Letter from Edward Thomas to the poet Gordon Bottomley. Sent from Elses Farm, The Weald, Kent. Archival ref: 424/1/1/1/10/67
24.viii.06

My dear Gordon,
Many thanks for your letter &
the poems & I shall certainly
use all except 'Nancy Dawson',
which is doubtful because I
shall have to pay for it very likely.
I already have leave to use O'Shaugh-
nessy, but Chattos want 1.1.0 pounds for a poem of Stevenson.
I am glad you like Bellos.
No. I chose 'July' & may
take others if I have room, but not
'River great' Lucas has it in
'The Open Road' & I do not like
it very much. I am using the
drinking song, too.
I got leave from Noyes & now
can find nothing in him good enough!
But I must use something.
The Academy note simply means
that the paper in tottering through
lack of advertisement - Child
admitted so much.
I hope you sent your
protest against printed references
to mixed bathing to the editor of
the Daily Chronicle & signed yourself
'Married Man'.
Then will will use Yvettes'

Quant la feuille etait verte?
Of course I have "Summer
Dawn' in my anthology & probably
I shall use one or both of the 'Hollow
land' poems & one from
a later volume of Morris which you
recommended.
Also I have 2 things by Ramal who
wrote & said he read me.
I wrote an obscure Corinthian
perspectus! used the phrase
'romantic realism' to cover the
artist & our pet lambs -
CHALKY HAMPSHIRE will
certainly do.
How did you hear of Ensor whom
I faintly knew at Oxford? He is
a fabian & a barrister & a Toynbee
Hull man & a Manchester Guardian
under writer - a fine character, I
believe. His verse did not greatly
move me, & I did not think it
really was verse, though his thought
is often interesting.
I shall include a page or two
from Doughty Vol III if I can. There
are some glorious things in III & IV,
as fine as anything in the Iliad
and appears to me not a Greek.
Literary editor of the Dy Chronicle, and
a constant butt of Edward's G. B.

Milne surpassed Milne yesterday.
If you see a D. C review of 'Early
English Dramatists' look for Villar
instead of Villon & admire.
__________
Here are my first proofs. Any
merely verbal suggestions - in
addition to correctness of slips &
printer's errors - I shall be very
grateful for. But don't attempt to cure
any banalities, for as you see, Dent
is shirking the galley proof and
I can make no serious change in
these pages. The opening will amuse
you. You will see Bellocisms in my
Watercress Man, I fear, also in a
sentence or two in "faunus'.
The sooner you return the proof the
better, I think, as Dent talked of
publishing next month.
I have collected 7 pounds for Davies
already, & I think I have got a
publisher for his autobiography, which
has some fine things in it.
But I have an old friend still
here & we usually rise at 4, first
until 9 & then walk, & in the
intervals I edit & write letters &
read a lot of 2nd rate old country
poetry with sweet feeling in it, lent
me by W. H. Hudson --- Hurdis
& the unhappy peasant John Clare.
Also 'Pastorals & other poems' by
Elinor Sweetman (pubd. by Dent, 1899 &
remaindered) which has, a good
'Pastoral from the Meadows' & some
really pleasing stuff as far as I
can gather at a glance. I
can't begin regular work till next
Tuesday. On Thursday I go to
Hampshire for 4 days with a
naturalist - G. A. B Dewar. Then
I expect Nevmsin & then work
& then the move.
Can you tell me the publisher
G Manx says in which Dolman's
'O what if the fowler' comes?
Goodbye.
Yours & Emily's with
love from us all
Edward Thomas