Letter from Edward Thomas to his wife, Helen Thomas. Archival reference: 424/1/1/1/1/129
Give my love to Mary. To Irene I have not yet found time to
write. Remember me to the people at [illegible] House - I
have just been looking for Ambrose's brother, but he was
out.

ABROAD; NOT ABROARD.
I fear I cannot influence Haynes. He probably could not live
without having women. He must not marry when he is just
entering business: besides it could be unwise, especially for
Haynes, to marry in a hurry. And then the women he does
have may always chance to have the terrible disease,
however careful he is about their appearance. But as for
marrying "increasing his intellectual powers', it is almost
universally agreed that the truth is as a rule the reverse of this.

Atheism is not taken for granted in a place like Lincoln where
there are

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Lincoln College. 20.xi.99
My dearest friend,
I want you to send me Morley's Sketch of English Literature,
a fat gloomy book which is most likely on the top shelf of my
cupboard. Pray do not look too closely at my cupboard, if
you go to it, dearest.

Such a good account of you as I had this morning was most
welcome. Yesterday began with fog as it seems to have done
in town, but it cleared up here and became a dry bright day,
in
which I enjoyed a long riverside walk to Sandford. There I
lunched with Davies and two others. The lunch was expensive
but excellent, and ended by mulled port which warms your
very soul. Then in the evening after actually doing a few lines
of composition I enjoyed 2 or 3 hours of young Brook's
company: Not, however, before being reduced to such
depression as to force me to take a little opium for the first time this term. But

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I was none the worse, in fact I was able to talk rather better
than usual and to relate quite a number of respectable
stories.

Today is dull and damp. Your letter is the only sunshine, and
alas! how short; just long enough to make me crave
unbearably for you, body and soul. That poor body! I can
easily understand how the sight of its unwieldiness pains
you. I hope it is not very prodigious, also that it will not
interfere with us when I return. Will it, do you think? For a
weight upon it might do great harm.
very many mediocre people of inordinate piety; and even the
worst of them are as a rule strict churchgoers and in a way religious,
blaspheming only occasionally, and always ready
to prove the existence of god and the divinity of Christ and etc.
It is quite likely that I am an atheist, but I certainly never call
myself one.

Now I am going to try and write a few lines. You will have this
tomorrow, and then I hope you will write back a long letter to
me.

So Goodbye, my own sweet
little one, Helen.
I am ever and wholly yours
Edwy.
Goodbye!
Give my love to Janet and Harry