December 2010
29 posts
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“I went out into the gentle rain & saw the rainbow. It deepens, it shone down...”
– from Mansfield’s Notebooks
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My Dear Virginia
Please don’t talk of a triumph, even in jest. It makes me hang my head. I wish some day I might deserve your long generous letter - but the day is far off, I realise that. Thank you for it all the same. It came on Xmas day too, and so was a two-fold gift. I think of you often - very often. I long to talk to you. Here, at last then is time to talk. If Virginia were to come through the gate...
Christmas 1922
kmatchristmas:
to J. Middleton Murry 20/12/1922 Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, Fontainebleau, France
What is the weather like with you? It’s so soft and spring-like here that actually pink roses are out. So are the Christmas roses under the espalier pear-trees. I love Christmas; I shall always feel it is a holy time. I wonder if dear old Hardy will write a poem this year.
...
Christmas 1921
kmatchristmas:
to Lady Ottoline Morrell 27/12/1921 Chalet Les Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland
How lovely the handkerchiefs are with the little swans sailing round them. They arrived on Christmas Day its very self, too. You know how one watches for that Christmas post at this distance — I was in bed too, which made my longing even more fearful. I had to wait until someone crept up the...
Christmas 1920
kmatchristmas:
to Dorothy Brett 22/12/1920 Villa Isola Bella, Menton, France
I wonder where you will be for Christmas. Having [Murry] with me has turned it into a fete. My treasured Marie is determined that Christmas shall be kept well and bought The Mistletoe all in readiness for the arrival of Monsieur. The kitchen is a progression of still lives from a poor dead bird leaning its tired head...
Christmas 1919
kmatchristmas:
to Dorothy Brett 20/12/1919 Casetta Deerholm, Ospedaletti, Italy
I’ve been ill with pneumonia, and too wretched to write. Forgive me. I have thought of you so often. And I want to thank you for the photographs, to talk about them. I will, at length, now I am ‘better’. Now [Murry] has brought over his exquisite little coals for Xmas from you — So lovely. Such gay greetings. Thank...
“…She took hold of his head by the ears and gave him a quick kiss. Her faint...”
– Katherine Mansfield, Bliss: Prelude (via cathykangaroo)
Christmas 1918
kmatchristmas:
to Lady Ottoline Morrell, 2/12/1918 2, Portland Villas, East Heath Road, Hampstead, London
M & I have been for a walk on the Heath today — The gorse is in bud. I have taken such a turn that I feel inclined to turn Catherine wheels at least—
It would be lovely to come to Garsington for Christmas — but I am afraid I’d better not — dearest. I might be such a nuisance —...
Christmas 1917
kmatchristmas:
to Lady Ottoline Morrell 18/12/1917 141a Church Street, Chelsea, London
I am so sorry. But I shall not be able to come to Garsington for Christmas. My medicine man simply refuses to let me travel, under any circumstances, anywhere. So I shall have to stay here under the shadow of the Rhodesian Mountain [Ida Baker]. with fondest love, ever, Katherine
Meanwhile, with Murry at...
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“I solemnly assure you I am afraid of NOTHING. I mean that. I do not want to die...”
– from a letter to husband, John Middleton Murry
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“I told you to be free - because I meant it. What happens in your personal life...”
– from a letter to husband, John Middleton Murry
Christmas 1916
kmatchristmas:
I didn’t have access to any direct letters or journal entries for this year’s Christmas, but Antony Alpers’ excellent The Life of Katherine Mansfield helps to fill in the blanks.
KM and Murry were invited to Garsington Manor in Oxfordshire, then home to Lady Ottoline Morrell, where they arrived on Saturday, 23 December, spending Christmas along with various other figures...
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Christmas 1915
kmatchristmas:
to S. S. Koteliansky 24/12/1915 (“nearly the end of the year”) Bandol
I am very happy here. The place is so beautiful and the sun shines — or it doesn’t — There is the sea and a wild beautiful cost — and behind the village there are woods and mountains. Already I have so many ‘secret’ places — The people are awfully nice too. They are honest; one can be oneself with them. You...
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“But what I do believe with my whole soul is that one’s outlook is the...”
– Mansfield, 1920
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Christmas 1914
kmatchristmas:
to Annie Burnell Beauchamp 15/12/1914 Rose Tree Cottage, The Lee, Buckinghamshire
My darling little mother, It is very cold. We have had several falls of snow and the ground is frozen hard, but I love such weather at Christmas time. We having a Christmas party at our friends the Lawrences on Christmas Eve, and the Cannans are giving a dinner with Charades to follow on Christmas...
Christmas 1913
kmatchristmas:
to Charlotte Beauchamp Perkins 22/12/1913 31 Rue de Tournon, Paris
My dearest Marie, The weather is icy, but Paris is beautiful. Everything is white & every morning the sun shines & shines all day until it finally disappears in a pink sky. The fountains are just a bubble in their basins of ice — And now the little green Xmas booths are lining the streets — I am going to...
rockingliketwoolddrunkards asked: Hullo, just thought I'd let you know about a little new project I'm doing via Tumblr: kmatchristmas.tumblr.com A few snippets of letters and journals each day, corresponding to a year between 1913-1922 referring to how and where KM spent Christmas. As such, it'll only last a week or so, and the first post went up today. Hope you like it :)
What's Your Favorite Katherine Mansfield story?
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Short Story: The Doll's House
When dear old Mrs. Hay went back to town after staying with the Burnells she sent the children a doll’s house. It was so big that the carter and Pat carried it into the courtyard, and there it stayed, propped up on two wooden boxes beside the feed-room door. No harm could come to it; it was summer. And perhaps the smell of paint would have gone off by the time it had to be taken in. For,...
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Margaret Drabble reads "The Doll's House" by... →
“When one is older one can appreciate the economy of the narration, the symbolism of the doll’s house, the bloody horror of the leaking jam sandwiches, the subtle relationship of the two sisters and the snobbery of the adults, but it is the unbearable poignancy of that last line, «I seen the little lamp», that continues to haunt. I still have dreams about being shunned in the...
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““Then you’re just like me,” said Henry. The wonder of that was so great that he...”
– Something Childish but Very Natural
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“It’s people that make things so — silly. As long as you can keep away from them...”
– Something Childish but Very Natural
solidair:
Twelve Tales of Christmas is a podcast just launched by The Guardian featuring modern authors, such as Jeanette Winterson, Ali Smith, Colm Toíbin and Julian Barnes, reading one of their favorite short stories, by authors including JG Ballard, Katherine Mansfield, Italo Calvino, Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver. A story will be posted daily for the next 12 days. The first author and...
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“My God!” he cried, “what fools people are! All the little pollies that you know...”
– Something Childish but Very Natural
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“Have you ever been in love before?”
“No, never! Have you?”
“Oh, never in all...”
– Something Childish but Very Natural
“Sunlight darted through the glass roof of the station in long beams of blue and...”
– Something Childish but Very Natural
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“I shall never see sex in trees, sex in running brooks, sex in stones and sex in...”
– Katherine Mansfield, on D.H. Lawrence (via falsifications)
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