Katherine Mansfield, The Woman Behind The Books (Including Letters, Journals, Essays & Articles). Katherine Mansfield

THE first five letters were written from Cholesbury in Buckinghamshire where Katherine Mansfield and I rented a red-brick cottage during the summer of 1913. The Blue Review, mentioned in some of the letters, was a magazine which lasted for three months (May-July 1913). I believe it is now very rare. Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, the poet, assisted in editing it. K. M. contributed to it three sketches called Epilogues and a story, Millie. These have been re-published in Something Childish, and other Stories, pp. 90–127.

Cholesbury — Summer 1913 —

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Cholesbury

Summer 1913

To J. M. Murry

YES, Friday will be fun. I am beginning to ‘pretend’ that you are a sailor—trading with all sorts of savages from Monday until Friday and that The Blue Review is your schooner and Secker the Fish Eyed Pilot. Could you not write a long—complicated—extremely—insulting—symbolical—serial round that idea with minute, obscene descriptions of the savage tribes …? Thank you for Pa's letter. He was cheerful and poetic, but very loving. I feel towards my Pa-man like a little girl. I want to jump and stamp on his chest and cry “You've got to love me.” When he says he does, I feel quite confident that God is on my side.

It is raining again to-day, and last night the wind howled and I gloomed and shivered, and heard locks being filed and ladders balanced against windows and footsteps padding upstairs … all the old properties jigged in the old way. I'm a lion all day, darling, but with the last point of daylight I begin to turn into a lamb and by midnight—mon Dieu! by midnight the whole world has turned into a butcher!

Summer 1913

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Summer 1913

… THE postman knocked into my dream with your letter and the back door key. I had locked myself in three times three with Mrs. G.'s key, but I am glad you sent me ours.

I have begun the story and meant to finish it this evening: it feels pretty good to me.

Oh, dear! I am afraid W. is having his birthday cake far too soon—like all our young men (except you and me). What a surprise for them when we sit down at the heads of their tables—all among their cake crumbs and groaning tummies—you, with a laurel wreath on your darling head, and me trailing a perfectly becoming cloud of glory.

… Pride is a charming, sheltering tree: but don't think I'm resting in it. I'm only standing underneath with my eyes turned up for a moment's grace.

Last night Mrs. G. and I had a glass of dandelion wine, and over it I heard how Mrs. Brown's petticoat had dropped off in the hurdle race “King Edward's Coronation time.” Such goings on!

Good-bye for to-day. “Not tomorrow, not the next day, but the next.” Tell me what train you are coming by. I cannot quite believe that you are coming back here. I feel … quite alone and as if I were writing to someone in the air—so strange.

Summer 1913

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Summer 1913

I'VE nursed the Epilogue to no purpose. Every time I pick it up and hear “You'll keep it to six,” I can't cut it. To my knowledge there aren't any superfluous words: I mean every line of it. I don't “just ramble on” you know, but this thing happened to just fit six and a half pages. You can't cut it without making an ugly mess somewhere. I'm a powerful stickler for form in this style of work. I hate the sort of licence that English people give themselves … to spread over and flop and roll about. I feel as fastidious as though I wrote with acid. All of which will seem, I suppose unconvincing and exaggeration. I can only express my sincerest distress (which I do truly feel) and send you the Epilogue back. If you and Wilfrid feel more qualified for the job…. Oh, do by all means—But I'd rather it wasn't there at all than sitting in The Blue Review with a broken nose and one ear as though it had jumped into an editorial dog-fight. It's a queer day, with flickers of sun. The Epilogue has worried me no end: and I can still hear, tossing about, the aftermath of that thunder. “It's not fair. Swinnerton can do it … you've got to cut it”… etc., etc. Can't you cut a slice off the D. Brown? I really am more interesting than he is—modest though I be….

P.S.—Don't think of this letter. I'm frightfully depressed to-day … sad beyond words.

Summer 1913

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