BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [2 MAR. 1917]
BRACERS 19129. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<London?>
Friday aftn.1^, 2 (2nd letter).

My Beloved

Your wonderful wonderful letter has just come3 and has made me so full of happiness and a sort of awe. Your love is so beautiful and strong and so wonderfully free from Self — My dear, my loved one, you don’t know what greatness there is in you.

It is good that you’re resting and sleeping so much. I believe you will be well before long if you can go on that way — Yes the last 5 months must have been a terrible strain to you. Although you assured me that money was your chief worry4 I don’t think that is really the truth. — They have refused me permission to see Allen.5 Miss Marshall6 is trying to get up a fuss in the House7 about it. I am weary, weary — there seems no reason why the war should ever end, and N.C.F. affairs at close quarters are not very inspiring. My mind gets fixed on after the war — everything gets put off till then. Do you realize that when that day comes (if it ever does) I shall love you fully and freely and without the “wall”?8 It is chiefly the pain of the war that makes the “wall”. The pain of the world would make something of it, but when the war first stops one will get rid of the pain of the world for a time. I told you when I was desperate that after the war I should want to be alone. I think it very likely that I shan’t. It will not be the moment to begin difficult and painful thought in solitude at once. If  ayou can come abroad when that day comes, it seems to me we might know a joy that seldom comes to mortals — and it might make one whole again after all the spiritual lacerations of this time — Do bear it in mind. I feel most profoundly the need of something you have to give, that can only come through freedom away together —

My dear one, you are very precious to me — I love the steel in you as well as the other side — I feel you full of real love — I cannot conceive losing you out of my life — it would seem unbearably bleak. And always I keep the hope of times of wonderful happiness ahead — when happiness becomes possible again.  I shall have need of the whole of you then — at any rate for a time. This is selfish but it is true.

Meanwhile the road is dusty and the way is long.  I miss you terribly my dear one and long to see you but I am so happy to think of you resting that it makes up — Goodbye my Heart my Love my Life.

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200102.

• 2

  [date] Colette wrote on the letter: “Probably he refers to my 28 Feb. letter 1917.” That letter was written on a Wednesday; thus the dating assigned to this letter.

• 3

  wonderful wonderful letter has just come Probably BR is referring to her letter of 28 February (BRACERS 112995). The dates of the letters in the typescript “Letters to Bertrand Russell from Constance Malleson, 1916–1969” are not always correct.

• 4

  money was your chief worry Colette was not acting, her main source of income, in 1917.

• 5

  permission to Allen. (Reginald) Clifford Allen (1889–1939). Allen was being held at Maidstone, Kent, a defence-related prohibited area. The government banned BR from all prohibited areas. For further information on him, see BRACERS 19046.

• 6

  Miss Marshall Catherine Marshall (1880–1961). For further information on her, see BRACERS 19043.

• 7

  fuss in the House There is nothing in Hansard up to 12 March about visiting conscientious objectors.

• 8

  the “wall”? The exact nature of the barrier between them is not described.

Textual Notes

• a

  If “If” is underlined three times in a continuous stroke.