BRACERS Record Detail for 17135
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Lytton's [Strachey] beard.
"I wrote to [G.F.] Stout on the nature of truth, in answer to a criticism of me which he sent me about six weeks ago.... Probably Stout will answer and it will go on for ever." Reading The Idiot.
Carlyle.
He "destroyed your letters to Paris, because you had not yet told P." [Philip Morrell; see also #30, record 17092, where BR says he has them all.] and BR was afraid of being run over.
BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [12 MAY 1911]
BRACERS 17135. ALS. Morrell papers #65, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.
Trinity College1, 2
Friday night
My Dearest
I find a curious pleasure in writing on your note-paper, as if it held some of the joy of the letters you write on it. I wonder whether you have been having very terrific thunder-storms on your journey. Here it has been hot and heavy. At 2.30 I had a meeting of Moral Science lecturers to arrange the lectures for next term, and — oh shame! — while they were discussing the momentous question whether Myers’sa lectures should be called Psychology or Experimental Psychology, I went to sleep — they were still discussing it when I woke up.
I have seen Lytton’s beard, which is grown quite handsome! I had a great crowd to tea — Lytton and Jimbo, Moore, etc, and my poor Frenchman who had seen me with Madame and understands only a few words of English. After tea I polished up some odds and ends that I have neglected shamefully for weeks — notably I wrote to Stout on the Nature of Truth, in answer to a criticism of me which he sent me about six weeks ago, and which I ought to have answered at once. My views on the Nature of Truth are peculiar, and have rather shocked most of the philosophers. But lately I have found it so hard to settle down to any job of that sort if it could be postponed. However, now I have done that job — but probably Stout will answer and it will go on for ever.
I am finding The Idiot interesting, and I feel I like the author, which is important with me if I am to get on with a book. I am reading the Keats and the Carlyle too — so as I get very little time for reading, my progress is slow. I am delighting in getting back to Carlyle — he is so alive and so interesting — not lovable I think, because he is cruel and envious. Darling, it is delicious having books from you to read — I find a pleasure in touching them and a pleasure in seeing the inscription. I don’t know what to give you next — you have such a number of the books I like. — It is delightful having had you here, and being able to see you in my rooms. — I want you to consider seriously whether we could some time go away for a couple of nights or so to some country inn — perhaps not in a specially nice place, because we should risk meeting acquaintances, but anywhere where it is pleasant and we could have real freedom. It would be so heavenly — and we should both get away from our ties and forget them. — Next time you go to Paris, I hope Lamb will not be there and I shall be able to go too. I feel abroad together would be wonderful, even if it were Paris which I don’t love. How I wished for you when I was in Paris seven weeks ago. I could hardly believe then that it had really happened — your letters seemed to make it real — and yet it seemed incredible. And having so much to do in Paris made it all more unreal. I had no real belief that it would turn out to be real, and that was the reason both for my violence and for my readiness to give it all up. I didn’t really believe it till Studland — since then I have felt certain that it is lifelong. I am always afraid you will come upon the dusty pedantic side of me, but I dare say that will be all right.
Out of excess of virtue I destroyed your letters to Paris, because you had not yet told P., and I thought if I should happen to be run over by a motor or anything, it would be a waste to have letters of yours discovered on me. It is a pity, because I know they were very nice letters. Now I pass straight from “My dear Mr. Russell” to the note you gave me at Guildford that awful day. I didn’t really mind that day so much as the days that followed — that day I thought you would yield. Then I saw you wouldn’t; and then I acquiesced, and admitted you were right. It was that time that made the depth of my love, and made it great and universal and one with all the beauty of the world — so I am glad it all happened. Otherwise I might never have given you all that you deserve and I am capable of. — Darling, this must be posted. I love you Dearest — with the deepest religion and the most utter naturalness combined.
Moore has come — I must stop.
Your loving
B.
Textual Notes
- a
Myers’s written over indecipherable name
