increased expenditure & Helen talks of
having another baby. In fact I have consented to
do a guide - pure guide - to Hampshire &
Wiltshire, but it is not settled & I shall cry off
if I possibly can, though my expences will be few
to cover some fine country & I should get
much material by the way. I am not sure that
I could do it. The General Election will postpone
my little book of sketches. I am trying to cozen
Tent into letting me do a county book with
houses - cottages, farms etc - as centres, &
dealing more than ever with people. If he will
let me - & let me bring Wales as well-
I could make a good book of any kind. I hope
'The South Country' at its best was beyond 'The
Heart of England'. It had no structure & its
joins were execrable, but I felt some of
it was the truest I had achieved.
Ezra Pound's second book was a
miserable thing & I was guilty of a savage
recantation after the meeting the man at a
dinner. It was very treacherous & my
severity was due to self-contempt as much as
to dislike of his work.
Goodbye. I must go to bed out of this
empty room.
Your and Emily's ever
Edward Thomas