Letter from Edward Thomas to the poet Gordon Bottomley. Sent from Stow on the Wold, Gloucestershire. Archival ref: 424/1/1/1/10/166
Stow on the Wold
Gloucestershire

22.iii.12

My dear Gordon,

I was very glad indeed when your
letter caught me up just as I was
starting on a short walk. I had been
thinking of you daily wondering whether
to write, knowing well you must be
ill. It didn't seem worth while to write
as I can always either [illegible] at Pater &
good for nothing else or contending with my
usual devils. I was not reborn in Wales.
Wales is the only thing though when I am
at it I don't invariably realise it especially
as it is always in a hurry. I roughly
finished a book on Pater last
Sunday: am keeping it by me to tone
it down for a few weeks. I am going to
write in Swinburne. Probably I told you -
I bought away 'Songs before Sunrise'
but at the end of a day
s walking can
make nothing of it. I am travelling
from Cirencester along the Fosse Way to
Stratford Warwick & Coventry,
where I am to spend a day to two.
did think of rushing up to see you,
but the strikes & increasing irregularity
of trains seems to forbid it. If I
don't come I will send you some of my
works but they are very numerous
now. I have just corrected proofs of
Norse Tales. Borron, Hearn &
Icknield Way impend. Celtic Tales
please Mervyn & Bronwen. They are
my exercises in English & only.
I am only just learning how ill my
notes have been making me write
by all but destroying such virtual
rhythm as I have in me. Criticising
Pater has helped the discovery. But
it is too late now, in then any case
& my times, to set about trying
to write better than perhaps I was
born to. You have some advantages
over me after all. Fancy being
able to write those verse for music.
I think they have his just nakedness
for words to be sung, & I wish I
could hear them. Tell me who was
the foundress. Now if I had
any time. No, I will not say what I
might - but should not - do if I
had time, which is impossible.
However, when I have exhausted the books
which publishers & I can seem to
agree on, - & that will not be very
far hence, - I may find myself with
Time. Stow on the Wold is
perfectly silent after a day of
wind & rain & except the
choir practising in the church
over this way. It is a little stone
town on a slope & summit of
the Cotswolds & looks far away
east over floods & red playerland.
I wish I were not so tired. I will
eep this over another day's walking.
Goodnight.
Chance has brought me to
Stratford upon Avon where it is evident
Shakespeare once lived & is not alive
now. I shall leave it to the
tradespeople tho I am too tired to
walk beyond it tonight. I wonder

what a man would do here who
was not afflicted by the spectacle of
trade? It has been a beautiful
warm day but I have been walking
on my nerves all the time & am
fit for bed not letter writing &
'Glory to Man in the Highest? for
man is the master of things!' say
Swinburne. I shall have to
discover what that amounts to.
Can you recommend me to some
sane admirer on whom I can
sharpen my wits? Somehow I
have fallen into a habit of stressing
literature for no being what it was
ever meant to be, & it won't
do me or the public any good I
expect, especially as it probably
originated in personal disgusts of
an irrelevant kind which I ought
to be getting over in silence I
not in print. Coming every thing
into hasty words is I suppose

the punishment as well as the living of a
journalist. Is it lifelong, too?
I wish I had been listening to Rathbone & not a
cheap & outworn gramophone. It would have
been worth my money, Emily
Goodbye, and please write as soona s you
can. I am yours & Emily's ever

Edward Thomas