BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [29 APR. 1911]
BRACERS 17113. ALS. Morrell papers #46, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.

<letterhead>
Trinity College,
Cambridge.1^, 2
In the train
Saturday morning.

My Dearest Life

Your dear letter to my hotel waited in my bedroom till I got home after posting my letter to you. Yes, parting grows harder each time — I feel it won’t be possible soon. It grows impossible to take an interest in other things or do one’s work properly. At present I am not attempting to write, but a serious piece of constructive work would be very hard — and I think on your side you are finding it harder and harder to do what you mean to do at home. I should like whatever we ultimately do to be done deliberately, and I should like to be sure that you have faced all there is to say against me. I am not an easy person to know, especially for those I care for much, because I am so much affected by them that my thoughts and feelings are apt to be rather different from what they might be at another time. Mrs Whitehead has a belief, which I think unjust in spite of some facts, that I am not very constant in my affections. I most firmly believe that as far as you are concerned I shall be absolutely constant, but still you ought to realize the other view. An affection which is unsatisfied and does not take up my time is not, with me, evidence of a minor interest in other women — I believe this would be true of most men whose passions are strong. And an affection which finds no expression will in time die. But those are all the reasons for thinking me inconstant. I don’t think they come to much. I loved Alys and that came to an end because we were fundamentally uncongenial and I found it out. But I think really the odd thing is that I didn’t find it out sooner. Then, as I told you, I loved once again, 9 years ago; but that was unhappy, and died a gradual death for want of nourishment.

The other thing I can think of to say against myself is what was exemplified by the “unseen” which shocked you. I have a perfectly cold intellect, which insists upon its rights and respects nothing. It will sometimes hurt you, sometimes seem cynical, sometimes heartless. It is very much more dominant at certain times than at others. You won’t much like it. But it belongs with my work — I have deliberately cultivated it, and it is really the main thing that I have put discipline into. In time I believe you will not mind it, but the sudden absolute cessation of feeling when I think must be trying at first. And nothing is sacred to it — it looks at everything quite impartially, as if it were some one else. Happily I have its approval in all I feel to you — it hasn’t found anything to say against you or against my trusting our love. It is not in that way it is a danger, but that some day in some other way it might hurt you, and that its habit of analysing may vex you. I have preserved my faiths in a very difficult atmosphere — the intellect fights every inch of the ground, and for any one else it may not be pleasant.

Now Dearest I can’t see how to blacken my character any further. If other ways occur to me later, you shall have the benefit of them. I find there are various general waiting rooms at Paddington so I shall wait for you in the 1st class one — as one doesn’t need a 1st class ticket for it! Dearest, Dearest, I only live in the thought of you these days — everything else seems so trivial. Writing to you, hearing from you, being with you — there is nothing else that counts. Darling you are my life and my soul — all that I love is united in you, and I love you with all the loves that I give to all good things. Now goodbye — this must be posted.

Your
B.

You won’t get another letter till Monday.

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  [document] Document 000046. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

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  [envelope] A circled “46”. The Lady Ottoline Morrell | 44 Bedford Square | London W.C. Pmk: READING | 30 PM | AP 2 | 11