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17 October 1922

Select Hotel, Place de la Sorbonne, Paris

My dearest little Queen B.
I never had a lovelier letter from you. And it came on my birthday - wasn't that good fortune. Wasn't that like you - the billiard champion? I did love you for it! You have a real very rare gift for writing letters. And Oh how nice and long they are. Arrows, little side borders, little flower beds very tight packed with words along the edge - I follow them all and even dip into the Egyptian Maze though never to find my way in it!
Ah, my dear. Priceless exquisite treasures came floating out of your letter. I have gathered them all up. But that reminds me of the canary feathers. I am having a pair of wings made of them for delicate occasions. Did you ever feel anything so airy-fairy?
I sat in the Luxembourg Gardens today and thought of you. I am glad you were not with me for I felt like a chat malade, sitting in the sun, and not a friend of anybody's. But all was so ravishingly fall-of-the-year lovelythat I feel how you would have responded. The gardener was sweeping leaves from the bright grass. The flowers are still glorious, but still, as though suspended, as though hardly daring to breathe.
[To Dorothy Brett, 15 October 1922.]