BRACERS Record Detail for 17911
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"Friday mg." His evening: "Wittgenstein and Pinsent talking to each other and ignoring the rest of the world". Got a bright idea as to the difference between sensation and imagination:* "Find it helps with dreams (my old bugbears) and memory" 110 pages.
"It fascinates and absorbs me...."
"I don't think my mind has ever been better than it is just now,"
*"Sensation and Imagination", The Monist, 25: Jan. 1915, 28-44. (This would be chapter 5.)
BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [16 MAY 1913]
BRACERS 17911. ALS. Morrell papers #777, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.
My Darling Love
Your dear letter this morning was such a joy. I envy you hearing the nightingale — I have not heard one yet this year. It is a relief that you were not shocked by my anger against Smith. If he had been merely unduly instructive, I should not have minded so much, but he was always pretending to know things he didn’t know. — It is very disappointing that P’s eyes are all right! Many years ago, when I used to have headaches, I had just the same experience — it makes one feel so flat. — I am sure Froude must be very tiresome — I have never read him.
There really was a letter of yours from Paris that never reached me. I only got one from Paris, and that was certainly written Thursday as well as dated then. The one you wrote on Wed. never reached me. — Don’t think any more about the candle-shades — I think perhaps they wouldn’t really suit here.
After all I didn’t go to St. Ives. When I got to the station I found the train they had told me to take didn’t exist. I was rather glad — it gave time to get my 10 pages done and have a bicycle ride with North. I had a tremendous crowd at my evening, very difficult because they were different kinds of people — one poor Indian, whom no one would talk to, so I had to devote myself to him, till I hit on another unpopular man and introduced them to each other. McT, too sleepy to do anything but grunt; Hardy, curled up in a big chair and looking satirical; Hollond,a a law don who evidently thought I had a rum crew; Mozely and Muscio, Australians with terrific cockney accents; Wittgenstein and Pinsent talking to each other and ignoring the rest of the world; North laughing so loud that the room shook; Bacharachb (an awful creature) and the black; and a shy freshman who had never come before. I was quite exhausted by the time they went. However, I slept till 10, so I am very fit today.
After writing to you I got a bright idea as to the difference between sensation and imagination. I am delighted with it, and find it helps with dreams (my old bug bears) and memory. I have now written 110 pages, and I really think it is good stuff. Probably it will want re-writing, and parts will have to be amplified. But in the main I think it is all right. It fascinates and absorbs me — I have such a sense of power acquired in all the years during which I have learnt to analyze. It is all really still the same problem as “Matter” was — the things I am doing now are preliminaries, but I think the question of matter will be easy when the preliminaries are done. I don’t think my mind has ever been better than it is just now. I am amazed how much more I know than I did in the winter when I ate my heart out at the Beetle and Wedge.
Sanger is coming for the week-end, and Miss Stawell is coming to tea on Sunday to discuss my shilling shocker. I suppose then I really shall get behindhand with my 10 pages a day, but at present I am well ahead. Tuesday I lunch with the Whiteheads, and Monday evening I may go up to see Mildred. Cobden-Sandersonc has sent me the rest of his letters to my mother. I will send them to you if you like when I have read them.
Goodbye Darling. I am very happy — it is that that makes my work go so well. The thought of you is always with me whatever I am doing, and I feel your love always helping me.
Your
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[document] Document 000777. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.
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[envelope] A circled “777”. The Lady Ottoline Morrell | Hôtel Riche-Mont | Lausanne | Switzerland. Pmk: CAMBRIDGE | 3.15 PM | 16 MAY 13