BRACERS Record Detail for 17161
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"The Whiteheads say it will be as well anyhow for me to leave Cambridge a year from now, and I dare say they are right—at any rate it is what I should wish to do if all goes well. And they say I ought to go off Newnham Council at once, which I do naturally by merely not standing for re-election. This for the sake of Newnham."
BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [27 MAY 1911]
BRACERS 17161. ALS. Morrell papers #87, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.
<letterhead>
Trinity College,
Cambridge.1, 2
More’s Garden
Sat. night.
My Dearest Dearest Love
Your letter of last night was an unspeakable joy to me. I am overcome with longing for you — it is a terrible longing — a hunger. I have been facing the thought of life without you, and it is so awful that it makes me ache for you. I don’t for a moment believe that is what will happen, but one can’t tell. It would be much more difficult now than it would have been six weeks ago. I do not find, when I imagine it, that I should stand the test well. I fear I should come to hate Alys with a hatred which would poison everything. I have tried to tell myself that I should stand it well, but I don’t believe that is really the truth — at any rate at first. No, I would rather not hear all Logan said — I couldn’t tell you the truth of things, and I know pretty much all he said from what he said to Mrs W. But if ever you want to speak of it, I shan’t mind. What you know of me is the real truth — it is far more deeply true than anything Logan could know. The Whiteheads say it will be as well anyhow for me to leave Cambridge a year from now, and I dare say they are right — at any rate it is what I should wish to do if all goes well. And they say I ought to go off Newnham Council at once, which I do naturally by merely not standing for re-election. This for the sake of Newnham.
O my heart, I do love you utterly — more really than is right. You have been to me such a revelation of all I had dreamed of — your large-heartedness and generosity of feeling and your tragic depth — and then that you should love beauty as you do — I could not have believed it could all be found in one human being. I do try to think I could still live for the great things if I lost you — but I might easily come to think it not worth while. “So I turned into a sty, and laid me down among the swine” — that is the impulse. But I dare say I should get over it. — London has its beauty too — we all walked along the Embankment tonight late, and it was very wonderful. The river in London has such immense poetry — one thinks of the green hills and meadows it has come from, and the great spaces of the sea where it will be absorbed, and all the toil and passion and eager desire of the people whom it passes by — and the barges that float by with their lights, like visions of happier things in tortured lives. Human life seems strangely small compared to nature — yet passion grips us, and the great things seem worthless without the one thing we want for ourselves. It is all a strange tangle — a vast purposeless chaotic struggle, one blind desire against another — peace knocking at the door and none heeding, while the vain struggle goes on. It seems all so useless and so terrible — how we torture each other and grind down each other’s souls, because we cannot fix our hearts upon things which need not be snatched from others, because we cannot have enough justice or mercy or love of mankind to live without our private happiness.
All this I saw years ago — and I thought for a time that the desire for private happiness was dead in me, and I could live wholly for others. But I was wrong; and the fire gradually died down, and the inspiration left me, and life grew cold and bare — until you came into my life, and with your love all other good things came back too, and the long night was like an evil dream — scarcely remembered, and fading quickly into nothingness. But the thought of going back into the night is almost beyond what I can bear. Yet I have known others who lived consistently as I have only lived at times — it is not beyond human strength, and therefore one ought to hope to accomplish it, even without any private joy.
I am very tired and it is late and I hardly know what I am writing, but I feel I must go on. I do so long for you, I can’t bear to stop writing.
I have not found the right thing to read. I think parts of Milton’s prose would be best. I have been wanting prose rather than poetry, if only I could get the right prose. But really my dissatisfaction with everything means that I ought to write what I want instead of trying to read it. Only I don’t know what it is I want. I am always pulled up by things to do. When I should like to sit and write about the Service of Man, some particular service comes in the way, and I should feel a humbug if I sat writing instead of doing the very thing my writing would be about. And that sort of writing wants more leisure than any other sort — one has to be a long time away from worries and agitations.
Dearest, I cannot tell you how much I long for Tuesday. I have never before longed for you as I do now. I thirst for the beauty of you and the calm that will come back when I am with you again, and I long to drink in greatness of soul from your lips. It is strange, I find that even if the worst disasters happened, even if your life were ruined, I could not bring myself to regret anything — it is too great and too perfect. It is out of proportion to other things in life, and they cannot be put in the balance against it. And if the envious world does not long tolerate anything so good, it is well to have the good if only for a short time. I cannot take “long views” if they prevent what is best. That is how hum-drum mediocrity invades life, kills courage and imagination, and makes everything grey and colourless. That is not the way to make life vital or splendid. But perhaps my feeling is too reckless. Only I know there is no greatness that is compatible with safety and caution — and it is better to be great while one can than to be safe for a lifetime.
I am beginning to write nonsense, so I must stop. Goodnight, my heart, my life, my strength. I love you a thousandfold more than ever before.
Your
B.
