BRACERS Record Detail for 17301
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"Thursday" "I more or less agreed to write about Bergson next term" for Ogden's Heretics. ["The Philosophy of Bergson", The Monist, 22: July 1912, 321-47.]
BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, 12 OCT. 1911
BRACERS 17301. ALS. Morrell papers #216, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.
<letterhead>
Trinity College,
Cambridge.1, 2
Thursday Oct. 12. 1911
My Darling Love
I have just had your dear letter of Monday. No, I have not thought you unhappy since you left Vienna, but there it was obvious that your conscience was troubling you. I do honestly think it is convention. P. does not want of you what men usually want, and what he does want you give him. I firmly believe it is a relief to him to think that you get from elsewhere what he can’t give. — I am very glad you like Prisons in re-reading it. Please make a note of any criticisms. I shan’t know what the Whiteheads think till I next see them, and then probably I shall only hear her criticisms, I don’t think he will have read it yet. I feel quite happy about it, though I think the early parts may want amplifying.
I saw my future lecturees today — they all arrived at once, and it was a puzzle fitting in their requirements. Finally I fixed 5.30 on Mondays, Weds. and Thursdays. Thursday suits me because of my evening. I shall not lecture today. The man from Stonyhurst turns out to be a Maltese. He had intended to become a Jesuit, but couldn’t agree with the official view that scholasticism contains all philosophic truth, and therefore had to give it up. He is still a believing Catholic. I gather I shall have a fair number of people at my lectures, but they will no doubt diminish after a time.
I had a busy morning. Besides the lecturees, I had to see the Co-Secretary of the P.S.F. in his shop (he is a chemist), and have an interview with my tailor’s traveller, and a discussion with Ogden, the Sec. of the “Heretics”. The Heretics are a society who discuss more or less religious questions, and Ogden is a very energetic undergraduate, who gets hold of Shaw and Chesterton and even my brother to come and speak. He wanted a paper out of me, and I more or less undertook to write about Bergson next term.
In the intervals of my morning I read Bergson on Nothing, which he thinks is nothing. This led me into a number of reflections on negation — a very puzzling topic. Tonight I have my evening and tomorrow Maurice Amos comes. I may have difficulty in writing at length while he is here.
On the days when I lecture here, I must leave London at latest at 3, if I am there. This applies to Monday 23rd.
I am glad you rested the first day of “Lady”, tho’ it is a bore to miss the Certosa.
I have begun Tolstoy’s life and find it perfectly delightful — the second Vol, because I had read the other before. His wife is horribly limited, always thinking she knows better than he does what work he ought to do. I suppose it is hard for outsiders to understand that creative work is not done because one’s reason tells one it would be desirable, but because an impulse pushes one into it. That is the sort of thing you would always understand. If I came to think work was no good unless it appealed to the uneducated, and became a Salvation Army preacher, if the impulse were strong and genuine you would understand. Very few people who have come to care for a person in one stage can tolerate his going on into new things. I always feel you most at home in one’s obscure depths where instincts grow and fight. People are funny who like to be a mystery to those they care for — I like to be an open book, even if it were to result in my being thought not worth reading.
It is deliciously warm — I am sitting out in the Fellows’ Garden, where I used to write in the May Term. Yes, the part of Gibbon you are at is the best, I think. I love the wars of sects, and all the arts of the skilful Comee. man and wire-puller applied to the nature of the Trinity and deciding what Christendom has believed ever since. And the various heresies delight me. — Dakyns, according to Waterlow, is unusually cheerful and full of life and hope. I don’t think it was very genuine.
You were much more than with me when I wrote Prisons. If it hadn’t been for our crisis, and your refusal to be imprisoned, and the whole emotion of that time, it would never have come into existence. Large parts of it are transcripts of what I have observed in you. You have shown me how to live without barriers, in the free love of Good.
I am interested in P’s hair-dye. What will Alys make of it? But I am glad your hair has escaped — I don’t want it a new colour. I hope Lytton won’t get “some nice woman” to marry him. He is a beast.
Darling I am so glad you have written all about your conscience — it had begun to worry me. But really it is not a case for a bad conscience. Conventional morality, even the best, says “thou shalt not” and never says “thou shalt”. But “thou shalt” is infinitely more important. For the good of your own soul, as well as for the world at large, it would be a grave misfortune if your conventional conscience won the victory. I know you know this, but at times it is hard to believe.
Now this must be posted. Goodbye my Beloved. I count the days — not many now. With every day that passes my spirits rise. I am very happy now and only longing for the moment.
Your
B
