Letter from Edward Thomas to the poet Gordon Bottomley. Sent from Rose Acre, Bearsted Green, Maidstone, Kent. Archival ref: 424/1/1/1/10/3
Roseacre, Bearsted, nr Maidstone.
31.x.1902
My dear Gordon Bottomley,
You have got my postcard now, I expect, and will understand why this is only a postcard in disguise. Helen and the girl are very well, and Helen at least is cheerful, but I am still excited and can hardly read. Work pours in more often than it used to, and of a difficult kind sometimes. So the only peaceful task I can enjpy now is reading letters and going over the Christian names of women. I think we shall choose Rachel Mary, especially as both are names which have some call upon me. I should have liked Maudlin but must give it up.
I have not read your book. Since I wrote to you I have read nothing for pleasure, except in the half hour before sleep when I always read, in bed, either Elia, or the Anatomy of Melancholy, in Paradise Lost. But unless I get more work at once, I shall read it tomorrow, when I shall walk sixteen miles along the Pilgrim's Road towards Canterbury.
Here is the Kentucky poet. I have a guilty
feeling that it is a partly meant to stifle your reproaches for this postcard letter.
Helen sends her love. Merfyn is in London, absorbed in five uncles and a grand father and grandmother. He sometimes writes to us and our dog, but I doubt if he could be persuaded to write to you.
Goodbye Gordon Bottomley.
Edward Thomas.