05 November

5 November 1920

Villa Isola Bella Menton, France

Friday
My precious darling.
You've NOT done it again. Ill never mention a single thing again. I meant to be rather funny about the box with all the cardboard - the famous box - like our grands meubles at Paris which ended in two of the smallest tables in the world with the tiniest jugs & basins on them. Send no more Basil, please, love. Re books Ill not have any more just now. Dont worry.
I am glad you are going to see Elizabeth. I confess Ive a great tendre for her really, more than Id tell anybody. Perhaps its just sentimentality but I feel that in her "innermost she" - Oh p'raps thats too much. Id better wait and here what you dishcover. The Flat iron party (a VERY good joke) amused me awfully. I like Mrs Wells, too. But no, we never were bright & young like people are. Oh, by the way, I had my photo taken yesterday - for a surprise for you. Ill only get des epreuves on Monday tho. I should think it ought to be extraordinary. The photographer took off my head & then balanced it on my shoulders again at all kinds of angles as tho it were what Violet calls an art pot. "Ne bougez PAS en souriant leggerreMENT - Bouche CLOSE." A kind of drill. Those funny studios fascinate me - I must put a story in one one day. They are the most temporary shelters on earth. Why is there always a dead bicycle behind a velvet curtain? Why does one always sit on a faded piano stool? And then, the plaster pillar, the basket of paper flowers, the storm background - and the smell. I love such endroits. [Letter to J. M. Murry in Collected Letters]