(And the Letters we have written are with me such an Addiction,I want to ask - have you ever seen Mr Ruskin demonstrate the Art of Nature in the depicting of a veined Stone in a water-glass? So jewel-bright his colours, so fine his pen and brush, so exact his description of why we must seewhat is truly there - but I must not run on - it is right that we should cease -)
I have chosen a Way - dear Friend -I must hold to it. Think of me if you will as the Lady of Shalott - with a Narrower Wisdom - who chooses not the Gulp of outside Air and the chilly river-journey deathwards - but who chooses to watch diligently the bright colours of her Web - to ply an industrious shuttle - to make - something - to close the Shutters and the Peephole too -
You will say, you are no threat to That. You will argue - rationally. There are things we have not said to each other beyond the -One- you sostarkly - Defined.
I know in my Intrinsic Self- - the Threat is there.
Be patient. Be generous. Forgive
Your friend
Christabel LaMotte
My dear Friend,
These last letters have been like Noah's Ravens - they have sped out over the waste waters, across the turgid Thames in these rainy days - andhave not returned or brought back any sign of life. I was most hopeful of the latest-despatched, with Swammerdam with the ink barely dry on him. I thought you must certainly see that you had in some sense called him up- that without your fine perceptions, without your intricate sense of minute inhuman lives, he would have presented an altogether grosser semblance, not so articulate on his dry bones. No other Poem of mine has ever in the slightest been writtenfor a particularReader - onlyfor myself, or some half-conceived Alter Ego. Now, you are not that - it is your difference, your otherness to which I address myself-fascinated, intrigued. And now my vanity - and something more - my senseof HumanFriendship - is hurt that you cannot - for it is nonsense to say that you dare not - even acknowledge my poem.
If I have offended you by calling your last long-ago letter contradictory (which it wasj or timid (which it was,) then you mustforgive me. You may well ask why I am so tenacious in continuing writing to one who has declared herself unable to maintain a friendship (which she alsodeclared to be valuable to herself) and remains resolute in silence, in rejection. A lover might indeed in all honour accept such a congé- but a peaceable, a valued friend? It is not as though I ever breathed - or scribbled or scratched - the faintest hint of any improper attention - no "if things were otherwise, ah well then…"no "Your eyes, which I know to be bright, mayperuse… " - no - all was straightforward from my honest thoughts which are closer to my essential self than any such nonsensicalgallantry - and this you cannot support?
And why am I so tenacious? I hardly know myself. For the sake of future Swammerdams, it may be - for I see that I had insensibly come to perceive you - mock not - as some sort of Muse.
Could the Lady of Shalott have written Melusina in her barred and moated Tower?
Well, you will say, you are too busy writing the poetry itself, to require employment as a Muse. I had not thought the two were incompatible - indeed they might even be thought to be complementary. But you are adamant.
Do not be misled by my mocking tone. It is all that seems to come. I shall hope against hope - that this letter is the Dove which will return with the hoped-for Olive-Branch. If not, I shall cease to bother you.
Ever yours most truly
R. H. Ash
Dear Mr Ash,
This is not the first time this letter has been embarked on. I know neither how to start nor how to proceed. A Circumstance has arisen - no, I know no longer how to write, neither, for how could a circumstance arise, or what appearance might such a creature - bear?
Dear Sir - your Letters have not reached me - -for a Reason. Not your Rauen-ous letters - nor yet, to my infinite loss - your Poem. I fear -I know indeed, with all but ocular proof positive - they have been Taken.
Today I happened - to run a little faster togreet the Postman. There was almost apapery - Tussle. I snatched. To my shame - to our shame - we - snatched.
I ask you -I beg you -I have told you the Truth - do not condemn. My honour was beingguarded - and if I do not exactly share theconception of Honour which prompted the zealous carefulness-I must be grateful, I must, I am.
But to stoop to Theft
Oh, Sir, I am torn by contrary emotions. I am grateful, as I havesaid. But I must be very angry to have been so deceived - andangry on your behalf- -for though I might have thought it best - not to answer those letters - no one else had the right to interfere with them - whatever the motive.
I cannot find them. They are torn to shreds, I am told. And Swammerdam with them. How shall that be forgiven? And yet - how may it not?
This house - so happy once - isfull of weeping and wailing and Black Headache like a Painful Pall - Dog Tray slinks to and fro - Monsignor Dorato is silenced - and I -I pace up and down - I ask myself to whom I may turn - and think of you my Friend, the unwitting cause of so much Woe-
It is all misapprehension, I know. I no longer know what was right and wrong about the Original Step - to discontinue the writing - If it was to safeguard - domesticharmony - that is now most thoroughly jangled, out of tune and harsh. Oh, dearfriend -I am so very angry-I see strange fiery flashesbefore my drowned eyes -
I dare not write more. I cannot be sure that any furthercommunication of yours will reach me - intact - or at all - Your Poem is lost. And shall I give up - so? I who have fought for my Autonomy against Family and Society? No, I will not. In the known risk of appearing - Inconsequential, Tergiversatory, infirm of purpose and feminine-I ask you - is it possible for you to walk in Richmond Park - when shall I say - you will be occupied - any day the next three days at about eleven in the morning. You will urge that the Weather is inclement. These lastfew dayshave been fearful. The Water has been so high - with each high Tide the Thames advances and runs in overforeshore and quay wall - climbing that, with watery ferocity - and laughing and slapping its way acrossthe cobbledpavements on the bank - invading people's gardens, paying no attention to wicket-gates or woodenfence - but creeping sinuously - and bubbling up - brown and strong - bringing with it a trail of such things- cotton waste, feathers, soakinggarments, dead small creatures - overtopping pansy and Forget-me-nots - and aspiring to early Hollyhock. But I shall be there. I shall step out with Dog Tray - he at least will thank me wholeheartedly - in solid boots and armed with an umbrella -I shall enter by the Richmond Hill gate of the Park - and perambulate near there - if you should chuse to come.
I have an Apology to make that I wish to make in Person.Here is your Olive-branch. Will you receive it?Oh, the lost poem -
Your true friend
My dear friend, I hope you got safe home. I watched till you were out of sight - two determinedlittle bootedfeet and four loping grey clawedones setting up small fountains as you went, without once looking back. You at least did not do so - but Dog Tray once or twice twisted his grey head, I hope regretfully. How could you deliberately mislead me so? There was I, looking diligently about me for a King Charles Spaniel, or a milky sharp small hound - and there were you, quite overwhelmed and half-hidden by a huge gaunt grey creature out of some Irish fairytale or Northern saga of wolf-hunting. What else have you so mischievouslymisrepresented to me? My ideaofyr Bethany House revises itself daily now - eaves shift, windows laugh and lengthen, hedges advance and retreat - it is all a perpetual shape-shifting and adjust ment - nowhere constant. Ah, but I saw your face, even if only in flashes under the dripping brim of a bonnet and the arching shadow of that huge and most purposeful umbrella. And I held your hand - at the beginning and the end - it rested in mine, with trust, I hope and believe.