BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [15 MAY 1911]
BRACERS 17140. ALS. Morrell papers #68A, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.

out of doors
Trinity College,
Cambridge.1^, 2
Monday aftn.

My Beloved Ottoline

I was glad to get your letter of yesterday. It didn’t come till I was at luncheon, when I had given up hope of any letter till the evening or tomorrow — it was a joy to have it. Your being in Paris seems to have affected you as it has me — it makes one more dependent on letters. It is a dear letter, my Darling. I shall be sorry if you have taken all that journey without getting the good of it in the way of talks with Madame Anrap, but I am glad Lamb is reasonable and is showing his good side.

Yesterday I had a very pleasant luncheon with Goldie. Mayor and Dora Sanger and a Mrs Berry were there — Mrs Berry is a stern Baptist, with all the life crushed out by centuries of Puritanism — estimable, but I think morally conceited. Dora generally stays with her when she comes to Cambridge. I liked Dora, as I always do when I see her.

After the ladies were gone we had a long discussion as to whether the intellect is the only means of attaining truth — I yes, Goldie No, Mayor slightly no, but not decidedly. You would have been against me. Goldie, as usual, defended mystical illumination. I said it was mere illusion. Then we talked about Mrs Stawell, who was here on Friday reading about her disc. I did not know in time that she was coming. Mayor, I believe, was for many years in love with her — perhaps is still. His difficulty would be that one would feel a refusal would not destroy his serenity. — Then I went on to Newnham to tea with Pippa Strachey — found Dora again, Miss Harrison, Karin, Lytton, Margery, and Ellie Rendell — so there was no dearth of Stracheys — I like Lytton’s beard. Margery has to teach current politics to a class of girls at a girls’ school. We got discussing how women could be led to value liberty, which they rarely do at present. I like Margery, tho’ I find most people don’t. Mrs Berenson was up Sat. night, but didn’t tell me, and I didn’t see her.

I should certainly not make myself a bother of reading your books — I should think that very ungrateful. But they are just the books I want to read — except that I so often want just to think of you, without reading at all. The Idiot interests me more and more — he is a really delightful person. No, I can’t love Carlyle. I think he had Scotch cruelty, not only superficially, but in his depths. But I love his writing. — I am sending you Walton’s Lives — the only edition in good print that I could get also contained the Compleat Angler, which I have never read because I can’t read about fishing, however well it may be done. But I think you would like the life of Herbert. The life of Donne is also interesting — and Logan would recommend Wotton’s Life.

Darling, I am glad you think it may be feasible to manage some days quite away in the country — it would be a permanent gain to us, as you say. We must plan it on Wed.

Till your letter came this morning I was feeling oddly depressed — wondering if you were ill, thinking you wouldn’t get home tomorrow, wondering if all happiness is intoxication and oblivion — now all that is gone, and you are alive in me again. It is odd how one loses hold of joy at moments — I think it is old habit reasserting itself, and will grow rarer as the old habit gets more remote and the new habit takes its place.

Darling I am glad my letters are what you like. They always fall so far short of what I feel, and seem such a hopelessly inadequate attempt to tell you what I want you to know — but I suppose you can see what I mean — I feel a lifetime will not be long enough for you to know all that you give me and how my soul reaches out to you; and the more completely happy I am, the harder I find it to say anything. I don’t know whether I should have found you without your beauty, but now all that is best in my love is quite independent of that. It is simply too wonderful what a range of feeling we have in common. Now I must stop. Goodbye my Life and my Joy.

Your
B.

I owe an eternal debt of gratitude to Madame Anrep for having been unable to come that Sunday!

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