BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [16 MAY 1911]
BRACERS 17141. ALS. Morrell papers #69, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.

<letterhead>
Trinity College,
Cambridge.1^, 2
Tuesday mg.

My Beloved

Your letter of yesterday has just come. As you say it is not much use writing about religion — still I must say a few words. I don’t want to take away your belief — the pleasure-loving person in me would like to let the whole subject alone. Still: here is the matter briefly and crudely: I feel no doubt in my own mind that your beliefs are unfounded, and I have always felt that unfounded beliefs are a misfortune — that in the long run it is best they should disappear. As regards you, I do not feel this, I only abstractly think it — I feel that your beliefs are no barrier between us, and that I don’t care to attack them.

Yet again I feel I must not be untrue to my faith — I must not, because I love you, deal differently with you in the matter. And I feel that your sympathy with my aims may partly come of not understanding what they involve. You needn’t think my difficulty will be to be patient with you — my difficulty will be just the opposite — to make myself go on probing when I really feel it doesn’t matter. Perhaps it doesn’t. Only in order to be sure it doesn’t, we must talk about it — there must not be a closed door. Of course you would suffer if you lost your belief — but for my part I would rather suffer anything — even morally — than believe what is false or rather what I fear I might find to be false if I looked into ita — and I cannot have a different standard for you. But, my own Life, you really need not doubt that we shall have comradeship — that is quite safe, whatever happens. For we love each other and respect each other and have all but everything in common — quite everything, I hope. I know you love truth, for your sincerity is absolutely perfect. If once I know your belief involves no shadow of disloyalty to truth, I shall be quite easy in my mind, and not wish to alter it in any way. But if not, I should not be deterred (I hope) by the knowledge that you would suffer. My heart, my life, I love you absolutely and with an utter devotion, but for that very reason I cannot must not shrink from giving you pain any more than I should, if I did right, from giving pain to myself. There is no good life, in such a world as this, without pain — and pain is not one of the worst evils. I want to feel absolutely at one with you in what is most serious and important. We must not acquiesce in any more or less superficial harmony. But I am not really troubled, because I know in my depths that it is all right — it is only a mist of words, and our hearts are united. But we must clear away the mist of words. O I am longing for you — I don’t know how to wait for tomorrow. It has been a very slow week — until today I have not let myself think of seeing you again. Now I am simply living through the hours as best I may. But don’t be troubled my dearest life. You really may trust me. I will not harm you or misunderstand you. Goodbye till tomorrow. I am free tomorrow as early as you can see me, and anywhere. I love you with all my soul.

Yours with utter devotion
B

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  [document] Document 000069. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

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  [envelope] The Lady Ottoline Morrell | 44 Bedford Square | London W.C. Pmk: LONDON. N.W. | 4.15 pm | MAY 16 11

Textual Notes

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  or rather … into it inserted