"Thursday Dearest O. I am very sorry I can't come next week."

"Monday Dearest O. I will come Wed. at 8* with pleasure."

[*25th Feb. 1931 in pocket diary.]

"Wed. Dearest O. Thank you very much for your letter."

[Letter no. is not on letter.]

A very good account of Frank Russell's death.

[Letter no. is not on letter.]

"Dearest O. My brother's affairs have kept me very busy, but we finished with them yesterday when we scattered his ashes."

"Sat. Dearest O. I can come to lunch next Wed. but I shall have to run away immediately after it."

"Dearest O. Thank you very much for your letter and for Lytton's* book, both of which arrived on my birthday."

[Letter no. is not on letter.]

*Strachey.

On what Ottoline did for him—now much less of a prig. "... the children. They have taken the place of ambition to do good work."

"I have been for some time in love with a Miss Marjorie Spence.*" She's pregnant; going through with it; due in May.

*Later Patricia Helen Spence, and then Patricia ("Peter") Russell.

"The Arcady". Miscarriage of Marjorie Spence [Patricia Russell].

"I went all over southern California debating with a Rabbi* on the question 'Is Monogamy Doomed?'"

Herman Lissauer (see B&R D31.04).

Broadcasting on Jan. 6 [1932].

"Dearest O. Thank you for your letter."

"Dearest O. Thank you very much for your letter."

"I had no idea you would dislike it" [the draft Autobiography].

"Monday" Can't see what's wrong with other chapters of the Autobiography, though last not good.

Speaks at meeting Saturday.

"Dearest O. I have been meaning to write to you but have been terribly busy."

"Saturday Dearest O. Thank you very much, we will come to tea Monday about 4.30."

"Tuesday" Wants to give T.H. Huxley letters to Aldous personally.

"Sunday Dearest O. I am very sorry you are not well, and also that I shall not see you tomorrow."

"Dearest O. Thank you for your letter."

"Dearest O. May I come to tea on Monday, say 4.30?"*

*4 April in pocket diary.

"Dearest O. Thank you very much for your nice letter."

"Dearest O. Your letter was forwarded to me here, where Peter and I expect to be till the end of the summer, except from May 20 to May 30."

While in London: "My days I shall be busy dictating".

"Writing a book all the time".

"Have read a great deal of nineteenth century history."

Dearest O. Thank you very much for the book on The Essential Shakespeare which I have read with great interest."

"German politics is very interesting. I should like to be in Germany...."

"What you say about Hitler is just what I should have expected him to be."

Wants to see parts of his letters that are typed.

"Am exhausted by a visit from Wittgenstein, but happy too—he is a splendid human being."

About her ms. on D.H. Lawrence.

Joan Malleson dealt with Peter.

[Letter no. is not on letter.]

"Dearest O. The children are now gone, and I can resume normal life; they took up all my time because the place is small and one can't let them go out alone in London."

"Dearest O. I wonder if it would amuse you to see the little bit I have so far done of my history book."

Patricia writes: objects to publication of extracts from letters until she's dead; afraid will cause spate of books—one by Colette has already appeared [After Ten Years].

"Dearest O. Yes, I got the ms. with your nice letter."

Patricia again: "I am sure the publication of his letters to you will be the best possible tribute to him.... Indeed 20 years is as much delay as I could want."

"B's autobiography is to be published 50 years after his death. When he has finished this book he is going to re-write it entirely, and I am sure it will be much better."

"Dearest O. This is to wish you many happy returns, though it should arrive a day or two before your birthday—and to say we have a little present which we will bring with us when we come home in three weeks."

"Dearest O. I am sorry to have been so long without writing."

"I have got to America now in my book."

"I am trying to revert to writing good books instead of bad ones, but that means a small income—so does the American collapse."

Likes Stephen Spender's poetry.

[Letter no. is not on letter.]

"Dearest O.—Thank you for your letter."

"Dearest O. I am sorry I couldn't even phone to you while I was in London—my affairs are at a crisis."

"Dearest O. Thank you for your letter."

[Letter no. is not on letter.]

"My book is finished, but now law keeps me almost as busy."

"We got here late Saturday night, finding the house stripped of even the barest necessaries."

Going to Scandinavia on Saturday to lecture for 3 weeks and 3 days: "very busy preparing the lectures".

"I give a Fabian lecture on Oct. 25."

"Dearest O. We will both come to tea on Saturday with the greatest pleasure."

"I have to give a lecture in London on Tuesday at seven."

"Dearest O. Thank you very much indeed for the Chinese dishes (which haven't arrived yet) and for your letter."

Letter no. 1,735 not on microfilm reel. Listed as missing by U. of Texas.

"I came to the edge of a nervous breakdown and had to throw up all my work suddenly."

Canary Islands for 2 months.

"At present I can't imagine any point in going on living."

"Union Castle Line S.S. 'Dunluce Castle'" "Dearest O. I am afraid the letter I wrote you the other day may have worried you unduly."

"My Dearest O. Your letter of Feb. 12 reached me in Taneriffe, but too late for me to write to India."

"Dearest O. Thank you for your letter."

Ottoline's was his only birthday letter.

"I am very busy finishing a little book* but it will be done next week."

*Religion and Science.

"Dearest O. Thank you very much for the sonnets; they are immensely improved by the re-arrangement."

[Letter no. is not on letter.]

"Dearest O. Peter asks me to thank you warmly for the lovely flowers and the delicious scent."

[Letter no. is not on letter.]

"Dearest O. Thank you for your nice letter."

Crompton Ll. Davies has died. "He was the only one left of my Cambridge friends that I was still intimate with."

Very busy with book about his parents.

[Letter no. is not on letter.]

"Monday Dearest O. I will come (without Peter) on Wed., thank you very much."

"We have worked a lot at the book about my parents, and have got it nearly finished."

Harry Wells wants BR's Lawrence letters: £50; also two typewritten copies in return; to include Social Reconstruction sketch.

Other letters he'd be glad to sell: 2 Mrs. Carlyle, 2 or 3 H. Spencer, 2 nice ones from Huxley, 1 Palmerston, etc.

D.H. Lawrence.

BR stayed with Ottoline exactly 25 years ago.

This letter is with document .001748 but couldn't have been enclosed as it was written later.

"The stuff about my parents is gone to the printers."

"Dearest O. I am sorry to have not thanked you sooner for the very beautiful picture of Milton but I have been finishing a book on peace at high pressure—today I have sent it to the publisher...." "I have never worked so hard before except when finishing Principia Mathematica."

"Dearest O. Peter and I are going to be married next week, at Chichester (the law requires it to be there)."

Patricia's letter: "Bertie and I want to be married soon." She wants Ottoline to be a witness.

[Letter no. is not on letter.]

[Letter no. is not on letter.]

"We are struggling with my parents' papers, of which we want to make a book...."

About his letters to Ottoline: "There are a few (and some bits in others) that I should not like published.... All the rest there is no possible objection to."

"Dearest O. Thank you very much for the Letters from India."

"Dearest O. I am very sorry I wrote such an inadequate letter about the really delightful book you sent me; it was only because I was overwhelmed with work and suffering from influenza."

"I had a hope of getting a job in America, but it fell through. I must get a job somewhere or starve."

Encloses something from Frieda Lawrence which he hasn't answered.

D.H. Lawrence.

"I am in no hurry whatever about my letters."

Maynard Keynes and money—"It would have to be a large sum to make up for never being able to speak ill of him again!"

"Dearest O. I want very much to see you, but at the moment I am rushed off my feet."

[Letter no. is not on letter.]

"Wed. My maiden speech in the Lords, Thursday the research chemists in Ayrshire who invent high explosives for imperial chemicals, Friday I reached London just in time for a meeting at Hampstead, Sat. I had a conference.... This week the same sort of thing."

"I have to be at Bedford College at 7."

Thanks for writing to Keynes.

Just off to Shrewsbury, then Manchester, to speak.

[Letter no. is not on letter.]

"Dearest O. This is just to tell you about the boy* born on April 15—he is most vigorous, and Peter is very well."

*[Conrad Russell]

"Yes, I should be grateful if you could send the copies of my letters."

"Invited to go to Chicago for two years."

"My Dearest O. I am very very sorry to hear from Philip how seriously ill you are."

"Dearest O. Thank you very much for your letter and Santayana's enclosed."

"I have written to Santayana and Desmond" [MacCarthy] about money.

"Dearest O. I hope you are going on well."

"I got a letter this morning from Santayana's nephew George Sturgis, enclosing a cheque for [£]500 and saying I might expect a similar sum, for some years to come, every six months. The donor is anonymous, but the anonymity is very thin. It is good of Santayana. So at any rate for the present my financial troubles are at an end."

Bought house at Kidlington.

"Dearest O. I forgot to say, when I write about Santayana, that it will be wise, at any rate for the present, not to tell people, as I am afraid that if Dora hears of it, she will make a fuss, and perhaps waste a lot of money on going to law."

[Letter no. is not on letter.]

"My chief reason for wanting to go there is that I have gone back to philosophy, and I want people to talk to about it. I am lecturing there [Oxford] after Xmas and shall get to know all the people in my line, of whom, among the younger dons, there are quite a number. In Cambridge I am an ossified orthodoxy; in Oxford, still a revolutionary novelty."