Letter from Edward Thomas to the poet Gordon Bottomley. Sent from Ashford Hanger, Petersfield, Hampshire. Archival ref: 424/1/1/1/10/125
my new study at the top
of Ashford Hanger
28.iv.09

My dear Gordon I am afraid I must seem ungrateful, ungracious,
undutiful, leaving your long letter & your gifts almost unnoticed.
I think I told you I was in Wales for ten days from Good
Friday on with Mervyn. There I could not write. I had no
time whatever alone. Either I was out with the boy or I was
indoors with many people I was glad to see for a little while. When I
got back to London - I could not get home early in a day-
I went & saw Davies & then was suddenly called home to
do some work for the 'Morning Post' which was hard up for
copy & wanted me to manufacture it as they know me for a
perpetual hack. And getting home (a week ago) I felt
suddenly very weak & sad & could to nothing but turn out the
work asked for & then stare in the fire & wonder why I should
be like this, physically weak,, purposeless, hopeless, &
then set about thinking it must be due to my poor fair (of
bacon & tea chiefly) in Wales & soon And I read mechanically
at dullish review books & got up here & lit a fire &
sat down, looked at the Downs & read & got home tired,
day after day. And if I had written then it would have been
a worse letter than this.
---
Later

It does not good writing like this. But when I am
not working or out of doors it is all I can think
of. So you see my wonderful doctor was not wonderful
enough. I am giving him up. All he did, I see now, was to
convince me that I could be cured, but he left me to
find out that after all I had to cure myself.
Perhaps we shall not meet this summer after all.
I shall most likely give up my Daleshire walk as it will
lost money & I am earning very little. Also I have been
invited to spend 10 days at Love in Cornwall & I want to
accept, & it will cost me nothing And if I do I can hardly
spare the time for Yorkshire as well & even I did you
would not be at home, I gather. I do hope this [illegible]
of yours will be a good one. Weather favours you, if
you have not sun & southwest wind. When are you to
be in town? And I wonder could you get here for a
time? Don't forget to answer these questions.
My one regret about Gunner is that I shall hardly
be able to review it. The poem to me makes it
impossible to ask for it. But the D. C. may not notice
that.
----

May 1
I had better finish this. You would rather have it now
than never, I am confident. So I will fast look at your
dear letter of April 8 that reached me in Wales & see if
there are things I ought to answer in it.
I am glad you liked the Morris. Did you
know Dixon Scott was doing a book on Morris? I know
nothing more than that. And by the way I maybe doing
one on Maeterlinck if I can bring myself to accept
very bad terms from Methuen.
The Ransomes are ½ a mile away & have been
these 5 weeks or so but to tell the truth. . . . well,
it is hard. We see little of them. Arthur is a little
uncomfortable in his new glory, I think.
About Blake. I wonder have you seen a book
on him by a not very sympathetic but also not at
all fashionable outsider named Basil de Selincourt? He
is a clever man of the 'no nonsense' kind &

while I don't think he has got very far, he has so
challenged the supporters of Blake that they will have to
think what they are at before answering. Since Swinburne
nobody except Ella & Yeats has really trace the difficulties
& Ellis & Yeats have not explained them by seeming to
overcome them.
Yes I know Blaikie. Murdoch on Symms. Dixon
Scott strikes a similar note at times.
In answer to Emily I should say emphatically
that Ransome is living with his wife - decidedly.
I haven't a duplicate of Dixon & my only
copy being from the 'Morning Post' had to go back. But
here is Ezra Pound & I think he has very great
things in him & the love poems & the 'Faman
librosque' & in fact nearly all - are extraordinary
achievement. I know nothing about him but have
an idea he has come from America.
Yours & Emily's ever & having patience
Edward Thomas