BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [12 APR. 1911]
BRACERS 17090. ALS. Morrell papers #29A, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell and A.G. Bone

<Fernhurst>
Wed. midday1

My very Dearest

I am overcome by such a longing for you that I hardly know how I shall get through the remaining days. Lately I have been worn out with emotion and half numbed — today I am fully alive, and all the life that is in me goes into hunger for you. You are to me the epitome of all the beauty of the world — every beautiful sight or sound or thought makes me want you more. I have to keep my body tired to keep my mind in order — otherwise I should grow restless and impatient. I am out again for a long day’s walk alone — thinking, thinking, thinking of you all the time as I go, wishing for you, loving you, trying to find words to tell you what makes you great. You have a calm which I have never known before with such strength of feeling — it is like the calm of the great things of nature, only that it is not indifferent like them, but comes of large-hearted love and wisdom and knowing what is really important. You make me feel fretful and small, for you achieve what I only aim at, and achieve by moments. I wonder whether what you achieve is possible without religious beliefs which are not open to me. —a I can’t find the words to tell you what I mean about you — you will have to try to gather from the very inadequate things I have been saying.

I am sitting in a grove of beeches on a hill-top, with the world spread out before me beautiful and warm and calm. But I cannot believe we shall really meet next week — I feel something must happen to prevent it. I keep remembering the lines:

When soft winds and sunny skies
With the green earth harmonize,
And the young and dewy dawn,
Bold as an unhunted fawn,
Up the windless heaven is gone,
Laugh, for ambushed in the day
Clouds and whirlwinds watch their prey.

Perhaps Ray is the cloud and Logan the whirlwind! I feel I ought to be full of prudence on your account, but I cannot make myself be more prudent than you. And really, now that Alys is all right, there is nothing to fear.

I had hoped, without any particular reason, that you would be at Miss Sands’s when I dined there, and I felt a blankness when I found you were not. I think I only saw you once when you were in Grosvenor Rd — I came to lunch once. In those days I had a prejudice against you — based wholly on ignorance. It always broke down when I saw you, but it made me stiff and difficult. It was what you made of Philip that showed me the prejudice was mistaken. How one wastes the years in folly.

Dearest, I am aching for you — my mind won’t fix itself on anything but you. I must somehow live through these days, but it will be very difficult. Goodbye, my heart, my loved one — I am yours utterly, in every thought — your arms and your kiss are my heaven. I love you, I love you.

B.

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  [document] Document 000029A. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

Textual Notes

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  — dash inserted in margin