BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [9 APR. 1911]
BRACERS 17083. ALS. Morrell papers #25, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell and A.G. Bone

Fernhurst1^, 2
Sunday night.

My Dearest Dearest

At last everybody is gone to bed and I am left with you. All day long your very dear letters have been in my thoughts — I am so thankful you are in the country and free from all the worry and bustle and fatigue of London. It is hard to keep to one’s real thoughts when one is utterly tired out — and now the country is lovely — the early spring is so full of poetry — I love to watch the little leaves day by day, and listen for the birds, and look for early bluebells, and it is nice to think you are enjoying it too.

If Easter Tuesday is really possible, it will be only nine more days. You must let me know the earliest time I may come and the latest I may go. Darling, I long for complete union — I hardly dare to let myself think of it — it is almost beyond what I can bear — I feel such a vast flood of love —

Today we had a visit from Miss Silcox, the headmistress of Southwold school. I don’t know whether you know her — she is a friend of Miss Stawell and the Sangers. She is a very nice woman — her nature is sweet and generous through and through. At most times I should have looked forward to seeing her with a great deal of pleasure — today I quite forgot she was coming till Alys reminded me. But it was pleasant seeing her when she did come. Karin and her friends make one feel terribly elderly and staid — their jokes seem so young, and their whole outlook so remote. One of them, Miss Mirrlees, is remarkably clever, but very self-centred. Why do clever people so seldom have satisfactory characters? I hardly ever find that I have as much in common with very intellectual people as with people who are simpler in their outlook on life. One has so much superficial talk in common with them that it is sometimes misleading, but all the things I really care about I find it impossible to mention to them. It is odd.

I quite agree with all you say about Alys, as you will know from my other letters. She is I think now loyally anxious to do her part. And I dare say it is right in itself that I should be with her sometimes, since she wishes it. I always find it hard to understand the wish to keep up a pretence, but I know I am too ruthless with anything that has grown unreal. At any rate, I will not break with her. I feel I have grown hard towards her, but it is because she has so often wrung me dry by emotional appeals which moved me in spite of an element of insincerity — not in the suffering, but in the manner of expressing it.

Dearest, there is no vital difference between us as regards religion. It is true that I shall sometimes publicly attack things which you believe, but it will be for the sake of other things that you will also believe. It is my business in life to do my best to discover the truth about such things, and to explain what I have come to think, and why. I do not think it matters so much what people believe, as how they believe it. People who are speculatively minded cannot believe honestly anything they have not tested by every possible test — and a belief which is not honest is poisonous. Among philosophers, belief seems to me generally purchased by some sacrifice of truthfulness, and so I find myself combating it. But it interests me far more to try to preserve what I value than to attack what I disagree with. Only, I think the absolutely fearless pursuit of truth is the first condition of right living for me and for all who spend much time on abstract thought. And so attacking what seems to me comfortable fictions is bound up with my positive beliefs, and has to be done along with the rest. But you will know the spirit in which I do it, and you will not mind, will you, Dearest? I think if we could both get at what we really value in religion, without accidental additions, we should find very little difference. Only I think man has to learn to stand alone, and uphold his ideals without the aid of any outside Power, and I want to make people feel that this can be done. I don’t know yet what I can do, and for some time to come I shall be fully taken up with work I have already undertaken. But with time I shall hope for some result, and if any result comes, your inspiration will have been the cause.

Now Dearest I must go to bed. Tomorrow I go to London for the day. I shall be able to write to you in the train, but if my carriage is full, it will be a dull letter. I am terribly conscious of other people — it is a weakness, but I suppose it goes with other things.

Goodnight, my Ottoline, my Dearest, my loved one. I count the moments till we can be together — the joy of your love fills my heart.

B.

• 1

  [document] Document 000025. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

• 2

  [envelope] A circled “25”. The Lady Ottoline Morrell | Cliff End | Studland | Dorset. Pmk: WOKING 1 | PM | AP 10 | 11. On the verso: WAREHAM | 2.30AM | AP 11 | ?