BRACERS Record Detail for 17230
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Address is Radlett so BR is still probably at Battler's Green. Reading William James's posthumous book.
"Much my strongest affection, after my love for you, is my affection for Mrs. Whitehead. This is rooted in years of difficult and very painful cooperation in tasks which both think very important—chiefly in keeping Whitehead from knowledge of things that would upset his balance. It is not a feeling in which there is anything to cause you jealousy, but it is quite indestructible and very deep. Since I have lost Crompton, none of my other friendships go into the depths except North [Whitehead], to whom I have a feeling of protective responsibility."
BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [16 JULY 1911]
BRACERS 17230. ALS. Morrell papers #150, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.
My Darling
I have telegraphed to my young men to come at 12 tomorrow, and I have arranged to leave here by a train at 8.19,a so I can leave Cambridge at 1.23. I don’t think I shall be able to do any writing at Peppard, but I can pay my bills and do business things of that sort, and I can finish W. James’s posthumous book, which I am reading. It is pleasant reading, like everything of his.
I have been thinking of jealousy a great deal since your letter came. I should never feel I was doing you a wrong in giving affection to other women, and I should not expect you to mind. But if I had any approach to a physical relation with any other woman I should feel degraded, and I should lose much of what I get from your love. Also, from the point of view of the supposed other woman, unless she knew of your existence I should feel I might be doing her a wrong unless I were more aloof in manner than I should be if I were not on my guard.
Thinking the other way round, I am sure I should not be jealous of anything except a physical relation on your part — unless I found that you respected some other man much more — that might vex me — I can easily imagine circumstances under which you might be quite right in entering upon physical relations, and I might be able not to feel anger; but if I did not feel anger, it would kill passion, and your love would no longer be to me what it is — passion would again be without an object and would probably find some other object. If I did feel anger, it might not kill passion. I could not face the possibility that if by any chance you did have a child it might not be mine. But the feeling is not of course wholly that. — I should think any other jealousy unworthy. This too is perhaps unworthy, but it can’t be conquered except by killing passion.
Much my strongest affection, after my love for you, is my affection for Mrs Whitehead. This is rooted in years of difficult and very painful cooperation in tasks which both think very important — chiefly in keeping Whitehead from knowledge ofb things that would upset his balance. It is not a feeling in which there is anything to cause you jealousy, but it is quite indestructible and very deep. Since I have lost Crompton, none of my other friendships go into the depths except North, to whom I have a feeling of protecting responsibility.
I hope you are getting rested today — you must have been utterly worn out after the fête. I am glad the people were pleased to see you.
It is pleasant here in the Long3 — there are not too many people and they are not very busy. After dinner we have coffee in the bowling green, and as it gets darker the talk improves — one gets easily into human relations with people who at most times seem mere work-machines.
My rooms already seem very much inhabited — I have managed somehow to make piles of confusion everywhere, what with proofsc and MS and typed stuff and letters and bills and all the rest.
Today I have quite ceased to have fears of the bond between us weakening. It begins to have some of the strength that only time can bring, and I feel real confidence that it will grow continually greater and deeper, till absences and even parting (if that should ever come) would leave it unimpaired. I do not wish to be disloyal to the past, but you do give me something greater than I have ever known — there is more of the infinite, more solemnity and mysterious grandeur than I have known before — more of religion. All my inmost thoughts are uplifted and purified.
It is all beyond words. When I hold your hand, when I look into your eyes, when I meet your soul in your lips, I feel we know, and there is peace. But in words I cannot tell you.
O my heart, I love, I love you.
Your
B.
<in ink at the top:> Arriving Henley 4.58 Monday.
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[document] Document 000150. Proofread against a colour scan of the original. Written in pencil down to “protecting responsibility”. The address and date are in ink.
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[envelope] ??.
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the Long The Long Vacation began about 19 June ended by 30 September.
