BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [30 MAY 1913]
BRACERS 17925. ALS. Morrell papers #789, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.

Friday night1^, 2

My Darling Love

I have written such wretched letters lately — sometimes I have only just enough energy to get through my work, and it leaves me dazed and stupid. Now I have done enough for today, and my mind is free. There is a fresh wind tonight and I feel less mopy. — Coulton came to tea with me, and I enjoyed seeing him, tho’ apart from work he is commonplace. North has finished his Tripos and is as happy as a King — delighted to think he is leaving Cambridge, and longing to get to work on engineering. — Bevan’s brother (whom I once wrote to you about) is here — I have been talking with him and Bevan. He has (to my mind) a quite extraordinarily beautiful face — infinitely sensitive. I can’t help a sort of poignant love for him, tho’ he says nothing very remarkable. He is learned, immensely tall and thin, shy and rather deaf.

My writing goes on steadily — I have reached p. 273 — by Sunday night I suppose I shall reach 300. I am anxious to get on to the constructive part, where I shall deal with our knowledge of the external world — the fundamental part of “Matter”. I begin to feel the strain a good deal, and it seems to shut out all the rest of the world. I have been feeling as if you were in another universe. Bevan’s brother in some odd way reminded me of you. There are times when all my active imaginative power goes into work, and nothing else has the mystery and glamour that really hold one’s depths — but as the work-impulse grows less, imagination revives in other things. Fortitude does the conflict of love and work very well. Work is a jealous God, it robs one, for the moment, of quality in other feelings, leaving them a little hard and without atmosphere. But fortunately it doesn’t always exact the utmost. Just now I feel a terrible longing for you. And yet I half dread meeting again. I am afraid you will have grown shy and strange, and I may be too tired to find the way to your heart. But I dare say it will be all right. Goodnight my Dearest.

Your
B

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  [document] Document 000789. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

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  [envelope] A circled “789”. The Lady Ottoline Morrell | chez Madame Chartier | 3 Avenue Agassiz | Lausanne | Switzerland. Pmk: CAMBRIDGE | 11.15 PM | 30 MAY 13