BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [26 SEPT. 1917]
BRACERS 19219. AL. McMaster. SLBR 2: #299
Edited by S. Turcon and N. Griffin. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<London>1^, 2^, 3

My Darling

I am much happier since your letter came.4 I will trust you and not worry any more. There are painful things to be gone through, but I will believe that they will have an end.

Thank you for your letter — it has brought hope — I am becoming insane through lack of sleep, so you must be tolerant if I am not wise these next days. I have sent Miss Kyle5 to buy me something to make me sleep. If I could sleep everything would seem better.

You gave me great pain last night, not by anything to do with me, but by a tone of brutality which I have felt slightly before but never so strongly. The way you spoke of Miles6 hurt me through and through. But I know you can live for the world, and if I can endure I will help you — If you cannot, everything will come to an end between us because in the long run I feel competitiveness and callousness are horrible to me — in spirit they are the very same thing as militarism.  I feel them physically as well as mentally.

I will remember your kiss in Whitehall7 and I do know you care for me. But it is impersonal things that I want most in you — I want you to live by the spirit of love — it does exist in you, and it might be dominant, but it isn’t. Don’t think things are insincere phrases because they don't happen to suit your mood.

I think it is true that things will be all right after these next 3 weeks.8 At any rate I try to think so.

Last night I talked nonsense because truth was too difficult. I felt you a thousand miles away, even when I was in your arms. That was why I went away.

I posted some things to you before your letter came — things I had written while you were away. You may feel the analysis of your character unkind,9 but I felt I had been to blame for not saying these things sooner — they were not new thoughts. And I can no longer have these things in my mind without speaking of them. But I would not have posted them if I had had your letter.a

My life is inextricably bound up with you. I could part from you, but I could not go on afterwards.

My child I long to be just gentle and kind and keep pain away from you — But you have got to have pain before the brutality is ground out. I remember being just as brutal at your age. I want strength these days — and I have so little. Goodbye. My love is with you.

• 1

  [document] Document 200201.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 6 Mecklenburgh Square | W.C. 1. Pmk: LONDON | 1.15 PM | 26 SEP 17

• 3

  [date] The date is taken from the postmarked envelope.

• 4

  your letter came Her letter of 26 Sept. 1917 (BRACERS 113066).

• 5

  Miss Kyle Eva Kyle. BR dictated Roads to Freedom to her in the early months of 1918.

• 6

  Miles Miles Malleson, Colette’s husband. For further information on him, see BRACERS 19046, n.4.

• 7

  your kiss in Whitehall They met accidentally in Whitehall on Colette’s return from the north and “flew straight into each others’ arms” (“Letters to Bertrand Russell from Constance Malleson, 1916–1969”, introduction to the section titled “Blackpool—Brixton”; typescript in RA).

• 8

  after these next 3 weeks At the end of this time Hindle Wakes, the film she was making, would be finished.

• 9

  analysis of your character unkind “What she is and what she might become” (BRACERS 120470) written on 25 September and mailed to her after they had had an argument and before her conciliatory letter arrived. Driven by jealousy, BR condemns her for having a tangled soul. Although briefly mentioning her good qualities — energy, love of freedom and hatred of cruelty — BR focuses on her negative qualities, particularly vanity, the desire to earn large sums of money, lack of self-control and the need for sexual adventure which he fears might lead her as far as prostitution. BR wanted her to live a selfless life improving the world. He could see little or no value in her chosen career of acting.

Textual Notes

• a

  But … letter. inserted