BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [30 DEC. 1911]
BRACERS 17390. ALS. Morrell papers #303, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.

In the train.
Saturday.1^, 2

My Dearest Heart

It is quite a mystery to me why you didn’t hear from me — I can only suppose Lockeridge’s P.O. opened my letter out of curiosity. I hope you got it in the end. I have written always by 1st post from here — it is often impossible to write in the middle of the day without seeming odd.

It is disappointing about today but I am quite with P. about the unwisdom of Oxford. I feel cross from the feeling of not seeing you. I no longer have so much to think out that I can feel it just as well — it is all thought out or rather felt out quite satisfactorily and I long long to be with you. Darling, do make the very utmost of the days when you are free. It would be a sin to waste one moment that you can give. Oh I do long for you so much my Darling. I long to give you years and years of tenderness and devotion and sympathy. You will find me grow less fierce with time. But I love you to a point which is often like sharp anguish.

I am glad we shall have the two days of 10th and 11th tho’ I hardly like to say so seeing the cause is so awful. I don’t wonder P wants to come out on the side of the men. But their case is nothing like so good as the railway men’s, which was overwhelming (apart from details). If a servants’ union existed and your maid chose not to belong to it, you would hardly like to give her notice on that account. I think really the men are right, but if I were an employer I should feel great difficulty in dismissing a satisfactory employee at their dictation.

My Beloved how could you think what you wrote in the train was nonsense or would annoy me. As I told you, I agreed with almost every word. And in any case it didn’t seem to me in the very slightest degree nonsense. Have faith that when you express yourself rather fully I am more sensible than when you say half-words. It is longing to drag things out as it were by force that partly impels me. When they really come I respect them. All you said about Xmas I absolutely respected. And you will find I shall be all right henceforth.

My time with the Whiteheads has been a great success. W. and I got through some important work, and the talk was good. Geach lapped up ideas in a surprising way. Burns doesn’t interest me and I am doubtful how far I like him.

What you say about not believing in people or being able to help them if you relied on reason is really a misconception. I don’t think you and I differ as regards people much — I too often feel things I couldn’t prove about them. But then the people are there before one. But one gets into very difficult philosophical questions when one tries to make the difference clear, and I don’t see it clearly myself. You see I am not against instinct — I think instinct is in a way always the fundamental thing, and reason is only the fitting together of instincts. But it doesn’t do to trust instinct blindly because it is not infallible and sometimes conflicts with other instincts. Reason simply means being willing to be critical towards instincts — trust them when there is nothing against them, but when there is, be careful. What happens, put abstractly, is this. One has two instinctive beliefs, and if one is capable of reasoning, one may find they are incompatible — one of them at least must be wrong; probably both more or less. The person who cannot reason does not see they are incompatible, and thinks the person who won’t believe both is deficient in instinctive perception. But the truth is only that the instinct by which one follows reasoning is left out in the one who doesn’t see the inconsistency. Of course reasoning often goes wrong, just as other instincts do. But the point is that instincts are fallible, and we have to use them to correct other instincts. I am afraid all this must bore you, but it is important.

Dearest if I demand much patience and effort and some sacrifice of reserve, do believe it is worth it — I give it all out to the world. The Whiteheads report how much more use I am at Cambridge than I was at first — that is due to you. I love the young men, and I want nothing from them, and that makes me good. And I have a tendency to be arid, which you do help me enormously to cure. I shall grow gradually less afraid of what is religious in me, less fearing that there may be some hint of insincerity or self-indulgence — and that will make me able to write. But you don’t know how profoundly you help me when you speak of your religion. It is really all very sacred to me and every word you say I regard so passionately. What I desire is to save all the good of it without any false or even very doubtful belief. This is really a great and worthy object. And I believe that with your help I can do it.

I don’t consider George Trevy a person who cares greatly for truth. He inherits rhetoric from Macauley, and rhetoric destroys truth. Also he puts morality too high, if you know what I mean. He cares more for his neighbour than for God. I mean he doesn’t care enough about the infinite things that give value to human life; one ought to love one’s neighbour through them. I think Christ was right to put love of God before love of my neighbour. Only I don’t think God exists ready-made, I think he is an ideal we can conceive and can do something to create, though he will never exist fully. That is why human actions are important — because God does not exist already. There is of course one great difference between your beliefs and mine. I do not think any spiritual force outside human beings actually helps us — there may be such a force, but if so it is only as as incarnated in human beings that it helps us. Therefore I cannot pray or lean on God. What strength I need I must get from myself or those whom I admire. And this view does seem to me nobler, sometimes,a braver, than the view which looks for help from without, besides seeming to me truer. That is the Sum and Substance of our difference. But I shall never again think you self-deceiving. And therefore I shall have no difficulty in being patient. But I must go on putting my point of view, and I should like you to conceive it possible that some day you might think it more true than your present view. I know that I might some day think your view truer than mine; I know all my views may change.

We are arriving at Reading. Goodbye my sweetest Love, my Light, my Star. I love you love you love you with all my deepest and best, profoundly, with reverence and all humility.

Your
B

Address Shiffolds for week-end. No use writing there Sunday. On Sunday address 34 Russell Chambers.

• 1

  [document] Document 000303. Proofread against a b&w scan of the original microfilm.

• 2

  [envelope] A circled “303”. Lady Ottoline Morrell | Black Hall | Oxford. Pmk: ??

Textual Notes

• a

  sometimes An uncertain reading of the word.