Yes I did get your letter written to a place called Hermitage, very much called Hermitage, where Russian children stamped overhead and Roumanians roared below and French infants rushed at you in the lift. After Italy it seemed all right at first but then they began feeding us on haricot beans and I hate haricot beans. They have no imagination. What with that and the noise I turned against it and my Cousin who has taken this villa for le saison asked me here. Here is about as perfect as it could be. A great garden, lemon and orange groves, palms, violets in blue carpets, mimosa trees—and inside a very beautiful ‘exquisite’ house with a spirit in it which makes you feel that nothing evil or ugly could ever come near. It's full of life and gaiety but the people are at peace—you know what I mean? They've got a real background to their lives, and they realise that other people have too. I am basking here until I come back, some time in May.

Mentone is a lovely little town, small and unreal like all these places are, but even here there are real spots. The colour and movement everywhere make you continually happy. It's all ruled by the sun; the sun is King and Queen and Prime Minister, and people wear hats like this: [A drawing] I mustn't bring one back for J. or you, but they are very tempting!

I'm not ill any more. Really I'm not. Please think of me as a comfortable cross between a lion and a lamb.

I wish you had a quiet spot where you could draw in peace. But your room at the Heron will be your studio. It's such a waste of life to bark and bite like people do: I think we ought just to ignore them and go our way.

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It's no good getting mixed up in ‘sets’ or cliques or quarrels. That is not our job. By their works ye shall know them is our motto. And life is so short and there is such a tremendous lot to do and see: we shall never have time for all. I wish we could find the house, don't you? I don't think J. will find it before I'm back (that's in 9 weeks time) but there will be a lot to do when it is found. It's just going to be the perfect place for us all—our real home. You must be down in all your spare time and when you're in London you must always have the feeling it's there, with the smoke going out of its chimneys and the hens laying eggs and the bees burrowing in the flowers. I feel we must keep bees, a cow, fowls, 2 turkeys, some Indian runner ducks, a goat, and perhaps one thoroughly striking beast like a unicorn or a dragon. I am always learning odd things such as how to light a scientific bonfire—but now you're laughing at me. However, just come and see my bonfire one of these days, and you will turn up your eyes in admiration.

In the Hermitage letter you asked me what were my views about Adam in this great swinging garden. Now that's awfully difficult to answer. For this reason. I can't help seeing all the evil and pain in the world: it must be faced and recognised, and I can't bear your sentimentalist or silly optimist. I know it all: I feel it all. And there is cruelty for instance—cruelty to children—how are you going to explain that? and, as you say, the beauty—yes, the beauty that lurks in ugliness, that is even outside the pub in the gesture of the drinking woman. I can't explain it. I wish I could believe in a God. I can't. Science seems to make it impossible. And if you are to believe in a God it must be a good God and no good God could allow his children to suffer so. No, Life is a mystery to me. It is made up of Love and pains. One loves and one suffers, one suffers and one has to love. I feel (for myself individually) that I want to live by the spirit of Love—love all things. See into things so deeply and truly that one loves. That does not rule out hate, far page 18 from it. I mean it doesn't rule out anger. But I confess I only feel that I am doing right when I am living by love. I don't mean a personal love—you know—but—the big thing. Why should one love? No reason; it's just a mystery. But it is like light. I can only truly see things in its rays. That is vague enough, isn't it? I do think one must (we must) have some big thing to live by, and one reason for the great poverty of Art to-day is that artists have got no religion and they are, in the words of the Bible, sheep without a shepherd… We are priests after all. I fail and waver and faint by the way, but my faith is this queer Love. One can't drift, and everybody nearly is drifting nowadays—don't you feel that?