BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [1 APR. 1911]
BRACERS 17067. ALS. Morrell papers #13, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell and A.G. Bone

In the train <to Fernhurst>, 
Sat. morning.1^, 2

My Dearest

I shall hope to find a letter at Fernhurst. The Whiteheads have no room to put me up, so I sleep out, and this morning I have not been to their house.

I am going to try gradually to tell you of things that have been important to me — meeting so seldom, we shall not get to learn each other’s circumstances unless by writing. Not that anything really matters while our love is happy, still we ought to share as much of our lives as we can. — Until fairly lately, I should have wished to tell Crompton — but apart from his marriage (which would of course make it out of the question) he had grown indifferent to me in a way I never quite understood. He was nearly my best friend at College; then when I married I became indifferent — he always hated Alys, and I saw little of him for years. When I became unhappy, I turned to him and got a passionate devotion, with the tenderness of a mother. I told him of my unhappiness with Alys. Then came the death of Theodore, whom I loved only less than Crompton. I feared Crompton would never be alive again in heart and mind, because Theodore was all in all to him. I went to Crompton and gave him everything I could to mitigate his loneliness. We went abroad, to the Frys first and then the Whiteheads. Roger was no good — he is too soft for the tragedies of passionate people. But Crompton was very fond of Helen — whom I never knew well — and we were both devoted to the Whiteheads. It was a terrible time — I felt I had given out so much that I hardly knew how to go on — but his devotion and his gradual return to life repaid all. Then slowly and imperceptibly he hardened and closed up — he remained friendly, but no more. To most people, I kept a cheerful exterior, but I felt it would be a sin against affection to seem to him in any way different from what I really was. I think he thought it was a lack of pluck to show pain. At any rate for the last two years or so I have lost him completely. He is passionate and sincere, and rightly will not make the slightest shadow of pretence to anything he is not feeling. A tragedy to either — or at least to him — might draw us together again, but nothing else would. We are only fully congenial when both are strongly moved. Suffering makes me simple, but at most times I have complications and intellectualities which he dislikes, because they seem to him fine-drawn and not direct enough. I suffered much in losing him, because his affection has a rare beauty, and because he is one of those who are born to sorrow, whom one’s heart aches to help, to give comradeship on the lonely road. Now I fear he has lost us all and gained nothing. It is all rather terrible.

Now Dearest we are coming to Guildford where this must be posted, so I must stop. My heart is full of a song of joy and reverence — you shine before me like the glory of the rising sun. I feel as if such happiness were almost too great to be borne — I could weep like a child from sheer joy. Goodbye my heart.

B.

• 1

  [document] Document 000013. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

• 2

  [envelope] A circled “13”. The Lady Ottoline Morrell | 44 Bedford Square | London W.C. Pmk: GUILFORD | 11: 15 AM | APR 11. Ottoline noted on the verso: “About Crompton”.