BRACERS Record Detail for 17088
To access the original letter, email the Russell Archives.
"Tuesday midday My very dearest—after giving Karin a lesson on Locke and Hume and abstract ideas, I have escaped and gone off for a long walk alone."
BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [11 APR. 1911]
BRACERS 17088. ALS. Morrell papers #28, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell and A.G. Bone
My very Dearest
After giving Karin a lesson on Locke and Hume and abstract ideas, I have escaped and gone off for a long walk alone. Here I am in a pine-wood, with the smell of it and the sound of the wind, and gorse and the south downs. If I could forget that I might be with you, it would be perfect. As soon as I get away with nature, peace comes upon me, and I forget everything except our love. It is other people who make me lose peace for a time. But the vision I try to live with at ordinary times comes to me quite as much in crowds and streets as in the country. I don’t think it would ever come without the knowledge of wind and sea and sky, but they alone leave one self-centred — what I want is a bond with mankind, a vision of how they might be, and a passionate wish to lead them to realize their best. What nature does for me is to take away pettiness and eagerness and restless striving, and show the greatness of things that endure.
What you tell me about the man you loved is very sad. I cannot help the feeling that it is fortunate for me you no longer feel as you did then. I wonder how much you mind my attitude. For my part, I should think the absence of the religious spirit would be a barrier, but that belief or disbelief in itself does not matter much.
I have heard much of Lord Henry from the Davies’s, and I should much like to meet him some time. I have followed his difficulties with his party in the papers. It is odd your other brothers should all be so very unlike you. — Graham Wallas is a friend of mine of long standing, I like him very much indeed. I once did him a service of which he knows nothing, by advising a girl not to propose to him, as she contemplated doing. Mrs Wallas is no doubt nice, but she takes the colour out of things and makes everything seem flat. He suffers in mind from a sort of sprawliness, like his body — his ideas are never clear-cut, or pushed through with enough energy. That is what has prevented him from being important.
I rather doubt whether anything political would suit Arthur Dakyns. His politics are all right, but his interests are more literary and philosophic. The work is not poorer than he contemplates, but quite the reverse. And it is time he got into a line he will stick to — he has hesitated and changed too long and often.
It would be interesting to know about your great grandmother. The sort of man who could tell you, if any one, would be Le Notre, the author of Vieilles Maisons vieux papiers.
If your letter of Sunday and yesterday morning had reached me sooner, I should have come yesterday, but I was afraid you were so tired and ill that it would really be better you should rest. And I comfort myself with the thought that a rest will really do you good. Now I am going on with my walk — walking is the only thing that really rests me. Goodbye my Darling. All is well with me, in spite of my blues last night. I love you.
B.
