BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [22 APR. 1911]
BRACERS 17102. ALS. Morrell papers #37, Texas. SLBR 1: #165
Edited by N. Griffin. Proofread by K. Blackwell and A.G. Bone

<letterhead>
Trinity College,
Cambridge.1^, 2
Sat. evening.

My Dearest Dearest

Your lovely letter reached me here almost immediately after I arrived, when I was still opening my other letters. It was a joy to have it. No, I hardly feel yet that we are parted, and I go about with such a sense of happiness that I can hardly contain it. Everybody here meets me with something that they consider a tale of woe — from a threatening of consumption to sea-sickness in the Channel — and I feel quite out of it, having no woes to produce.3 One man I met was cheerful — Professor Hobson4 (brother of the economist), who is not lecturing this term, the first time for 32 years. What a life! — I have been struggling with the material world, finding my room without a carpet through some error, and having to search out where the carpet was — buying food etc., unpacking, and generally altering the position of matter in space — a form of activity I dislike, because it achieves nothing important. I have been cunning, and have arranged, with the full concurrence of the authorities, to give only two lectures a week, supplemented by individual teaching. The result is that I shall be able to come to London sometimes without having to put off a lecture. This is very desirable.

The only odd letter I received this morning was from an American named Henderson, the Professor of Pure Mathematics in the University of North Carolina [which apparently exists], and the author of a life of Shaw which he has sent me.5 He is tall and lank, and appeared late at my first lecture, saying “Please Sir, I’m from North Carolina”. I don’t think he learnt much.

When you come, or sooner if you like, I can give you various unsuccessful attempts at writing, mixed up with private reflections, that I made nine years ago.6 You will see just how they fail, and why I had to give it up. The only point of your reading them would be to see how they fail.

I have refused today an invitation from the Astronomer Royal of Ireland to go to Dublin and lecture for a term. I told him my duties here unfortunately forbade my going — but I reflected that even duties may sometimes be convenient.

Your pen is delightful — I am using it now. I wish it would write your thoughts for me, but it is sadly subservient, and expresses itself just as if it had never been yours.

This place is very much where the civilized half of me belongs. I love the courts and the willows, and my own rooms, and the feeling that the things of the intellect are respected here. But the other half of me is restive under the restraint and the artificiality and the absence of anything like real life; and the timidity of mind and body that dons suffer from always seems to me rather pitiful — they never view life as an adventure, except when they are really immoral. The quiet courts, shut in and allowing no horizon, really suit them. It is a pity — a little adventurousness would improve their work enormously.

Now Dearest I must stop for the present — I will finish my letter later, after dinner.

Later. Una Birch has sent me her book on Secret Societies and the French Revolution,7 parts of which I have read in the form of separate articles. I never can quite make out why she is not more interesting. Her feelings are strong and genuine, and her mind is very fair. But the trail of the Spectator or rather the Edinburgh Review is over all her thoughts, so that they are never vivid or illuminating. I think that although she feels strongly about her own affairs, she does not feel strongly about historical things, and she has very little imagination — that must be the reason.

I have been talking at dinner and since with McTaggart, but without getting much of interest out of him. I rather resent the hold that this place and work (which belongs with the place) have on me; habit is so strong that work gets hold of me even more than it need. — Have you seen that there is a thing by Mrs Whitehead in this week’s Nation?8 She has been expecting it for some time, but it was delayed. It seemed to me to have great merit.

Dearest, you have given me greater happiness than I had ever known or imagined. All the world is filled with splendour by the thought of you. After I had stopped writing to you this afternoon, I went out to see the sunset and hear the birds — everything seemed a thousand times more beautiful than other springs — the daffodils and young lime leaves and thrushes and the sky and the meadows — it all seemed transfigured. Darling, I am so glad you found you could speak to me of things that have been important in your life — all about the boy that died, and all you have felt and not felt about Julian — I was very glad you cared to speak of it. You need never mind speaking of Philip whenever you wish to. Dearest, your love seems to me absolutely perfect — I cannot imagine a more perfect love. I can still feel your arms and your kiss and see your beauty and hear your voice. Absence is not difficult till I have lost that — as yet I can live over again every moment of the three days. Now goodbye my Beloved. My love is increased a thousandfold by the three days, by knowing you more completely, and by the utter joy of our perfect union. Goodbye my Ottoline. I am yours in every thought.

B.

• 1

  [document] Document 000037. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

• 2

  [envelope] A circled “37”. The Lady Ottoline Morrell | Cliff End | Studland | Dorset. Pmk: CAMBRIDGE | 4 AM | AP 23 | 11 | 21. On the verso: WAREHAM | 9.45AM | AP 24 | 11

• 3

  having no woes to produce Ottoline had still not been told about the cancer scare.

• 4

  Professor Hobson Ernest William Hobson (1856–1933), Sadleirian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. His more famous brother was John Atkinson Hobson (1858–1940), an important economist who never held an academic position.

• 5

  Henderson … author of a life of Shaw which he has sent me Archibald Henderson (1877–1963) was a research student at Cambridge 1910–11. His G.B. Shaw: His Life and Works (1911) was the first of several books he wrote on Shaw. He wrote voluminously also on American history and literature, but little on mathematics.

• 6

  various unsuccessful attempts at writing … nine years ago Some at least of these pieces survive among Ottoline’s papers. They are published as 2 in Papers 12; the “private reflections” may be 1, BR’s 1902–05 journal also in her papers. He sent them with letter 43C on 26 April, record 17110.

• 7

  Una Birch has sent me her book on Secret Societies and the French Revolution Una Constance Birch, later Dame Una Pope-Hennessy (1876–1949), author of several books on history, travel, and literature. Secret Societies and the French Revolution was published in 1911.

• 8

  thing by Mrs Whitehead in this week’s NationA sentimental short story, “Suspense”, published in TheNation, 9 (22 April 1911): 125–6. It describes the thoughts of a husband as his wife lay dying.