Letter from Edward Thomas to the poet Gordon Bottomley. Sent from Rose Acre, Bearsted Green, Maidstone, Kent. Archival ref: 424/1/1/1/10/9
Rose Acre
Bearsted
nr Maidstone

10.iii.03

My dear Gordon
I can only send you a word
to say how sorry I am that your hand is
still bad & how grateful I am for your
ambidexterity. I think perhaps I shall be
able to use the quotations which you have
copied from Morris, & the [Edinburgh]
Stevenson's Edinburgh might be suggestive.
Of course it is a good subject. But you
forget that I have to write mechanically, so
many words a day, - which does not
suit my ways at all. Also, tho I am
determined to introduce a great deal of
quite unpopular stuff & oft I have to
respect the publisher's wish to a small
extent. In the short time allowed to me
I must make use of facts, & even
state dull facts. I can't [illegible] for the
sound & fury at the rate of 500 words
a day for 120 days consecutively and
it is still not be wise for me to lay much
stress upon the degradation of Oxford in the
last 50 years : I must merely throw
a little sarcasm here & there. Morris
must have had a very eclectic eyesight if he
saw a medieval city almost entire, when he came
up. For Worcester, Pembroke,, Jesus, Christ
Church, the Radcliffe Camera, all
Saint's Church, & many other places were
16th 17th or 18th century buildings almost
unmixed. Personally I think that until
my recent years all architects have been
wonderfully successful in planning churches
& libraries & quadrangles in such a way as to
make them capable of becoming (in a
century or two) excellent younger children
of the same old city. I think of architecture
in Oxford not a Norman & transitional
& classical et , but as either Oxford
architecture or not. Poor Fulleylove!
I don't know much of his work. It seems
to have a good notion of colour. I
had his 'Holy Land' which was a
very superior guide book indeed. I suppose
you miss imagination & motive in
his work & I daresay you are right.
By the way, I entirely agree with you
about my paper on Spitafles. I don't
see anything in it: never did: but
inserted it at the request of a friend
who thought it might please, *
became the Arbuthnot epitaph is so good.
I think the photograph pretty good of
Helen and bad of Merfyn (who by the way
is a fine brutal Saxon at present).
I am glad you like Sandys. Ovid
certainly is not heavy, but I think
G. S. sometimes is. I have his book
of travel here (1632) which
is a good book & a storehouse of classical
quotation.
Yesterday I sent off my first chapter
of Oxford. Now I am busy with a
series of character matches of Oxford
people (largely imaginative): & hope
you will like some of them.
You see I am in haste which
you & I both dislike. So goodbye.
I shall look out for your collection of
verses. Commend me to your Scribe
& with our love believe me
Ever yours
Edward Thomas