10 October

10 October 1920

Villa Isola Bella Menton, FranceI think it was too sweet of the cats to have gone to the bathroom. Pathetic! Wonderful cat psychology, really. You ought to have a minute one installé with a mouse's tail for a plug.

My darling Bogey
Its Sunday and after awful storms fine again. My darling I cant under¬stand why my letters don't arrive. I know they are safely posted; I am sure they are stolen your end. My mind says Sydney egged on by Marge. But it is simply more than maddening to know the letters dont come. It makes me feel so helpless. And I know the feeling TOO well when they don't arrive.
[. . .]
Oh, if you knew what a joy your Shakespeare was. I straightway dipped in the Tempest and discovered Ariel riding on curled clouds. Isn't that adjective perfect? Id missed it before. I do think The Tempest is the most radiant, delicate exquisite play. The atmosphere is exactly the atmosphere of an island after a storm - an island reborn out of the sea with Caliban tossed up for sea wrack and Ariel blowing in a shell. Oh my divine Shakespeare!! Oh most blessed genius. Again I read of the love of Ferdinand and Miranda, how they met & recognised each other and their hearts spake. Everything - everything is newborn and golden. God knows there are desert islands enough to go round - the difficulty is to sail away from them - but dream islands . . . they are rare, rare.
Yet, if I had not loved you I should never have understood Shakespeare as I do. His ‘magic' is the same magic as our love. "Where the bee sucks there lurk I: in a cowslip's bell I lie" - I believe this all sounds quite quite different to us than to all the rest of the world.

[Letter to J. M. Murry in Collected Letters 7 October 1920]