BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [27 DEC. 1911]
BRACERS 17387. ALS. Morrell papers #298, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.

<letterhead>
Trinity College,
Cambridge.1^, 2

I can’t think why I suddenly burst out as I did — it was the effect of old times and habits I suppose. I do really believe that my outlook is narrow and bigoted and not what I want it to be and my real serious belief is not that you are inwardly untruthful — but a devil whispers to me that you are, and that I am not facing the painful truth. You can really exorcise this devil if you will believe that you can — then I shall be better, broader, more charitable, richer to others as well as you. Don’t lose faith — don’t be disgusted — and don’t think I am disgusted with you when I talk so. That is not the case. Feelings grow in me and have to be expressed. But my deepest self does not believe it. I feel you utterly truthful; then I wonder how it is possible to believe what you do as you do if one is truthful; then I begin to think I make allowances for you I shouldn’t for others, then I feel the call to sacrifice; but the whole thing is not my deepest nor my sanest self; it is a self that is a little unbalanced and a little mad.

I have got your spectacles and will send them from Marlborough.

It is difficult for you to disentangle what I understand and what I don’t understand in your religion. I understand your passion for it and what it is and why you care about it. What I don’t understand is the purely intellectual part — how you can think that it is true. I think if I could get the fanaticism out of my soul I should understand. You also don’t understand my allegiance to reason, which seems to you to depend on not seeing something.

You must realize that whatever were to happen the tie between us is not one which I could break or survive the breaking of. What wants you is absolutely the deepest thing in me. You come nearest to satisfying me completely of all the human beings I have ever known. And you gradually melt the ice out of my soul. My ice is like your reserve — the result of unhappy years.

I don’t think you know at all how deep is your hold on me. It brings out all the depths that I have crushed or ignored. And you can’t know the utter passion with which I long to give and give and give and make up to you for the sorrow of the past and the present — I know that since Mother Julian’s death there is no one to give you all you want in religion. I long to give you more in that way — it is partly the longing that makes me so rough.

Dearest bear with me, have patience, have trust that I shall improve. I am violent but that will grow less. If you can overcome the hurt I gave you today, you will find I shall be better hereafter. But I fear I have made you fear me for ever. I am very unhappy. I love you so absolutely, and so passionately that except truth nothing in the world matters else. And I feel our love is important to the world. I am afraid you will never again believe how much I understand you and how profoundly I feel your feelings. I am too complex.

Reading

Goodnight I love love love you utterly devotedly with all my being.

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  [document] Document 000298. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

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  [envelope] A circled “298”. The Lady Ottoline Morrell | Black Hall |Oxford. Pmk: READING | 5.45 PM | DE 27 | 11