Margaret Harrison to Harwood Lathom
May 4th, 1929
Petra darling,
Oh, how wonderful it was, darling, to see you again, even under the Gorgon’s eye—such a cold stony eye, darling, and with all those people around. I had been dead all through those dreadful months. When you went away, I felt as if the big frost had got right into my heart. Do you know, it made me laugh when the pipes froze up in the bathroom and we couldn’t get any water and He was so angry. I thought if he only knew I was just like that inside, and when the terrible numb feeling had passed off, something would snap in me, too. Was that a foolish thing to think, Petra? Not a very poetical idea, I am afraid, but I wished I could have told it to you and heard your big, lovely laugh at your Darling Donkey!
Oh, Petra, we can’t go on like this, can we? I couldn’t go through those long, long weeks again without seeing or hearing you, not so much as your dear untidy writing on an envelope. And, darling, it was so dreadful to hear you say you couldn’t work without your Inspiration, because your work is so wonderful and so important. Why should He stand between you and what God meant you to do? The life we live here is so cramped and useless; the only way I can fulfil any great purpose is in being a little help in your divine work of creation. It is so wonderful to know that one can really be of use—part of the beauty you make and spread all about you. It isn’t even as if I counted for anything in His work. A woman can’t be an inspiration for an electrical profit and loss account, or a set of estimates, can she? He doesn’t think so, anyway. He just wants to have me in a cage to look at, darling—not even to love. He