BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [23 SEPT. 1911]
BRACERS 17271. ALS. Morrell papers #190, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.

<Ipsden>
Saturday1^,2

My Dearest Dearest

Your long letter of Wednesday and Thursday has just come — I am so glad to have it — I was terribly impatient for it. Thank you for all you say. I am most grateful to you for writing about her.

Don’t imagine I have been unhappy here. Of course I miss you, but that is in a way on the surface. I am glad really of a time alone to think and arrange my ideas and plan the future. Getting back to work is always rather a job, and technical subtleties lose their importance at great times, so that I have a difficulty in making myself live in them again. But underneath I am as happy as I can possibly be — except now your sorrow saddens me. I wrote 7½ pages of my Aristotelian address this morning. I want to finish it here — it is a good thing to have no distractions while I have it to do. Tuesday I shall go either to the Whiteheads, or to London for a Comee. — in either case I shan’t be away for the night. Friday I go for a night to my Uncle Rollo Russell, whose address is Steep, Petersfield, for one night. Thursday I may possibly go to Camberley to the Pope-Hennessys for the night, but I don’t know yet whether I shall. I think your Tuesday’s letter had better be addressed c/o Stationmaster, S.E. Station, Reading. Then I can get it whether I go to Camberley or not. Wednesday’s letter to Steep. Then to Trinity, where I go on Saturday.

I read Manon Lescaut3 many years ago and have absolutely forgotten it. I mean to read Hilda Lessways4 as soon as I can get hold of it. I shall be no good as a guide to your reading — left to myself I only read old things over again. I have not got on with the list of books wanted — I haven’t heard of any I want, as I have seen nobody except Miss Silcox. — Dante will last you some time I should think. — I think I will see Ivy Prestious once in a way rather formally in London. Her letter seems to me to show she is happy. It is “our little daughter” I think, not “one”. I dislike the thought of seeing her — it will involve some insincerity and a stirring up of things I should like to forget. There is no point in seeing much of her, but I will avoid any real unfriendliness. — The scoundrelly type-writers have not sent Prisons so I shan’t have it till Monday at the earliest. I will send it to Prag if it arrives in time. — I think my rooms will have to be Chelsea or Kensington — anything near you would be rash. No, I am quite sure there was no Landladydom as regards Brenton.

The defeat of Laurier5 is a great blow — I fear it will give new life to Tariff Reform; certainly it prevents its being killed.

I don’t think I read Carlyle’s introduction to Wilhelm Meister, but it was Carlyle’s translation I read. There is something about Goethe that I can’t stand; but I know the book puzzled me — I couldn’t see the point of it.

I have not read any proofs since I came here. My mind has been directed to work and I have not read anything that would really absorb my thoughts — only the sort of things that leave one free to go on thinking underneath. — Don’t please worry yourself with the thought that I am unhappy and lonely. All that is on the surface. I have been worried by the difficulty of getting started with my Aristn. paper — the beginning of writing is always a torment; but now that stage is past, and the pleasant stage of actual writing has come. I have written so much lately that I need a holiday from writing; the creative impulse is quiescent, and writing without it is a job. But really in these quiet days I am accumulating a fund of reflections and ideas that I shall be glad of afterwards. I am quite happy really, only wishing the time to pass. If I had easy work to do, I should be quite contented. When I get to Cambridge, my work will be easy. Do you remember in the Parmenides when Zeno is asked to do a piece of work he compares himself to an old race-horse trembling at the course he knows so well? That is the feeling one has in starting one’s machinery thinking after an interval. When it is fully started it goes on of its own momentum, but the start is a job.

Dearest, Dearest, all my love goes out to you. You mustn’t worry about me when I only want to bring you comfort. Darling you know that I love your inmost soul and that we meet most fully in all that is deepest to us both. Goodbye my Heart — I love you, I love you, my Ottoline, with all my best.

Your
B

• 1

  [document] Document 000190. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

• 2

  [envelope] A circled “190”.

• 3

  Manon Lescaut By Antoine François Prévost, first published in 1731.

• 4

  Hilda Lessways By Arnold Bennett, published in 1900.

• 5

  Laurier The Canadian Liberal prime minister, Wilfred Laurier.