Letter from Edward Thomas to the poet Gordon Bottomley. Sent from Redhill, Surrey, undated. Archival ref: 424/1/1/1/10/63
You come to Petersfield when you like
Redhill

My dear Gordon
This must not be a letter. I am
staying with Mary for the purpose of making
a toy box for her little girl & I am once
more quite worn out & wretched & unable
to work. But I can answer a few things
in your letter.

1st. I am very sad to have lived to see
such things in the Barrow News.
2nd. I will send you proofs if, as
before, you read them for mistakes as
well as [illegible]
3rd. Freeman did write in Scrooge
but the material was T. Clayton's.
4th. I have written to Rathbone,
but I had already thanked him for each thing.
5th. Dalmon sends you this little
book in which I am sure you will find some
of the pastoralism delicious -
6th. I will send Gerald Gould, but
should like it back soon, - though like [illegible]
Moore he ignores the letter from the critic of a
1/2d paper. Also Alfred Noyees & that I
shall want back soon - it contains his best
things, I believe. But of [illegible] [illegible] &
Victor P[illegible[ I have only a long poem each.

I failed to do my 3000, absolutely

stick at 2200 (which included a quotation
of the whole of T. Heywood's 'Pack, Clouds, away!'
and now my anthology keeps me at work
together with reviewing &c, from 9.30a.m. to
1a.m. as a rule, & I can't help it. My
responsibility obsess me & I am looking forward
with horor(sic) to moving & its expenses & being
houseless & paying I don't know what every
year for Merfyn all out of my own silly
dissipated brain which will not acquire
information but only melodies and fancies &
half-thoughts.

My love & reverence to Emily
Yours ever
Edward Thomas

My poets include (so far) Landor, all the
Elizabethans & Jacobeans & anyone, William Morris,
Chaucer, Blake, W H Davies, Belloc & Lysaght,
Masefield, Bridges, Davison, Bunyon, Shelley,
Tennyson, Wordsworth, Keats, Coleride, Byron,
K[illeg] White, Campbell, Challerton, several
Scotsmen, Gay, Crabbe, [illegible], Balladists
anonymous, Milton, Thomson, Thoreau, Cowley,
Cowper, Arnold, Browning.
Can you suggest!
So far I have left me many obvious things

[illegible] I must include a good many
in order to please the thousands by letting
them feel that I agree with them.

I did get a (cast aside but permissive)
note from S. Moore.