May

May is a recurring seasonal image in Christabel LaMotte’s letters, where spring’s beauty becomes inseparable from thresholds, prohibition, and imaginative desire. A hawthorn in bloom gives the month a particular sensory presence, while the rule that May must not be brought into the house makes it a figure for an alluring presence kept outside.

The Hawthorn and Its Forbidden Beauty

Writing of a hawthorn in full bloom, LaMotte describes its branches as heavy with pink and creamy flowers and its almond scent as so sweet that it makes the senses ache. She refuses to say where the tree stands or how young, old, large, or small it is, deliberately leaving its precise form to the correspondent’s imagination. The withholding matters: the imagined tree is not simply a substitute for the real one but a deliberately protected image, at once paradisal and dangerous.

The prohibition against bringing May into the house gives this description its tension. May is vivid and desirable, yet remains outside domestic space; its exclusion preserves the distinction between what may be imagined and what may be admitted. The seasonal image therefore carries more than the pleasure of spring blossom: it makes beauty itself feel like a boundary-crossing temptation.

May as a Threshold Presence

LaMotte later describes her thoughts as having spent months in her friend’s company, adding that where her thoughts are, there she is in truth—even if, like May, she can be only a presence on a threshold, by decree. The comparison makes May an emblem of closeness without entry. It joins the intimate life of thought and correspondence to the flower’s barred position: presence is real, but access is restricted.

That threshold image also links May to the rules that shape LaMotte’s account of place and desire. The month is not merely a point in the calendar; it names a condition in which someone or something can be near, imagined, and intensely felt while still being kept outside. Its recurrence gives seasonal language an emotional and spatial function, connecting the flowering hawthorn to the limits imposed on intimacy.

Seasonal Image and Imaginative Freedom

May’s significance depends on the contrast between concrete detail and deliberate absence. The blooms and almond scent are closely specified, but the tree’s location and dimensions are withheld. Similarly, the threshold presence is described as genuine while remaining subject to a decree. In both instances, the writing invites the reader to imagine what is not fully available without claiming that the barrier has disappeared.

The image thus holds attraction and restraint together. May can be brought near through scent, memory, and correspondence, but its forbidden passage into the house remains intact. As a result, it becomes a compact expression of the letters’ larger imaginative movement: intimacy is sustained at the edge of entry, where longing gains force from the boundary that keeps it there.