Letter from Edward Thomas to the poet Gordon Bottomley. Sent from Elses Farm, The Weald, Kent. Archival ref: 424/1/1/1/10/26
30.xii.04
Elses Farm

My dear Gordon
Very many thanks for your
letter, your portrait. Your reminder*
that there are hundred of persons named
Edward Thomas.
* [in pencil in margin] An article on social work
signed with his name, and amusingly unlike him. G. B.

I have only just got your letter
before Christmas, which was foolish,
because I had influenza, & then Helen
got it & now I am back here
entirely alone, trying to cook &
work at the same time, so that my
usual haste & stupidity are doubled.
Your letter painfully reminds me that they
are doubled. For I want badly to write,
but obviously cannot. Nor have I any
calm to look forward to, since Helen may
return tomorrow & we have no servant,
& the wind is shaking the house.
I don't see how I am to hear
of the Didone Abandomata at Oxford,
for I know nobody there. But perhaps
Haynes will tell me when I see him
next, tho he likes Scarlatti best, I
believe.

I shall see Balmer again, & I pray
that I shall hear you playing in his room.
For it is a good room, & every day I remind
myself that I have not heard you play or
even somebody else.
About 'The Maid of Llandebie'
the longhor (in Welsh llwchwr, which
is almost Hloochoor) is a lovely
river: & the Craig y Ddinas i
a great hill covered with hazels, from which
wealthy people get lime.
I shall call the portrait, Gordon
Bottomley the younger. It is a good
likeness but when has a reviewer &
hack to get time to copy the portrait
needlessly in words?
Ransome reviews me quite cleverly
in the Week's Survey, but is sounding
to show that he is cleverer than
I thought he says my work is composed
of sentences, whereas it is at least
composed of paragraphs, that are
inconsequent, tho pleasant in themselves.
He was over anxious about making his
point.
I hear that The Venture is
having rough seas.
I wish you a happy recovery from
Christmas, and a constant belief
that I shall someday write a letter.
By the way, could you send me
Samuel Palmer's Welsh pictures? I
am now doing 12 landscapes, one for
each month, & am hard up, &
think they might help. Or lend me a
poem to set me going.
With love to your Mother &
Aunt Sarah and your father, from
your broddling * but ever yours
Edward Thomas

* "Broddling" was a word improvised by my mother
to describe a bad dentist working away at
extracting a tooth in little pieces. Edward
said it was a great invention, and said it
over and over with delight when he first
heard it. G. B.