Letter from Edward Thomas to the poet Gordon Bottomley. Sent from [Berryfield Cottage], Ashford, Petersfield, Hampshire]. Archival ref: 424/1/1/1/10/82
27. iii. 07.

My dear Gordon,
Perhaps it is the Equinox, but in spite of this delicious weather and the beautiful beeches and the happiness of the children and Helen and I have been having a bad time and am still in it. Away in Wiltshire I enjoyed the Downs and Savernake Forest and the winds very much and seemed well but as soon as I took to my chair and my reviewing down I went. Still, I kept on reviewing and must do and my beastly editing. I doubt though if I can write a letter. So I will begin by answering your questions.
Garnet’s play was not on Gunnar: I can’t remember who, but nobody famous I think. Now his hopes are on a modern play which is actually to have matinee’s at the Haymarket - Granville Barker’s success is having its influence- when I don’t know.
There is to be a competition for prizes of guineas - to say how 1/2 an hour is “best spent out of doors” in April and so on. Lord, I wish I knew. Not gardening, at any rate, saps my back. I fear you can’t compete, being
a contributor.
You didn’t endorse anything by Hudson.
Yes I review Wright’s Pater, an absolutely silly book, how silly I was not well enough to say in my Chronicle laughter. Biographer of Orphans is good.
Yes, I did tell the Electrician * A. M. Ransome: a description of his galvanic energies; about “The Ship,
the chariot, and the plough” - had to hold a knife at his throat to persuade him to put it in place of 2 pointless quotations of simple sentences.
Doughty is great. I see his men and women whenever I see noble beeches, as in Savernake Forest, or tunnels or old encampments, or the lime of the Downs like the backs of a train of elephants, or a few firs on a hilltop.
What do you think of the enclosed J Marjoram? He seems to me to think and compose verse sincerely, independently and usually with subtle effects. He approaches Sturge Moore in someways and may will be a good man disguised, but who? Rossetti (W. M. R.) will interest you, though he isn’t important
I am to see another publisher’s reader soon to discuss a book. I am invited to make suggestions, but I don’t seem pregnant yet. I dally with “The South County” to include a bit of history- perhaps the history of England from the point of view of one parish or great house (a grand idea, but I am not learned or patient enough to do it) - not necessarily from the year 1 to 1907 ! It would turn out to be mostly people and houses and fine evenings I suspect. I shouldn’t mind and I do want to work again. Then there is a book in English poetry in the manner of Belloc’s “April” - dealing with persons largely (largely me), say 12 of them, Chaucer (?), Sidney, Spenser, Drayton, Henrick, Traherne, Vaughan, Dryden (?) Gray
(Is he a person ?) Cowper, Macpherson, Shelley, Keats, Wm Morris. But it would be very very hard and not quite my line. Then I do want to arrange my chiefly pathetic memories of the
Suburbs- their grave charming old houses now tumbling down at the feet of the villa-builder - their little bit of waste ground - my own special memories- a little girl, the first whose sex I dimly knew (when I was 7 or 8) - the quite new houses so difficult to like and yet to be liked. But of course not 100 people want such a book. - What else is there?
Looking at that Evans’ profile of me a woman said: “ He looks as if he were going to fall off his stalk”. And a good coarse Broadsman omitted to send an invitation to rough it with him at night on the B-roads because of that profile never having seen me or my pimples etc. It is not exhaustive, is it ?
But I am tired. Goodbye. Our love to you and Emily and please send back Patterson. (Let me keep Wilde until the new edition comes, not long hence I think).
Yours ever
Edward Thomas