02 October

2 October 1920

Travelling to Menton, France

Friday.
Dear little Wing would make a sweet acolyte at a ½d a week. I see him. He is a precious little cat. Whisper my name in his ear. Im afraid tho', he wont smile. He'll more likely sneeze.
Oh, Bogey
that packet of letters never fetched up, nor did the signed declaration. Were they sent? The letters have been 9 days on the way, so they must be lost.
I shall be more than thankful for my books. It was v. silly not to have brought Shakespeare.
Suppose you didn't glance at a novel by a man called Prowse. ‘A Gift of the Dusk'.  A simply terrible book - awful - ghastly! And about as good as it could be. Its just a kind of . . . journal the man kept while he was at a sanatorium in Switzerland. It is the goods if you like! But he must be a wonderful man. I wish I knew if he is dead. Will you PLEASE ask Beresford if you see him (Collins is the publisher). I wish very much I could hear of him. One's heart goes out to anyone who has faced an experience as he has done. "One must tell everything - everything." That is more and more real to me each day. It is, after all, the only trea¬sure heirloom we have to leave - our own little grain of truth. As I write I am deeply loving you. Do you feel that? Sitting opposite to you - & talking - very quietly. You are there? You do reply? Tell me about your¬self, my darling, whenever you can.
Your own
Wig.
[Letter to J. M. Murry in Collected Letters 1920]

It does not matter how many times Life has been compared to a journey; there comes a day when each of us makes that comparison for himself and wonders at the mysterious fitness of it. In the confusion and immediate pressure of modern existence, we are borne along, we are carried and upheld until we are half persuaded we could not escape if we would. Then, suddenly - as if it had all been a dream - the crowd vanishes, the noise dies away, and the little human creature finds himself alone, with no time to think of his destination. Well, perhaps the moment need not be grim. Perhaps you will not so dreadfully mind that invisible hand touching you so lightly, that soundless voice whispering so gently: "But of course you realise that sooner or later the train is going to rush into a black hole, the ship is going to sink out of sight of land." And you really won't read next morning that: "We regret to announce the death of..."; you really won't know, as the last man swings on the box and the horses break into a decent trot, whether it is an adorable wet day - with the sky a waterspout, a soft roaring in the trees, and the first jonquils shaking with flower - or an adorable fine day - when just to walk in the sun and shade is enough. [. . .] [KM's review of A Gift of the Dusk by R. O. Prowse in the Athenaeum, 29 October 1920]