My Own

Katherine Mansfield to John Middleton Murray

(Sunday, December 26, 1915)

My own!

Just a little note so as not to let the day pass. It is a lovely day, and even yesterday became fair after all. If you could but see my roses! I heard today from Kay whose card I send you (!), and from Father and Mother. Their letters I have jsut answered, Bogey. They made me very sad. Indeed I understand that as 'the silence' descends on them, their loss becomes ever greater. Now, for instance, that letters about him are infrequent and few--and the English mail arrives, as Father says, and seems each week to make the dreadful gap more real. Dearest, in my letter I wrote a great deal about you and Chummie.* I wanted to make them feel that you had been real to each other and played together. I wish you would write a note to them. Please do if you can, but send it to me to post, for I have not told them that you have gone back to England. I thought it wiser not to; it was so difficult to explain from this distance, and not necessary.

I heard from Lawrence today. Shall I send you his letter? It left me cold. He wants us to join him, but you know we are not made to do that kind of thing, ever. We are two, rich and happy apart. If you do not want me back yet, Bogey (you understand) I would like to stay here a little longer.

I send you all my love.

Tig

*'Chummie': Katherine's brother who was killed at the front in 1915.

-from Katherine Mansfield's Letters to John Middleton Murray 1913-1922 edited by John Middleton Murray (London: Constable & Co., 1951, 1958) p.73.

This New Life

D. H. Lawrence to Katherine Mansfield

1, Byron Villas,
Vale of Health,
Hampstead.
Monday, 20 Dec., 1915.

My Dear Katherine,


Your letter came this morning. I am so sorry you are so ill. Yesterday Murray was here when the letter came--Kot brought it--and he was much upset.

Do not be sad. It is one life which is passing away from us, one "I" is dying; but there is another coming into being, which is the happy, creative you. I knew you would have to die with your brother; you also, go down into death and be extinguished. But for us there is a rising from the grave, there is a resurrection, and a clean life to begin from the start, new, and happy. Don't be afraid, don't doubt it, it is so.

You have gone further into your death than Murray has. He runs away. But one day he too will submit, he will dare to go down, and be killed, to die in this self which he is. Then he will become a man; not till. He is not a man yet.

When you get better, you must come back and we will begin afresh, it will be the first struggling days of spring, after winter. Our lives have been all autumnal and wintry. Now it is mid-winter. But we are strong enough to give way, to pass away, and to be born again.

I want so much that we should create a life in common, a new spirit, a spirit of unanimity between a few of us who are desirous in spirit, that we should add our lives together, to make one tree, each of us free and producing in his separate fashion, but all of us together forming one spring, a unanimous blossoming. It needs that we be one in spirit, that is all. What we are personally is of second importance.

And it is in its inception, this new life. From the old life, all is gone. There remain only you and Murray in our lives. We look at the others as across the grave. A death, and a grave lies between us and them. They are the other side of the grave, the old, far side, these---------s and ----------s. We must not look back. There must be no looking back. There must be no more retrospection, which is introspection, no more remembering and interpreting. We must look forward into the unknown that is to be, like flowers that come in the spring. Because we really are born again.

We have met one or two young people, just one or two, who have the germ of the new life in them. It doesn't matter what they are personally. Murray dismisses them with a sneer, for all that which is the past in them, but I hold on by that which is the future, which is gladdening.

We give up this flat to-morrow. For Christmas we go to my sister's in Derbyshire: c/o Mrs. Clarke, Grosvenor Rd., Ripley, Derbyshire. We stay there till the 29th December. Then we go to the Beresfords' cottage in Cornwall, to live there till March. One or two others will come too. I want it now that we live together. When you come back, I want you and Murray to live with us, or near us, in unanimity; not these separations. Let us all live together and create a new world. If it is too difficult in England, because here all is destruction and dying and corruption, let us go away to Florida: soon. But let us go together, and keep together, several of us, as being of one spirit. Let it be a union in the unconsciousness, not in the consciousness. Get better soon, and come back, and let us all try to be happy together, in unanimity, not in hostility, creating not destroying.

Love from me.
D. H. Lawrence

-from The Letters of D. H. Lawrence edited by Aldous Huxley (London: William Heinemann, 1956.) p. 296-97.

Our Own Kingdom

Katherine Mansfield to John Middleton Murray

Sunday before Xmas

(December 19, 1915)

My dearest love,

I have just got the letter that you wrote me on Thursday night, with the money in it. Papers have come, too, which I have not opened yet, and other letters are waiting--but I want to speak to you tres serieusement. Your letter made you 'real' to me in the deepest sense of the word, I believe, almost for the first time. You say just those things which I have felt I am of you as you write just as you are of me.

Now I will say Toujours because now at last I know you. We are in a world apart, and we always shall be in a world apart--in our own kingdom which is finer and rarer. Shut the gates of it for a minute and let us stand there. Let us kiss each other, we three. Yes, Bogey, I shall love you for always.

Later

. . . I've just read the Times Lit. Sup., The New Statesman, The Daily News, and letters from Beatrice Campbell, Kay and Marie. For the papers many thanks, darling; they were a great feast. The New Statesman is a dead horse--but still--horse it is and there you are. Beatrice (tres entre nous) wrote me a nice letter. She's a queer mixture for she is really loving and affectionate, and yet she is malicious. She was about you and Lawrence re me, you understand. How you were so happy on your own and a lot of rubbish, and how Lawrence had spoken against me at Clive Bell's. It is unpleasant hearing that kind of thing, and smells faintly of their drawing-room, which is a most distasteful memory to me. By the way, I wrote to Lawrence the other day--a wild kind of letter, if I think of it, and not fair to 'us.' You understand? It was just after I had been in bed and without letters, and I had a fit of positive despair, when life seemed to me to be absolutely over--and I wrote rather in that strain. I only tell you because when I have read your despairing letters to your friends I have always felt that you betrayed us and our love a little, and I feel if you should see mine (don't --for it's nothing and the mention is making it a mountain) you might feel a little the same. I am sorry I wrote it. To tell you the truth, I am come to the conclusion that our happiness rests with us and with nobody else at all, and that we ought to build for ourselves and by ourselves. We are very rich people, for we are real true lovers--and we are young and born in each other. Therefore, I think we ought to develop together--keep very close together (spiritually, mon cheri) and make ourselves, on our island, a palace and gardens and arbours, and boats for you and flowery bushes for me--and we ought not to court other people at all yet awhile. Later it will be different. Do you know what I mean and do you agree with me? Writing to you, I love you simply boundlessly. My love for you is always being new born; the heavenly dews descend upon it, and I'll not believe it is the same flower as yesterday--you see--how I believe in you! I have a store of belief in you that couldn't be exhausted! How I admire you! How I love you! . . . We must not fail our love.

At the end of your letter you ask me how long I am going to stay. I do not know at all, my precious. You'd better tell me what you think. I'll add a word tomorrow.

-from Katherine Mansfield's Letters to John Middleton Murray 1913-1922 edited by John Middleton Murray (London: Constable & Co., 1951, 1958)p.60-61.

Sawdust and Elephants

Katherine Mansfield to John Middleton Murray

Tuesday,

(December 14, 1915)

Dearest of all,

on't you worry about me. My femme de chambre, when she goes off duty, leaves me in her 'friend's' charge and her 'friend' is a little spry creature with a pale blue nose who is very gentille indeed to me. 'Il ne faut pas vous gener,' she keeps saying to me. 'Je veux faire tout ce que je peux pour vous.' In fact, the servants here seem to think I'm a dear little thing! And after midday that Englishman, terribly shy, knocked at my door. It appears he has a most marvellous cure for just my kind of rheumatism. Would I try it? All this was explained in the most preposterous rigmarole, in an attempt to appear off-hand and at his poor unfortunate case. I never saw a man so shy! Finally he says that if the pharmacien can't make it up here he will take the first train to Toulon this afternoon and get it for me. It is a rubbing mixture which he got off a German doctor one year when he was at Switzerland for winter sports and had an attack of sciatic rheumatism. It sounds to me--very hopeful--but I'd catch any straw! So I thanked him and bowing and humming and hawing he went off. I can't think what frightened him so. I shall have to put on a hat and a pair of gloves when he brings me back the unguent.

Oh, that postman is a tortoise, a detestable tortoise--half a tortoise. (Bogey, I am an awful little cod. My bed is going to my brain. Now I'll wait for your letter before I go on.)

Later. I did wait with a vengeance. At half past 3 I rang the bell. 'Le courier, a-t-il deja passe?' 'Ah, oui, Madame--une bonne demi-heure!' 'Merci bien.' But when she had gone I confess I turned to the wall and cried bitterly. . . . .I think mostly from rage. Then I began to think how my Father always always had time to write every single day to my Mother, etc., etc., etc. Then in despair I climbed out of bed, found a piece of ribbon and sat up and made myself a hat. Once before, I remember, when I was ill at Rottingdean and alone and waiting for a letter that didn't come I made myself a hat out of pins and fury and it was the hat of my life. So is this. But I am desperately disappointed, I must confess and I think it is awfully awfully cruel. Once I get better I'll forgive you if you don't write, but Oh--to lie in this silent room and know the postman has been. You wouldn't like it, Bogey..

Now I've had dinner, an omelette, some cauliflower and a stewed apple. I am getting thin. There are 2 hollows in my cheeks but no little love kisses them. My Englishman has arrived with his pot of ointment and refuses to take even a pin or a bead in pavement. How kind he is--It's easy to see he hasn't lived with me 3 years.

I am very angry--but not really with you. You couldn't help your letter missing the post, I suppose. Or perhaps you were handing cups and saucers for that quiet lady with the cast eye.

I should like to be at a large circus tonight: in a box--very luxurious you know, very warm, very gay with a smell of sawdust and elephants. A superb clown called Pistachio--white poneys, little blue monkeys drinking out of Chinese cups. I should like to be dressed beautifully, beautifully, down to the last fragment of my chemise--and I should like Colette Willy to be dressed just exactly like me and to be in the same box. And during the entr'actes while the orchestra blared Pot Pourri from The Toreador we would eat tiny little jujubes out of a much too big bag and tell each other all about our childhood.

A demain, then. Are you a darling? Oh, I forgive you. I love you. I hug your blessed little head against my breast and kiss you. I love you, you bad wicked precious adorable and enchanting Boge. I am,

Wig Tig

-from Katherine Mansfield's Letters to John Middleton Murray 1913-1922 edited by John Middleton Murray (London: Constable & Co., 1951, 1958)p.52-54.

Letter in the Wind

[D. H. Lawrence to Katherine Mansfield]

c/o Mrs Clarke, Grosvenor Rd.,
Ripley, Nr Derby.

Friday, 27 Dec., 1918.

My Dear Katherine,

e got your parcel on Christmas morning. We had started off, and were on the brow of the hill, when the postman loomed round the corner, over the snow. It was all white and snowy and sunny, with a wind like an axe. I floated out my hanky for a flag over the snow, and Frieda dropped the tangerines in her anxiety to get the wheatsheaf unwrapped, and it was terribly cold and windy just on that edge. . . But my hanky fluttered very nice and lively. I wish you could have been there on the hill summit--the valley all white and hairy with trees below us, and grey with rocks--and just around us on our side the grey stone fences drawn in a network over the snow, all very clear in the sun. We ate the sweets, and slithered downhill, very steep and tottering. The children had the tangerines and the fan.

We read your letter in the wind, dropping down to Cromford. It made me feel weary, that we couldn't be all there, with rucksacks--I'd got mine on--setting off for somewhere good, over the snow. It is disappointing. And unless one decorates one's house for oneself alone, best leave it bare, for other people are all wan-eyed. I do so want to GET OUT--out of England--really, out of Europe. And I will get out. We must do it.

There was hardly any snow in the valley--all green, with the yew-berries still sprinkling the causeway. At Ambergate my sister had sent a motor-car for us--so we were at Ripley in time for turkey and Christmas pudding. My God, what masses of food here, turkey, large tongues, long wall of roast loin of pork, pork-pies, sausages, mince-pies, dark cakes covered with almonds, cheese-cakes, lemon-tarts, jellies, endless masses of food, with whiskey, gin, port wine, burgundy, muscatel. It seems incredible. We played charades--the old people of 67 playing away harder than the young ones--and lit the Christmas tree, and drank healths, and sang, and roared--Lord above. If only one hadn't all the while a sense that next week would be the same dreariness as before. What a good party we might have had, had we felt really free of the world.

We had a second turn-to-yesterday--and at half past eleven went roaring off in the dark wind to Dr Feroze's --he is a Parsee--and drank two more bottles of muscatel, and danced in his big empty room till we were staggered, and quite dazed. Tonight we are going back to Middleton--and I feel infuriated to think of the months ahead, when one waits paralysed for some sort of release. I feel caged, somehow--and I cannot find out how to earn enough to keep us--and it maddens me.

Still, it might be very much worse. One might be tied tight to a job, or to a sickness. I do wish you were better. But you sound stronger. I long to make plans--new plans. But not Europe: oh, God!

I pledge you 'the days to come.'

D. H. L.

--from The Letters of D. H. Lawrence edited by Aldous Huxley (London: William Heinemann, 1956.)

Katherine Mansfield in Paris

31 rue de Tournon, Paris

Sunday morning.

(February, 1914)

Your letter this morning was a lovely surprise. I had not hoped to hear from you until tomorrow at earliest. Thank you, darling.

Everything is quite all right, here. Your room feels cold and it smells faintly of orange-flower water or furniture polish--a little of both. I spent a great part of the day reading Theocritus and, late last night, happening upon our only Sainte-Beuve, I found the first essay was all about him. What I admire so much in your criticism--your courteous manner: Sainte-Beuve has it to perfection.

Do not worry about me. I am not in the least frightened, but if Campbell abuses me too heartily, tell him 'I am not one of a malignant nature, but have a quiet temper'.*

It's a spring day. The femme de menage is cleaning the windows and I've had a bath.

Take care of yourself.
Tig

*a translation of a fragment of Sappho.

-from Katherine Mansfield's Letters to John Middleton Murray 1913-1922

edited by John Middleton Murray (London: Constable & Co., 1951, 1958)p.9

Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murray had moved to Paris for her health and to save money, but John had to return to London to face a bankruptcy hearing concerning the failure of his literary magazine and he was staying with mutual friends the Campbells.