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The Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume I

Friday — Looe, Cornwall — May 17, 1918 —

Friday
Looe, Cornwall
May 17, 1918

To J. M. Murry

I have been sitting in a big armchair by the three open windows of my room wondering how I shall group or page 165 arrange events so that I may present them to you more or less coherently. But I can't. They won't group or arrange themselves. I am like a photographer in front of ever such a funny crowd whom I've orders to photograph but who won't be still to be photographed—but get up, change their position, slink away at the back, pop up in front, take their hats off and on…. Who is the most Important One? Who is Front Middle Seated?

I had a very comfortable journey. The country in the bright morning light was simply bowed down with beauty—heavy, weighed down with treasure. Shelley's moonlight may glittered everywhere; the wild flowers are in such a profusion that it's almost an agony to see them and know that they are there. I have never seen anything more solemn and splendid than England in May—and I have never seen a spring with less of the jeune fille in it. God! why are you caged up there? Why is our youth passing while the world renews itself in its glory?

I must confess, of course, that, standing in the middle of the goldy fields, hanging from every tree, floating in every little river and perched on top of every hill, there was a Thermos flask filled with boiling coffee. I have so often seen people in trains armed with these affairs, appearing to uncork them and pretending that real steam and real heat flows, but—but I've never believed them until today. At Plymouth I got out and bought two wheat-meal bigglechiks from the scrupulously clean refreshment room (fresh hot meat and potato pasties still for sale!) and made an excellent tea. But indeed I had such constant recourse to the bottle that some soldiers in the carriage could not quite believe my exquisite signs of satisfaction were tout à fait sober. But 'twas nectar. And, of course, we shall never be without one again. Only think for a moment. One need never want again for a cup of tea at one of those ‘odd’ moments which always come on journeys to us.

A. and D. were at Liskeard. A. just as I had imagined, bronze-coloured with light periwinkle eyes carrying a huge page 166 white bag bulging with her Thermos flask and a vest of D.'s (I didn't find where it came from or how) and a box of paints and a handful of hedge flowers and “the most beautiful lemon.” D. was awfully kind: he did everything. We featherstitched off to Looe. It was very hot—all glowing and quiet with loud birds singing and the blue-bells smelled like honey. The approach to Looe is amazing, it's not English, certainly not French or German. I must wait to describe it. The hotel buggy met us driven by a white-haired very independent boy who drove the horse as though it were a terribly fierce ramping white dragon—just to impress us, you know. We drove through lanes like great flowery loops with the sea below and huge gulls sailing over or preening themselves upon the roof tiles, until we came to this hotel which stands in its garden facing the open sea. It could not be a more enchanting position. The hotel is large, “utterly first-class,” dreadfully expensive. It has a glassed-in winter garden for bad weather with long chairs, a verandah—the garden hung between the sun and the sea. A. had taken for me a really vast room with three windows all south; the sun comes in first thing in the morning until 3 in the afternoon. It is clean as a pin, gay, with a deep armchair, a bed with two mattresses…. For everything (except the cream) for four meals a day served in my room, breakfast in bed, the extra meat and so on, it is 4½ guineas. There! I know it's dreadful. I can't possibly live here under £5 a week alors, and I've only just four. But I think I ought to stay here at least till I'm strong enough to look for another, because for a cure it could not be better.

The old servant unpacked for me, gave me hot water, took away my hot water bottle just now on her own and filled it. Don't you think I ought to stay here, just at first, and get a strong girl? I know it's hugely dear, but I feel it is right—that I will get well quicker here than elsewhere. All is so clean and attended to. A. had arranged everything of course and filled the room with page 167 flowers. She has just walked across to say Goodnight. She really is wonderful down here—like part of the spring, radiant with life. It's ten o'clock. I am going to bed. My room has all the sea spread before it. Now with the blinds down there floats in the old, old sound, which really makes me very sad. It makes me feel what a blind dreadful losing and finding affair life has been just lately, with how few golden moments, how little little rest … I find it so hard to be ill.