11 April
11 April
11 April 1920
I never can remember what happens. It is so without outline. ‘Yesterday' pales into the general shade. But all the same one looks back & there are wonders. There is always Miss Helen stretching her hands out to the great defiant bouquet, crying with a kind of groan. Oh - the darlings. She flushed. That remains for ever. And then one must never forget the dog which gets all the love of children. Going nice ta-tas with Missie, my ducksie pet! [KM Notebooks]
Would you LEND me your copy of Prelude if you have one?
To Bogey of Broomies.
My very own,
All yesterday, off and on, I had waves of delight at the thought of Broomies. I could not have imagined that the fact of us being real little landowners could make such an extraordinary difference. The feeling of security - have you got it, too? The enormous pleasure of putting up a wall if we choose or putting in a fireplace. Ill never be able to say what Broomies means and you found it - my own explorer. Its our island. I feel the anxiety about money in the future is lessened, too, don't you? All our geese will lay golden eggs before they become swans But more than anything I keep writing short prefaces & putting in the left hand bottom of page corner ‘Broomies 1922'. Also "we shall be at Broomies until the fin d'Octobre when we leave for Genet Fleuri - our small villa in the South . . ." Oh, Destiny, be kind. Let this be. Let these two children live happy ever after. By the way - what with these two names we shall be calling our small son Richard Plantagenet Murry if he doesn't hurry up. I see SUCH hooks. Golden bees fly out of them - young dandelions sprout between the pages - the critic discovers the first small aconite on page 54 and by the end of the book he is even slightly freckled. Im very silly. Forgive me.
L.M. spends all next week hunting for a villa or flat for next year. I am decided not to be with these people: and the flat I saw - perfect tho' it was - had a trifle more stairs than I like to remember. She'll find something & Ill take it, however. [To J. M. Murry in Collected Letters]
Your proposed amendments of Je ne parle pas are read, admired and heartily approved by
Your affectionate Client
Katherine Mansfield Murry
(Prize Scholar,
English Composition,* *Subject: ‘A Sea Voyage'.
Public School
Karori)
[To J. M. Murry in Collected Letters]