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5 July 1922
Hotel Chateau Belle Vue, Sierre, Switzerland
Have you read Lawrence's new book? I should like to very much. He is the only writer living whom I really profoundly care for. It seems to me whatever he writes, no matter how much one may ‘disagree' is important. And after all even what one objects to is a sign of life in him. He is a living man. There has been published lately an extremely bad collection of short stories - Georgian short stories. And ‘The Shadow in the Rose Garden' by Lawrence is among them. This story is perhaps one of the weakest he ever wrote. But it is so utterly different from all the rest that one reads it with joy. When he mentions gooseberries these are real red, ripe gooseberries that the gardener is rolling on a tray. When he bites into an apple it is a sharp, sweet, fresh apple from the growing tree. Why has one this longing that people shall be rooted in life. Nearly all people swing in with the tide and out with the tide again like heavy sea weed. And they seem to take a kind of pride in denying Life. But why? I cannot understand.
But writing letters is unsatisfactory. If you were here we would talk or be silent - it would not matter which. We shall meet one day, perhaps soon, perhaps some years must pass first. Who shall say. To know you are there is enough. This is not really contradictory. [To S.S. Koteliansky, 4 July 1922.]