BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [2 JUNE 1911]
BRACERS 17172. ALS. Morrell papers #98, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.

<letterhead>
Trinity College,
Cambridge.1^, 2
Friday mg.

My Darling

Your letter this morning was an unspeakable joy to me. You really need not be so afraid that your thoughts will seem “foolish” or “baby-talk” — they don’t at all — and I feel very strongly all you say. Until now I have always found that the really great and important things were painful, and that all happiness was of the nature of oblivion and intoxication. This gave me a sort of religion of sorrow — I had not always the courage to live up to it, but it was right so far as my experience went. When I was very young I was very unhappy from loneliness and loss of religion — I was often near suicide, and much oppressed (quite groundlessly) by fear of insanity, which I knew was in the family. Alys was to me an escape, but also an escape from seriousness, which I feared. In some ways it was good for me to be free from seriousness for a time — I did a very great deal of work, and I acquired a fund of sanity. But it meant that she remained outside my deeper life, which stopped for a time. Since then, everything until now confirmed my feeling that the happy things are trivial compared to the painful ones. But I am afraid it is useless to hope that my views of the world at large will ever become very optimistic — there are too many things to be set on the other side. I see no evidence whatever that there is any purpose in things, and it seems probable that human life and all that we value must die out. And in life as it is, I think it is hard not to suppose that evil predominates. All these questions are unaffected by one’s own experience, and there is no reason why one’s own experience should alter one’s views about them. What it does alter is the bias — I had a bias towards making the worst of things, and now I haven’t.

Don’t bother about reading Spinoza yet-a-while. I should be sorry if you took the time away from writing to me! I think if you do have any time, you will do better to read Pollock than to read Spinoza himself at first.

Dearest, I don’t wholly know why I love you as I do, or why you give me so much more than I had dreamed that any woman could. Things of that sort are hard to explain. I could easily give a catalogue of your qualities, but something would escape. I only know that all sorts of deep things that hardly lived before have come to life since I knew you, and that somehow I know that we belong to each other as completely as two human beings can. You say you find it difficult to let yourself enjoy the thought of all you are to me. But you must know it and realize it. I hardly think you will ever enjoy it. Life without you has grown inconceivable to me. Not having a God makes a difference. You would have God to fall back upon — I should only have what I could bring out of myself, and I should feel too dead to be able to bring much out of myself — But it is not necessary to think of that. Only I wanted you to realize that absence of religious beliefs makes a difference.

Later
I had a rather pleasant evening last night, beginning with one of our youngest Fellows named Hill, who is just back from Germany. He is one of the few who are Christian — he rather likes me, but can’t stand the people he meets in my rooms. He is passionate, capable of some brutality, rather capable of going wrong, but very straight, and very real and vital. I like him a good deal. If he did not hate my milieu I could be useful to him. He seems very much happier than before he went to Germany. It is a comfort to feel people alive; so many of them here are not.

You will let me know about Wed. when you can, won’t you? I do long to be with you. It is ana immense comfort to think of you in the country having leisure and getting rested. Still I grudge the beautiful days that go by while we are apart — and who knows if there will ever be another spring and summer for us? The present is precious because the future is always full of doubt — I am not thinking of any particular doubt, only the general uncertainty, and the feeling that the Gods will be envious.

I am rejoicing in getting more and more things about me that belong with you — your pen and paper-knife and little box are on my writing table and so is the box that holds your letters — your books are by my bedside, and your table looks very nice in the middle of the room — so I never get away from things of yours while I am here.

I am very much wondering what you would like for your birthday. My mind does not travel beyond a book, but I don’t know at all what book you would like. I should like to give you something very nice — nicer than anything is. You must help me.

Goodbye my Dearest. I am very happy, only longing for you. You hold my heart and my life.

Your loving
B.

• 1
  [document] Document 000098. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.
• 2

  [envelope] A circled “98”. The Lady Ottoline Morrell | Peppard Cottage | Henley-on-Thames. Pmk: CAMBRIDGE | 3.15 PM | JU 2 | 11

Textual Notes

• a

  an BR wrote any