BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, 25 DEC. 1911
BRACERS 17386. ALS. Morrell papers #297, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.

<letterhead>
Trinity College,
Cambridge.1^, 2
Lockeridge
Monday evg. 25. Dec. ’11

My Darling Love

I got two letters from you this morning and also the lovely knife — it was too dear of you to send it — thank you a thousand times. Darling I am so distressed that your head is so bad and that you have a liver chill and that Julian is upset too — I can believe that Mrs M. hates you when you are ill — it is hateful of her — but she is instinctive and I suppose can’t help it.

I really have quite enough to read — I have more than half of Coulton’s Mediaeval Garner,3 which interests me very much, still to read, and really lots of things — I would rather not have more light reading now.

I have definitely decided that I don’t care for Abercrombie. There is no magic in it — it is laboured — and the emphasis on sex irritates me. But I should like you to look at it and see if you think the same. Yes, our taste about books agrees very much.

While I am in the midst of the Whiteheads’ family life, I feel very much separated from you — what is going on is so insistent and makes so many different appeals that it is difficult not to feel as if you were a dream — I go back in feeling to other times when I have been with them, and past years claim me. It has been a day full of jollity — Xmas dinner, charades, songs and so on. I like to be there — but inwardly I have a feeling of remoteness.

I had tea with the Cobden-Sandersons, and met their son Dickie and his intended. I didn’t find out who she is, but she seemed nice. I haven’t yet had 5 minutes tête-à-tête with Mrs Whitehead, so I haven’t yet got any news.

Darling I am so sorry you have felt depressed. I hope it is only liver and fatigue. I think sometimes after great happiness one feels depressed from mere reaction.

Geach has an intense admiration of North for his goodness — North has only a quiet liking for Geach. Geach has been reminding himself how last Xmas he went to a midnight mass — he has a long High Church past — nearly took orders, and is still sentimental about it. He sings Latin hymns and plain song extraordinarily well — they are very moving.

Darling I don’t know whether this will reach you Wed. morning but I hope so. I long to see you again. I have a vague feeling of having grown slack and relaxed and self-indulgent — I think I must spend less money and do more work. It is all very fine not to be a prig. but I need priggery to keep me up to the mark. I have got into a way of sitting dreaming of you when I might be working — I hate thrusting you out of my thoughts, as I have to do to work. But I can do it easily enough if I take the trouble. I am really shockingly lazy. Partly it has been due to not being sure what work I wanted to do — but I must keep myself busy meanwhile — there are lots of things I ought to do. I feel no doubts about the time we spend together — it is when I am alone that I waste time. — Goodnight my Dearest. I love you always absolutely my Darling.

Your loving
B.

• 1

  [document] Document 000297. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

• 2

  [envelope] A circled “297”. The Lady Ottoline Morrell | Black Hall | Oxford. Pmk: MARLBOROUGH | DE 26 | 11

• 3

  Coulton’s Mediaeval Garner  Subtitled Human Documents from the Four Centuries preceding the Reformation (1910).