BRACERS Record Detail for 17176
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"I have had a letter from Alys saying "As we are to have a formal separation for a time by mutual consent and with no explanations" and so on. So I gather she does not regard it as final yet-a-while. She says she is writing to a few people to tell them of it, including my Aunt Maude. This is all to the good, though Aunt Maude* will disapprove. She forced the Cobden-Sandersons to come together after they had had a happy time apart—at least I have always thought it was her doing." ...
*[Maude Stanley]
"Yes dearest, you do give me what I have never had before—a happiness completely good and completely satisfying, as great and serious as the great tragic things of life. The physical union is quite essential—without that it would not be calm, but always feverish and not quite satisfying. It will take time for me to adjust all my other thoughts and feelings to it—hitherto they have been so much adjusted to quite other sorts of emotions." ...
"I quite agree with you about early Victorian times, and I like the 18th century in France, but not in England—in England it is the 19th century I like. I didn't expect my Grandmother's life to interest you on its own account, but I wanted you to know what is an important background to my thoughts and feelings.—Spencer Walpole's life of my Grandfather is dull—I don't much admire my Grandfather*, he was vacillating and full of uneasy vanity, but he did two great things, the Reform Bill, and Italian unity in 1859-60."
*[Lord John Russell]
BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [4 JUNE 1911]
BRACERS 17176. ALS. Morrell papers #101, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell and A.G. Bone
<letterhead>
Trinity College,
Cambridge.1, 2
Sunday mg.
My Darling
Your two letters this morning were a great joy to me, and they were very nice letters in every way. I am glad it is just beginning to dawn on you that on the whole I rather like you. I don’t quite see what steps to take to convince you further. What I am speaking of is your difficulty in believing that your thoughts and your concerns interest me. I will write to “Answers” or some General Information Office, and ask them: What steps are, in the opinion of good judges, considered most effective in convincing a lady of the attachment of a gentleman? I have no doubt they will say that presents of diamonds are generally considered best, and that bouquets of flowers should be sent every morning and evening. I have omitted these methods, so what can I expect?
Yesterday the heat was terrible and made me depressed and irritable. The Playboy is indescribably brutal at the end — it was made worse by a perfectly idiotic audience, which took it as all comic. North and I had a tiff on the way home, because my criticisms of the play offended the Irish patriotism which he feels on account of his mother. It is an astonishingly good play, but I think the end unnecessarily brutal. — The Society met in my rooms last night — I found Lytton and the rest of them there when I got back. Lytton did not mention his visit to you. He is a nuisance. I don’t think I need get back Thursday in time for my young men. It is so near the end of term, and there are so many festivities on, that I expect no one will come. I will provide some one to be host in case they do. That being so I have no engagement from Tuesday noon till Friday at 10. All Cambridge is occupied with garden parties just now, and I never go to them. Pray be careful not to let scandal arise concerning Lytton!
I have had a letter from Alys saying “As we are to have a formal separation for a time by mutual consent and with no explanations” and so on. So I gather she does not regard it as final yet-a-while. She says she is writing to a few people to tell them of it, including my Aunt Maude. This is all to the good, tho’ Aunt Maude will disapprove. She forced the Cobden-Sandersons to come together after they had had a happy time apart — at least I have always thought it was her doing.
Dearest, you know I don’t want to interfere with your being useful to people like Lamb or indeed to any one. I don’t want to make your life a less useful one by having come into it. If you really can do as much of what is really useful in the country as in London, of course it is a great gain to me, both because you have more time and because I know you are less ill and tired as a rule. But if in bad moments I try to absorb you too much, you must pay no attention. The hunger for you is sometimes so absorbing that I can think of nothing else, and every moment that I am not with you seems just wasted. But of course that is not the right view. It is the curse of living apart that so much of our work must be separate. I shall try to bring my work into relation to you as much as I can — but even then I can only do it by getting absorbed in it, and when I am absorbed in it I shall have to give you less thought and time than I do now. I don’t like the prospect, tho’ I should like the result if I would do work that pleased you, and I know that in the long run I could not be happy if my work suffered. But unlike P. and Julian, its claims are intermittent, and it is all the better for temporary neglect.
I don’t know that I should hate your Contemporary Art party. I should enjoy seeing you in all your glory. If you think it an occasion when it is desirable I should be seen, I will come. Otherwise I should think it was not worth the time it would take.
Yes, Dearest, you do give me what I have never had before — a happiness completely good and completely satisfying, as great and serious as the great tragic things of life. The physical union is quite essential — without that it would not be calm, but always feverish and not quite satisfying. It will take time for me to adjust all my other thoughts and feelings to it — hitherto they have been so much adjusted to quite other sorts of emotions. And I shall have difficulty in keeping it calm, and not wishing for more and more of you. But when one knows exactly what is possible, that will grow less difficult. I am still inwardly upset by the agitations we have been through, and it will take time before I become calm again. The touch of sordidness is horrible. I feel to blame for not having kept Alys quiet by going more gradually.
I quite agree with you about Early Victorian times, and I like the 18th century in France, but not in England — in England it is the 17th century I like. I didn’t expect my grandmother’s life to interest you on its own account, but I wanted you to know what is an important background to my thoughts and feelings. — Spencer Walpole’s life of my grandfather is dull — I don’t much admire my grandfather, he was vacillating and full of uneasy vanity, but he did two great things, the Reform Bill, and Italian unity in 1859–60.
If you write to me all day long, you must think how good it is for my moral and intellectual improvement. You mustn’t think only of yourself!
It will be awful if Bréal has only 2 people, and they don’t know French. You have my sympathy.
Goodbye my Dearest, my Life, my Ottoline. I long for you more than I can possibly say — with all my strength. Where you are, there is my joy and my heart. All my love goes out to you every moment of the day.
Your
B.
