Letter from Edward Thomas to the poet Gordon Bottomley. Sent from Elses Farm, The Weald, Kent. Archival ref: 424/1/1/1/10/19
Elses Farm
The Weald
26 viii 04 Sevenoaks
My dear Gordon,
I wanted to write to you as soon as I got your letter (for no other reason than that I liked it). But I was just off to the Walmer with Merfyn. We stayed with a friend there and Merfyn was introduced to the sea - which he likes. My host was an amiable old man, once a neighbour of ours at Bersted, who spends every evening of his life in dressing for dinner and playing Patience. He seemed to like it, but. I got quietly and solemnly bored and took to swallowing overmuch beer at dinner and thus ensuring somnolence until I could go to bed, where I read de Musset’s “Confessions d’un Enfant du Siecle”. Have you read that book? The magniloquent way in which he mistakes reverie for thought reminded me of myself, as also his glorious and unabash sorrow at nothing at all. I read it for the first time and was surprised to find that, thus he said it finely, he said much the same about his own generation as I have said about ours : so that I conclude that all decrepit young men think the same about their generation.
Since I got home I have worked hard and unwillingly at two enormously dull books which I had to review at length for the “Chronicle” - the “life and letters of Edward Byles Cowell” and “Dukes and Poets at Ferrara”. But I find almost

all books dull now, because I have to write about them. I have let myself in for an article on Sturge Moore’s four recent volumes, tho I really have nothing to say about them except that they are very fine and that I like them. If often critics are half as unwilling as I am, no wonder that they are so bad. As usual, I am trying to think how long I can go on turning out one or two thousand words of ‘criticism “ every week. By the way, Milne wouldn’t give me Ransome’s book partly because two other people (including Snowden) has asked for it, and partly because it was so small and mincing in appearance. I am thereby saved a masterpiece. I hope he won’t treat my own companion volume in the same way. By the way, I am dedicating it to
Gordon Bottomly
Poet
How bizarre it looks ! The first proofs were mostly errors I hope I may have a second batch. I suggested calling it Home Solitaire (Second Series) as it belongs to that period of history. But will Duckworth object ?
Last night I brought them”Skeleton “ to an end and sent it to Baillie. It is a failure, and my bringing it to an end was purely an exercise of will as the original murder was. In the last sentence but two he is alive and well: in the last two he is dead and makes a most attractive skeleton. I have murdered my original schemes. Your laughter is too kind by far. But I will never compose in that way again. Already I have done one of the short things you suggested, tho unhappily it was snatched away before it was

finished, by the Chronicle Editor who wanted a “Country article “ and got a fantasy about Pan (of course) sisters. But I can’t get the confidence necessary to copy out my recent things, when once I have corrected and finished them. I have half a dozen things in this state now, some 18 months old. Shall I borrow the Ransome typewriter? It is warranted to produce an essay in 1 1/2 hours, and a review in rather less. I think, by the way, that he will have to stick to literature because he has already allows two ridiculous errors to be printed in prospectuses: e.g. “ the gem will be as dainty as possible” instead of “the form re “. That stamps him as a literary man at once, surely; perhaps a genius. He was here recently and I liked him much. He departed in my trousers, having muddied his own.
I must make the middle the end, as usual.
Helen and I send our love to all of you at Wellknowe.
Ever yours
Edward Thomas

30 viii
I had to go town last Saturday. There I saw Ransome and arranged to call the book ‘Rose Acre Papers”, such a pleasant title (to me) that I wish such the things were better and more deceiving of you and its. - I am sick of
.
London and people and am wanting to be more of a hermit than before, if I can. But now, this moment, as I hope I was settling down, the servant falls ills with something that will perhaps be alarming, and I am off to housework and irritation again. Pity me -

Goodness: The Chronicle has rejected my “Pan” re as I hoped and thought it would