BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, 27 DEC. [1911]
BRACERS 17389. ALS. Morrell papers #300, Texas. SLBR 1: #182
Edited by N. Griffin. Proofread by K. Blackwell and A. Duncan

<letterhead>
Trinity College,
Cambridge.1^, 2
Lockeridge
Dec. 27. night.

My Dearest Dearest Dearest

I feel as if you would never believe me again when I tell you I love you and reverence you and feel myself deeply unworthy of you. I have upon me now the horror of a cruel action, of wanton destruction and ruthlessness. As soon as I had spoken I saw that what I had said could not be true and that I had given you a profound and needless pain for nothing when you were already unhappy. I believe honestly that the passion which culminated today has worked itself out and that I shall not sin in the same way again. But I don’t feel any confidence that you will get over the hurt and the feeling that I may lacerate you at any moment if you speak sincerely of what is important to you.

My instinct has never felt what I said today, but my reason kept urging that it must be so and I couldn’t see how to get out of it. Now I do see. It is difficult to me to understand a mind so genuinely unaffected by argument as yours; but the few words you said today helped me and I see now how I misjudged with my reason. O my Dearest don’t give up the belief in the possibility of our sharing our spiritual life — and Dearest bear with me for the world’s sake — we have great things to do together. I have been too fierce, too violent, too destructive — something of the cruelty of the ascetic has been in me — but Dearest these things will melt away — and they have to do with what prevents me from writing as I wish to write — it is all part of a sort of mental asceticism, which is bad like all asceticism.

Dearest I have been picturing you all the evening — proud, miserable, ill, joking with Mrs M.,3 anxious about Julian, utterly alone in the world, feeling useless and a mere cumberer of the earth, considering suicide, longing for the rest which only death can bring. It wrings my heart — it is terrible. I have no power of bringing happiness to those who love me. And yet I long for you to be not unhappy; I long to bring you comfort, just to sit with you and help to bear your burden — I long that you should be able to lean upon me with the certainty that my heart yearns for you. I see and feel your tears and I have helped to cause them. — It has been a very unreal evening — I bore my part in the talk but it seemed a mere buzzing dream. — You cannot know how profoundly I long to relieve your loneliness. Ten years ago, it all began by my suddenly becoming aware of a great loneliness. For a long time I had absolutely no thought of self, and by patience I did at last make the loneliness less. With you I have not been unselfish — if I had, your loneliness would have grown less. Dearest you will find the future better if you can trust it.

This world is so full of pain and strife and destruction — there is only love — gentleness, sympathy — to make it bearable. I love the sorrowing race of mankind — but I have little to say to help — only courage and gentleness — and I fail sadly in both. Strange how tonight I have in mind the moment of my conversion when I first saw that love and tenderness are alone of real value — then I forgot it. I forget it when I am too happy — I grow cold and intellectual — but in the depths I have never forgotten it, and tonight it wells up in me. I am filled with utter love and longing for service — to bring happiness, to bring relief from pain — oh if I could. I hate the furious persecutor in me — but he is terribly vital. I try to be kind in a common way — yet I do strangely little for others. I worship your devotion, your love, your tenderness, and I long to have that inward poise that you have. But that is not for me, I shall never have it while I am alive. Turbulent, restless, inwardly raging — I shall always be — hungry for your God and blaspheming him. I could pour forth a flood of worship — the longing for religion is a times almost unbearably strong.

O my heart how could you have thought I meant to cast you off — such a thing is utterly inconceivable — O my heart I long to hear from you — to know you are still alive, to know you still love me — but only time will make you trust me again.

I cannot bear to stop but I must. It is after 1.30. I hope you are asleep. I do understand the unhappiness you spoke of. It is not selfish — when one is not strong the world’s misery is too heavy to be borne. Courage for a while — and Death will come without our hastening him. Goodbye. O Dearest believe in my boundless love, forgive me, and trust me if you can.

Your
B.4

Thursday morning

Darling your telegram has just come. Thank you Darling for sending it a 1000 times. I feel this morning that I was excessive last night in grief and that all was less important than I felt. Still I am quite clear that I shan’t behave so again. Now this must be posted. Goodbye Darling Love. I love you with all my soul deeply and absolutely.

B.

• 1

  [document] Document 000300. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

• 2

  [envelope] A circled “300”. The Lady Ottoline Morrell | Black Hall | Oxford. Pmk: LOCKERIDGE | ? | DE 2? | 11

• 3

  Mrs M. Mrs Morrell, Philip’s mother.

• 4

  trust me if you can. Your B. See lettter #299 (BRACERS 17388), which begins “I must go on writing — it is impossible to do anything else.” The SLBR edition of letter #300 includes the text in #299. whose four paragraphs are written on a sheet of notepaper that was found separated from #300. Clearly the paragraphs are a continuation of some letter and very probably of this one, but this last is not certain. The postscript, written the following morning and with which the letter #300 ends, was written in the margins of the first of the two sheets of #300. Each document has its own envelope numbered accordingly. [Note modified by K.B.]