Letter from Edward Thomas to his wife, Helen Thomas. Archival reference: 424/1/1/1/1/110
try Eugenie de Guerin's (Maurice's sister) letters and journal: but send nothing very new, few novels except Scott's: and doubtless you will read Shelley and Wordsworth over and over again. I am wondering if you have your books with you?

You shall have your letter soon, tho not tonight.

Tell Harry I can't write to him, yet at any rate, for I am quite empty.

Tell me what walks you take, and how your days are filled, my own sweet little one. Goodbye sweetheart. I am ever and wholly yours Edwy.

Remember me affectionately - give my love - to Janet and Harry

19 Cambria Place,
New Swindon, Wilts
4.vii.99

My dearest friend,

I am fairly cheerful this evening, so I can't write a long letter. "A strange cause for such as effect!" you will say. The fact is - this house is extremely depressing, and has often put a stop to my work. Therefore I must fill my cheerful moments with work.

What an ugly thing poverty is! and it is the ugliness of this poor house that so depresses me. It isn't altogether clean, for my grandmother is quite alone (now my aunt is at Shelgate Rd) and cannot keep it clean:
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also it is not plain, while of necessity it can not be otherwise and be in good (or even tolerable) taste. The sight of my grandmother who is withering slowly away in weakness of mind and body is also unpleasant. She loves me, but bores me terribly, for I cannot sympathise with the poor religion and the scandal (divorce etc) which are her only interests. We get to look like animals in our old age. Her head seems to have shrunken, and is like a rabbit's.

Naturally then I live a good deal out of doors, tho Morgan has not come to Wootton Basset yet, I believe. And today it is very fine. But Heavens! my memory is a blank to all I may have seen so far, simply because I have not has a sane (insane, if you like) - a sane human being to talk to; for the old man and

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my grandmother don't count. Never was such a colourless existence : why I'm almost a rabbit myself for the time.

So you are at Gipsy Hill, now. It ought to be pleasanter, it will be pleasanter for me when I visit you. And by the way, do you suppose I can stay a night there when I return? I shall be back on Thursday week. I suppose, and could go straight on to you. You will have plenty of books to read from. Read DeQuincey - his autobiography for example. Perhaps Harry has Carlyle's translation of Wilhelm Meister: then there's Keats - Shakespeares Comedies and Histories - and Malory which Harry has in the edition illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley (get him to slip it out of one of his cases, where I saw it): you might