BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [12 DEC. 1911]
BRACERS 19012. ALS. Morrell papers #284A, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.

<Cambridge>
Tuesday mg.1, 2

My Dearest Heart

Your letter written in the train reached me this morning and was a very great joy to me. It does make a difference when you are better — it lifts a great weight of oppression from me as much as from you. I have been thinking a lot about Prisons. If it is to be made less pedantic and so as to have a wider appeal, it must be differently constructed: the chapter on Religion gives the clue. I must treat successively worship, submission, love. Worship introduces the ideal and the actual, which in turn brings in the world of universals, but in a less logical way. Submission brings in Matter and Time — the two forms of the Devil which are hardest to submit to. Love brings in the rest. So the matter will be very similar to what it is now. Do you think that sort of arrangement would be an improvement? I should like somehow to lay more stress on the original idea of escape from prison, only I don’t see clearly how to do it. Perhaps it might be done in the first chapter; that is, the first chapter might state how easily human life becomes a prison, and how religion should be the escape from prison. I shan’t get anything done of it this Vacation, but it absorbs my thoughts very much.

Today I lunch with the Trevys, then go to see Mrs Whitehead, then have Whitehead here; after that I believe I ought to go to a P.S.F. Comee. So I am writing now, as I may not have time later before the evening post. I have been reading poor old Ward — he is dull and antiquated. Very few philosophers are much good — I think they are inferior to men of science, partly because there are no such definite tests of achievement.

O my love I do long for you to be back. It seems already ages since Sunday. I grudge losing these days when you are well. But I do think Burnley important and I should not have liked to stand in the way of it. It seems rather absurd how intensely I long to have you for a whole night. I don’t know why I should so very much. Some day, either here or somewhere in the country as you may find easiest, I count on its happening. I may count on you not being too shy to propose it if it ever is possible, so I shan’t talk about it again until you do.

I keep wondering what you are doing and how you are getting on, and trying to guess the image of you in the minds of Burnley people. I expect it is much nearer the truth than it would be if they knew more about you. Did you tell P. what I thought about the Foreign Affairs Comee., and did he have any views about it?

Darling my heart yearns to you and I love you most absolutely. You do not know in the least how much you give me or all you are to me. You are most unspeakably precious to me my Ottoline.

Your
B

• 1

  [document] Document 000284A. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

• 2

  [envelope] See the envelope to #284, BRACERS 17372.