Letter from Edward Thomas to the poet Gordon Bottomley. Sent from Elses Farm, The Weald, Kent. Archival ref: 424/1/1/1/10/27
Elses Farm
11.i.05

My dear Gordon,
You pretend admirably.
But I wish you wouldn't pretend that
you though I didn't like your poetry
very much & more & more. Nowadays,
I only read (except Welsh & review books)
the Aeneid just before going to bed, &
yet for those evenings I have struggled
with your capitals & the only irritation
I had come of the feeling that your
things would expose me too much if I
quoted what I like. And now you
almost compel me to quote your Apple
Gathering as well as Apple Bluth.
And that too on a day when for your sake alone
I put all my modern poets on shelves
over the fire in my study. I(I have just
been reluctantly moving my books upstairs
to the room I have worked in, to avoid the
noises sine I left Wales: it is not a
good room and it faces north.) - well,
please send me something to quote.
Many thanks for Palmer,
which I have not yet opened. And I will try
to keep tobacco smoke out of it.
I am very glad you like
the song, & contrite that I should have
done it harm through mumbling it. I
believe you think me rather a classical
beast. I wish I were; for not being
that I am nothing - About
the versions of the two songs, I
have just been with great disgust &
cramp copying out the wretched chapter
which they are to adorn. This chapter
now goes to Black who will, I hope,
sand me back a typewritten copy, to
which I can add the songs at any
time before the end of February, or
say the middle. Bu the sooner the
better & don't hesitate to put two
verses into one, in the lively song.
I should like to see any really
good (not necessarily laudatory)
reviews of the Galt of Smaragdus: but
not the literary world. And has
any reviewer said anything about you
or me in theVenture? I don't get press cuttings & have heard nothing
about Rose Acre Papers, of course, which
is a comfort, since praise would be
annoying & ridicule unnecessary.
About London, I paid 10/ a
week for my room at Gunter Grove,

& extra for washing, light & coal. I
fed myself anyhow. But now the
landlady offers full board & the room for
£1 a week, which I should accept if I
could afford to go & work in town. You
will have no difficulty in getting a room
for 10/ or less at that distance from
town & probably board for another
12/ or 15/. When will you come?
And will you stand here a little while?
I know you won't stay a long while.
And now my wrist my second finger
remind me of 'Wales' & will not let me
go on writing much more.
"Wales' gets worse & worse & as I copy
chapter after chapter I am furious with myself.
Think of yourself publishing the first
drafts of the poems in the 'The Gate of Smaragdus"-
the very firs: think of me writing often
1000 words a day then with practically
no correction copying them out, & this
too when many of the things are of a kind
I should usually chew for a month or
more for each 1000 words - I have just
done a writing while a lonely mountain.
It took 2 hours & it just arose out of
notes: but I must copy it out in haste &
either leave much out or not amend it at all.
If I had succeeded the result would have been
as much like a poem of yours as verse
can be like prose. Merely to fill space I
had to quote a long piece from Shelley that
was not in the right mood. Honestly, I
do think we aim at very similar
things you nearly succeed & I never
come even so near as to fail. How I
could envy you your leisure if I did
not know that I should waste it.
Goodbye. Helen's love &
mine to you all.
Ever yours
Edward Thomas