Monday
My darling,
I have found the dearest little cottage in Hampshire, it is quite cheap, and as pretty as you can imagine, with a garden filled with fruit trees, and a sheltering hedge. It might be cold in winter but we shan’t be there then. It has a bedroom for us, and another bedroom and a little room for Dodo, and a sitting room and a shed we could use as a shared studio. I will work on my cycle about Christian redemption, and you will produce many more landscapes, and perhaps a portrait of me – you’ve never done one, you know.
I’ve taken the house for six months and I am going there whether you come or not.
Imagine how happy we shall be. I shall hold you in my arms and smother you in kisses, while the branches beat against the windows on stormy nights. In the morning we will go out into our little Paradise, and eat freshly baked bread under the apple trees, naked if the sun is shining.
On consideration, it might be best if Dodo stayed with her grandmother some of the time, don’t you think? We need to get to know each other again completely.
I have sold a painting – hurrah, hurrah – that big one of Camden Market (£30). I know you have sold most of your drawings, I suppose you have a great deal of money. Obviously you know how to please the public. Thank you for sending me your reviews, I’ve not read them all, but the piece by Clive Bell was excellent. It sounds as though the critics are alarmed by your work, I think probably they find it too strong. English critics are so timid.
Love from Snake