18 Jul 1921

18 July 1921

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

My dear Brett,
I have been wanting to write to you for ever so long. The difficulty has been to know where to catch you. If you were not at your Paris hotel I knew from experience the letter would never be sent on & I couldn't decide whether to chance sending direct to the Pyrenees. I shall send this to Paris & hope for the best. We have been very interested to hear of your experiences. I somehow feel you haven't really enjoyed it much. Thats in my heart of hearts. Perhaps one hasn't any right to intrude into these intimate places. But you know the feeling? As though it has all been very delightful but the fly has been there in the amber. Was Mrs D. the fly, perhaps? But you say so much of what youve seen and little of what you - you yourself are feeling. Will you be glad to be back in your own studio? After all?
   We couldn't help feeling just a little superior about your mountains. We are living on tops that are over 5,000 feet high and the only way to get here is to be drawn out of the valley up the sheer side in a little glass carriage that pauses and winds and sways like a spider in mid air. It is divinely beautiful up here. We have a small - not very small house in a forest clearing. The trees are only a few yards away. Theres no fence - nothing that separates us from them but a little rocky lawn covered with grass and wild pinks and yellow tufty plants.

[To Dorothy Brett in Collected Letters, 25 July, 1921.]