16 November

16 November 1920

Villa Isola Bella, Menton, France

My dear Richard,
Its 7.15 a.m. and Ive just had breakfast in a room lit with great gorse yellow patches of sunlight. Across one patch there's a feathery pattern that dances, thats from the mimosa tree outside. The two long windows are wide open - they are the kind that open in half - with wings, you know - so much more generous than the English kind. [. . .]
You must come here one day, Richard and live here for a bit. I dont see how you couldn't be happy. I appreciate your feeling that you would not care to work on a large canvas in England. I feel just the same about writing. Im always afraid my feeling won't last long enough for me to have expressed all that I wanted to. There's something in the atmosphere which may blow cold. And there's always a sense of rush - a strain. If the Muse does deign to visit me Im conscious all the time that shes got her eye on the clock - she's catching the funicular to Olympus at 5.30 or the special to Parnassus at 5.15. Whereas here, one begins to tell the time by the skies again.
I love hearing about your work: you must know I do always. What's this Christmas Jamboree? Tell's about it! As for little K.M. she's agoing it as usual. The more I do the more I want to do: it will always be the same. The further one climbs the more tops of mountains one sees. But its a matter for rejoicing - as long as one can keep the coffin from the door. I don't care a pin about the old wolf. I must get up & take the ear¬wigs out of the roses. Why should they choose roses? But they do & I go against Nature in casting them forth. [Letter to Richard Murry in Collected Letters, 15 November 1920]