Edward and Edna

Edward Thomas died at the battle of Arras, in France, in April of 1917. He was thirty-nine years old.  

In this picture, he looks intense, suspicious, soulful, possibly even poetic, -- but not the suffering-soul-kind of poet. When he joined the military, he transformed himself into the stereotype of an officer. The new "look" was not a success, in my opinion.

Before he went off to the war, Edward Thomas conducted a flirtation and possibly an affair but more probably what they called in those inhibited days a "romantic friendship" with Edna Clarke Hall. She was a beautiful, intelligent woman, an artist. Here she is looking positively post-Pre-Raphaelite.

 

And here again -- youthful, delicate and glowing.

After Edward died, his wife Helen, herself a gifted, attractive and certainly long-suffering woman,  wrote to Edna. "Why wasn't I beautiful to Edward? Oh, I did so long for your beauty not to take it from him, not take but give, to have hair & eyes & mouth & that something else....  I remember you so clearly standing for all I longed to have to give him."

I am moved by Helen's grief and also by her generosity.

Edna Clarke Hall died at age 100 in 1979. 

Comments

[Robert Roeder]

Thank you so much for posting this information. I knew of Edward Thomas because of my interest in the War Poets and artists/writers who participated in WWI (or died in it). I also had the portrait of Edna Clark Hall (the side-glancing one)among my digital collection of Victorian & Edwardian women but had no name attached to it. I always thought it was a very lovely image but never knew who she was and, obviously, knew nothing of her connection to Thomas.

[Sarah]

Yes that is touching and generous. I think the same qualities apply to Edward's poem to Helen, which I'm sure you know.

And you, Helen, what should I give you?
So many things I would give you
Had I an infinite great store
Offered me and I stood before
To choose. I would give you youth,
All kinds of loveliness and truth,
A clear eye as good as mine,
Lands, waters, flowers, wine,
As many children as your heart
Might wish for, a far better art
Than mine can be, all you have lost
Upon the travelling waters tossed,
Or given to me. If I could choose
Freely in that great treasure-house
Anything from any shelf,
I would give you back yourself,
And power to discriminate
What you want and want it not too late,
Many fair days free from care
And heart to enjoy both foul and fair,
And myself, too, if I could find
Where it lay hidden and it proved kind.