Letter from Edward Thomas to the poet Gordon Bottomley. Sent from Elses Farm, The Weald, Kent. Archival ref: 424/1/1/1/10/36
The Weald
13.vi.05

My dear Gordon, Have I ever left a
letter and a long one unanswered
for a month, before now? But
the truth is I have been busy, y
days and nights full of writing and
reading. I have done a good deal for
'The Academy' which suddenly shows me
unmitigated kindness; some for the
'Speaker' & 'Outlook', too, as well
as for 'Chronicle' & 'World' as usual.
in fact I have had little to think of except
the various reasons for and against making
over £5 a week, as I easily could.
I have decided not to try to make more now,
chiefly because it would be murdering
my silly little deformed unpromising
bantling of originality and take away
the one thing in my life that resembles
a hope - a desire, I mean. So
I nobly remain moderately rich. And
yet since 'Wales' has been off my hands,
I have done & attempted nothing but
reviews & that too in spite of
invitations from the'Chronicle', 'Country
Life' to provide 'essays' for the
world. For I haven't done a stroke
towards my 'prose poems on the country'
for the 1/2d press. I can't try.
Also I haven't read your play again,
not anything outside my work save the
Aeneid and a ballad or two.-
What you say about the 'unrelated
images' of landscape in 'Wales', is
horribly true. It had not occurred to me
how much harm the economical publishers
have done me by printing the landscapes
as close together as pips squeezed out of
a fig. If they had each begun
at the top of a page they would have had
a chance; or if I had told the reader to
take only one or two before going to
bed or after a meal. Secretly, I
rejoice to have seen Edward Garnett's
Prose Poems, because they do not show
that I have suffered by being born 10
years after him.
I being to envy you your Ransome
at the back of the house. By the
way, I may not be able to answer his
postcard of last week: - will
you tell him he should stay with
me when he comes to town? If

only his writing truly would reflect his
high spirits! But only his friends
understand the connection between
high spirits and his diluted ginger
beer. Your comparison with
Kate Greenaway is adroit. -
It would take a stupid long time
to say why I thought your pastoral should not have been in dramatic form-
The pure rusticity - e. g. the girl and
the newy cead cow - is excellent:
so are the names; but I can't or couldn't
harmonize them with e. g. landscapes
which are straight of your head and not
through their heads at all (as it seemed
to me).
Oh the oaks & hazels, nightingales
of this Spring - and no Gordon -
Often Helen & I have said, now if
Gordon were here! or, as often, if
only Gordon were playing 'Summer is
coming in'! For I don't know
whether I most wanted to enjoy you here
or to have you enjoying the being here.
And now in the mist after a week of
rain the last nightingales are singing.
Dare I ask you to come all the way
from Cartmell to stay here? -
Don't insist on my praises of
'Polyphenus'. They are 3 or 4
years old, also I don't know
how much of them was due to the mire
of verse out of which I picked it. -
( I have to read Baring Gould's
'South Wales' tonight - it being
now 11 p.m. - and review it
tomorrow morning. Hence..... )
I hope you didn't take my
Corleg seriously and literally as
perhaps Ransome did. Its misty irony
was intentional. But I wish I could
mind my own business.
Helen's love and mine to you
all & my remembrances to the
lamp chimney*. Also our love to
Arthur. Yours ever
Edward Thomas

Here comes 'Demeter';
shun the alcairs & all thought of
them.

* which had lasted two years - or some similar time
that stirred his incredulity. G. B.