BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [2 JUNE 1913]
BRACERS 17932. ALS. Morrell papers #796, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.

34 Russell Chambers1^, 2
Monday night late.

My Darling Darling

Your dear letter of yesterday was waiting for me when I got here from the Whiteheads. It was such a joy. — I am very sorry my letters have been so wretched — First it needed a great effort to get over Wittgenstein’s criticism, and then in the middle came your letter saying you couldn’t have me at Lausanne even if J. went home — and I felt the only thing was to thrust out thoughts of you for the moment. I wanted to keep clear of emotions that would upset my work. I am sorry but it couldn’t be helped. And in an odd way I grow ashamed of having any personal feelings or any private life when the work-fit is on me — it is almost like your “wild” moods. — I am sorry you feel so far off. Work is a desperate business and can’t be done genteelly — there has to be something rough and primitive in the fight —

There is no real distance between us. But partly it is unavoidable to be absorbed, partly, owing to the circumstances, thoughts of you are apt to be agitating and interfere with sleep, and unless I sleep well my brain doesn’t keep clear. This sounds so piggy, but at times one has to be piggy. You won’t find me far off when you come home, quite the contrary, there will be an overwhelming revulsion from the tension I have been in — it is not a mood to stay in. I don’t think there is any real reason to feel out of touch — you will find that as soon as I think about anything except work we shall be more in touch than ever. I am sure this is true. Work is absorbing and difficult and exciting. For ever so long I think and think, not making much progress visibly, and inwardly worried to death — then one day I see the whole thing suddenly, from beginning to end. From that moment it becomes imperative to write it out — there is something unbearable about ideas in one’s head but not yet written down. Of course if you could read the stuff you wouldn’t feel remote.

It is a joy to get away from it for 2 days. The Whiteheads have an evening Mondays — I meta such a spirited girl there, she is 21 and foreign correspondent in a Bank in the City — she has been offered a schoolmistress’s place which her people want her to take but I encouraged her to stick to the Bank. So few women know anything of the world of business, which is after all a very important world.

The Madras sister-in-law is staying there. She is the oddest Bishop’s wife I ever knew — hard, clever, unsentimental, anxious for the truth. She is very little married.

I am ashamed of having called you an “undisciplined brain”. Forgive me for having been such a brute. It was the thought of good material not fully utilized that maddened me — I can’t bear waste. But I won’t say it again, and I long to see what Vittoz does. Only don’t overdo it and tire yourself, please.

My Darling Love, do believe that my love is still there when I seem distant. All happiness there can be in my life is bound up with you. Work sometimes compels me to forget about happiness, but nothing would make my happiness be elsewhere but with you. Goodnight my Dearest — and don’t be unhappy for there is really no occasion for it.

Your
B

• 1

  [document] Document 000796. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

• 2

  [envelope] A circled “796”. The Lady Ottoline Morrell | chez Madame Chartier | 3 Avenue Agassiz | Lausanne | Switzerland. Pmk: LONDON. W.C. | 2. AM | JUN 3 13A

Textual Notes

• a

  met BR mistakenly wrote meant.