12 October 1921

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

Oh, how I saw that awful party at the Wells. Beginning with Ottoline on the stairs in that mood! What a nightmare. I have a perfect horror of such affairs! They are always the same. One has to be encased in vanity like a beetle to escape being hurt. And the ghastly thing is they are so hard to forget; one lives them over and over. Dont go to them, my dear. You are too delicate. But whats the use of saying that; there are times when one has to go. Its difficult to see what compensations there are in city life. I think the best plan is to live away from them and then, when one has done a good deal of work and wants a holiday - take a real holiday in a place like Paris or Madrid or even London (but not for me London). It is nice sometimes to be with many people & to hear music and to be ‘overcome' by a play & to watch dancing. Walking in streets is nice, too. But one always wants to have an avenue of escape. One wants to feel a stranger for these things to have their charm, and - most important of all - one wants to have a solid body of work behind one. The longer I live the more I realise that in work only lies ones strength and ones salvation. And such supreme joy that one gives thanks for life with every breath.

[To Dorothy Brett, Collected Letters, 15 October 1921.]