BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [8 APR. 1911]
BRACERS 17080. ALS. Morrell papers #22A, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell and A.G. Bone

Fernhurst1
Sat. midday

My Dearest

I have just had a thoroughly satisfactory talk with Alys. I have agreed to preserve appearances by coming to her for occasional week-ends, when we shall have visitors and be seen together. She has agreed to go on taking my money (which was a very vital point), and to stay here, instead of at Iffley, during next term. I made her understand that if there came to be much scandal it would grow impossible even to keep up appearances. Pride and prudence will combine to keep her silent, and tho’ her family will guess that something is up, I feel sure she won’t breathe a word, and I don’t believe they will think of you. So really our minds may be easy about her. I dislike yielding to threats, but it has been quite effective. I feel quite sure she will do nothing harmful now.

It seems to me the only thing that matters is that P. should not be too much worried. Mrs Whitehead made me fear he might be unhinged by it, which would have had to be avoided even at the cost of everything. But on that, of course, only you can judge, and I shall of coursea leave you to settle what is best about that without thinking it necessary for me to bring it up.b But as far as Alys is concerned, all will be easy. Dearest, all this is sordid and horrible, but it will soon be over. Don’t, however, let the dangers weigh too much — I feel sure now that they are illusory. But I wish you would write quite fully all you feel about them — don’t be afraid of saying things — we must say everything to each other. And I shan’t misunderstand things said — but things unsaid are apt to worry me.

My brother is coming to lunch today or tomorrow. I wish I liked him better. He is very fond of me, and would do anything to help me; but I simply can’t bear the thought of talking to him about anything I feel deeply. He is good-natured, full of jollity and life, and with much good in him; but he is coarse in texture, he would sully anything one cared about. I like seeing him, but I don’t want intimacy.

As you were going to the Master Builder, I read it over again last night. When I saw it 17 years ago, it excited me extraordinarily — it was when I was thinking of Alys and had not yet spoken. Dickinson has been telling Karin she is just like Hilda, which is a gross libel. I don’t now find that I like the play. It is extraordinarily skilful, and as a play admirable. But the people are all mad and all horrid. The master builder is intolerable with his oppression of the young, and Hilda seems to me an old man’s idealization as an excuse for his conduct. Most women in literature are what men have invented as excuses to themselves. I find any lack of truth very repulsive, and it is foolish to think people would not be worthy of love unless they were not real people. Love is always so much to the good, and it is mere weakness of feeling not to be able to love without make-believe.

Dearest, I am agitated more or less by your fatigue and anxieties, and by the talk with Alys. But I look forward to the long letters you promised me from Studland. By the way, I have a meeting at Ely on Monday 24th which I can’t get out of, so that date would be impossible, at least I could not come till very late at night.

Tell me everything you can in your letters — hopes and fears and memories and about books and everything. We depend terribly on letters for knowing each other — Don’t let me make you tell more than you wish about yourself, but everything interests me. This is not saying much, because people interest me profoundly even when I don’t care for them. But with you it is different — I don’t want only to know, but to have as much of life in common as possible. — Goodbye, my Beloved. I love you absolutely, with all my heart and all my strength in every thought and in every moment. Don’t let yourself be troubled if you can help it. Things shall be all right, Dearest. For your kiss I would give up everything except what I love in you — but that is more to me than anything of mine. Goodbye, goodbye.

B.

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  [document] Document 000022A. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

Textual Notes

• a

  of course inserted

• b

  without … up inserted