BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [25 OCT. 1917]
BRACERS 19233. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<London>
Thursday1^, 2^, 3

My Darling

I found your little line4 when I got home just now. I did write on Tuesday but to the wrong address.5 I am sorry you have not had a letter all this time.

I long to see you again. My thoughts come back to you increasingly.  When I see you I will tell you all that has been going on in my feelings.  I am unhappy about myself — I do hate to be such a miserable creature.  I feel imprisoned in egotism — weary of effort, and too tired to break through into love — It is a dreadful mood, like the one I had last Xmas.6 — I should like to hide away from all mankind — or see only very simple country folk who live with the seasons and have no thought at all.  If I could get over this mood of prison, I could love you again. There would be a difference, but it would still be love.

Dear one, you cannot imagine the horror I have of having made you unhappy — and I shall always make every one unhappy who has much to do with me. Such people as I am ought not to be left to live. I have spread pain everywhere — because of a devouring hunger which is ruthless and insatiable.

I wonder what you are thinking and feeling and doing. I long to know —

I want to see my way straight — I wish there were monasteries for atheists7 — if there were I would renounce the world and the flesh — but I could never renounce the devil!

I have known real happiness with you. If I could live by my creed8 I should know it still — I feel a yearning towards you — but how am I to leap the gulf?

B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200220.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 4 Cecil Street | Manchester. Pmk: LONDON | W.C. | 8.15 PM | OCT 25 17B

• 3

  [date] Colette wrote “25 Oct. 1917” on the letter.

• 4

  found your little line None of her letters from 16 to 26 October is extant. She had gone to Hertfordshire with an old school friend and then joined her husband in Manchester (“Letters to Bertrand Russell from Constance Malleson, 1916–1969”, ts. in RA).

• 5

  write on Tuesday but to the wrong address The envelope of his letter of Tuesday (BRACERS 19143) contains the following addresses: King John’s Farm, Chorley Wood, Herts, crossed out for 31 Upper Brook, London, crossed out for 6 Mecklenberg Sq.

• 6

  Xmas See BR’s correspondence at the time he wrote “Why Do Men Persist in Living?” (3 in Papers 14).

• 7

  I wish there were monasteries for atheists See a similar remark, BR’s letter to Ottoline Morrell, 11 April 1911.

• 8

  live by my creed I.e., to allow freedom in relationships with women and not be consumed by jealousy.