BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [9–10 OCT. 1911]
BRACERS 17298. ALS. Morrell papers #213C, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.

<letterhead>
Trinity College,
Cambridge.1
Monday night.

My Darling Darling

I am so glad you have had a nice letter about Mother Julian — it must be a comfort to you to hear. It is good of you to let me see it.

On my way back from posting my letter to you I bought a Crashaw. I don’t know much of him myself. I will read some of it and give it to you when you get home. Then I settled down to proofs and got them finished just as it was getting dark. I went out into the country on my bicycle — very beautiful, with remnants of sunset, and the moon rising — but extraordinarily melancholy — you know the lines in Shakespeare’s sonnets:

“In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth by the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest”.

Then I wrote some letters and sent off my Aristn. paper to be printed. After dinner Hardy came and talked for about two hours. He is very able, and on the whole I like him, in spite of his being a vampire. In a College, one gets to like the people who really care for learning, and don’t merely regard the place as an opportunity for having a good influence on the young — generally by preventing them from thinking and by keeping up every ancient abuse. Influence as a conscious purpose is always disastrous — it must be the unconscious result of good aims.

I do hope you will find your Dr. in Lausanne and that he will be helpful. I don’t expect my flat will be habitable by the time you get back — I haven’t yet decided on one. But a hotel will do at first, won’t it? Oh how heavenly it will be to be with you again.

I have not had a moment for Bergson today, which I don’t regret. Tomorrow I ought to get through a lot of him.

A fellowship election displays a lot of human nature, because each subject fights for its own men, and other subjects can only know what they are told. It is a great strain on people’s fairness — most stand the strain, but not all.

Now it is one o’clock and I must stop. Goodnight my Darling. It is not much longer now. I hunger for you Dearest. I send you a thousand kisses. Goodnight.

Tuesday. No letter today so far. Perhaps there will be one tonight. I have had a quiet morning with Bergson — he begins to interest me more, in something the same way as heraldry and theology do, from the queerness and fantasticality of the stuff. He thinks the intellect a wicked imp whose practice is to show us everything as space and matter; what reveals the real truth is activity, especially artistic creation. But it won’t do to stop and think, or else his philosophy will no longer seem true. This is the only remark I agree with so far.

I enclose some letters which please destroy. Tonight we have a feast to welcome the new Fellows.2 I am reading Coulton’s Mediaeval Studies. It is all directed against people who idealize the “ages of faith”. It is interesting and rather amusing to me, but I think you would dislike it. The man is a low Churchman himself, but really learned.

Now I must stop. The weather here is lovely, I hope it is equally good with you. I wonder if you are on your way to Milan. Goodbye my Darling.

Yr
B.

• 1

  [document] Document 000213C. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

• 2

  feats to welcome the new fellows As noted (ambiguously) in BR's pocket diary for 9/10 October.