22 Aug 1921

22 August 1921

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

Dearest Brett,
  I would have written before but the Furies have had me until today. Something quite new for a change - high fever, deadly sickness and weakness. I haven't been able to lift my head from the pillow. I think it has been a breakdown from too much work. I have felt exhausted with all those stories lately & yet - couldn't stop. Well, there has been a stop now & I am just putting forth my horns again & thinking of climbing up the hill . . . How I do abominate any kind of illness! Oh God, what it is to live in such a body! Well, it doesn't bear thinking about . . . As soon as I can get well enough to go downstairs I shall engage our one original cab & go for a long drive behind the old carthorse with his jingle-bells. The driver - as a great honour - throws the foot mat over the seat when one goes for a party of pleasure. He seems to think that is very chic! But this is such a beautiful country. Oh! It is so marvellous. Never the same - the air like old, still wine - sounds of bells & birds and grasshoppers playing their fiddles & the wind shaking the trees. It rains & the drops in the fir trees afterwards are so flashing-bright & burning that one feels all is enchanted. It is cloudy - we live in fine white clouds for days & then suddenly at night all is crystal clear & the moon has gold wings.

[To Dorothy Brett, Collected Letters, 29 August 1921.]