Letter from Edward Thomas to the poet Gordon Bottomley. Sent from Elses Farm, The Weald, Kent. Archival ref: 424/1/1/1/10/32
The Weald
16.iii1905

My dear Gordon,

Ohohey! Your letter
You come to London next
Wednesday: so should I in any case,
& as you will be there I shall stay until
Friday or Saturday. But I see it is
impossible for us to meet as I wish.
So, I suggest that I meet you on Wednesday
and join you or not as seems best then;
and that I spend Thursday or Friday
with you, doing exactly what you
want to do. Will you let me now
which day? Then I will call for you at
[illegible] Street at 10: perhaps in the
evening Balmer would admit us both?
If you decide to see pictures on the
day I am with you I can go out & have
a drink if I am bored by the pictures - But let us go to something old if
you like: - the National Gallery and
the Museum - But I am in your hands
except that I know a place for lunch =
let me know in good time how this
strikes you,
Thank you for your poem Let me
have time I may not be able to open
it for a week, because I have to review
'Thomas Moore' by Stephen Gwynn
' The Grey Brethren' By Michael Fairless
'William Bodham Donne & his friends'
' Peeps into Nature's Ways'
" A Country Diary'
' Travels round our Village'
' a folio Chaucer
a new Keats

also to correct proofs, sow beans, peas,
brussel sprouts, leeks. radishes ........
and walk much with a visitor this week
end.
Why should I want to write about
Fitzgerald any more than about Browne,
Hardy, Pater, Cowley, Yeats, Hawthorne,
Borrow, Palmore, Shakespeare, Milton,
Verlaine, Euripides & Virgil? I
don't want to. I don't want to write at
all, but if I do write, it must be
about myself, I had rather do it
apropos of landscape & imaginary
people than popular authors.
You are right about Wilde, & I

hope you understand the first sentence &
know which sentence is Milne's. The
fact is I was in haste & the book never
was anything but a review book. I can
hardly bear to look at it again but I rather
think it is very poor except the Christ
interlude. Also I never did more than
admire Oscar Wilde.
I didn't see Beardsley's letters.
Now I am disturbed & I try to
propitiate you by sending mutilated proofs
of 'Wales'. If you have not time to
look at them now, will you return them at
once? Make any suggestions you like
& forgive "The Hay Waggon".
Ransome isn't coming. His
fickleness annoys me.'
I must go.
With our love Ever yours
Edward Thomas

Between this letter and the rest I came to
London and settled down in rooms to try to
live and work there; but I did not remain
quite a fortnight, for my lung broke down
again after a week of N. E. wind. My two
years' immunity was, in fact, over G. B