BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [3 JUNE 1911]
BRACERS 17173. ALS. Morrell papers #99, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.

Trinity College,
Cambridge.1^, 2
Sat. mg.

My Dearest Dearest

It is very vexing indeed that you should be so tired and so subject to headaches and fatigue and depression. It certainly seems as if something ought to be possible to make it better. It is disappointing if the inoculationa is going to be a failure. — Darling, I do want very much indeed to associate you with my work in every possible way. There will be times when I shall be very much absorbed in work, but if I can make you share in it, those times will not be painful.

I agree absolutely with what you say about windows. But clear thinking does not shut up windows: where nothing positive is known, clear thinking tells one that it is so, and leaves the window open. Speaking technically, I have found the chief result to be that many more alternatives are possible than any one had ever supposed. I want to live freely, with a wide intellectual freedom as well as other kinds — I feel all tight closed systems are like Alpine valleys, gloomy and confined — one wants to get up, where clearness and freedom come together. The Middle Ages — the Ages of Faith — are the most confined in that way. Think of Dante’s world — all neat and tidy, with no unexplored corners and no possibilities. You feel if you were to stretch yourself you would knock the walls down.

Can’t you make Lytton Strachey go Wed. morning? Your guests can’t expect to stay longer than they are asked for, and you can say you want the room. I don’t think a meeting desirable because of Oliver. But I really think he must be made to go. I shall really grow restive if I don’t see you either next week or the week after. You will begin to find me tiresome then.

I enclose the letter from Prof. Perry which I thought might amuse you. He is the head and front of the American Realists, who are a set of young philosophers who largely agree with Moore and me. I am more of an authority in America than anywhere else. I also enclose a letter from Maurice Amos, a friend from undergraduate days, a judge in Egypt, a public-spirited man whom I like a good deal. His father had a great deal to do with the legal side of the settlement of Egypt when we first went there, but died when Maurice was quite young. His mother was a somewhat absurd philanthropist, said to have remarked “Since my dear husband’s death I have devoted my life to prostitution.” He has a sister who is a Doctor in Cairo, and is now married to a Major Elgood out there. Both of them had many difficulties in youth, largely owing to their mother — Alys and I did a lot for them in those days, and both repaid it by turning out as well as possible and not growing dependent. Maurice comes home every summer and I generally see a certain amount of him.

My Dearest Life, all this is outside talk. I love you I love you, and that is really the only thing that seems worth saying. I do long to be with you, especially when you are tired — I should like to stroke your head and whisper gentle words. Darling you are all the world to me, and I live in you always and utterly. Goodbye my heart and my joy. I must go in and work. You won’t get another letter till Monday afternoon I expect.

Yours in the deepest devotion
B.

• 1

  [document] Document 000099. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

• 2

  [envelope] A circled “99”. The Lady Ottoline Morrell | Peppard Cottage | Henley-on-Thames. Pmk: CAMBRIDGE | 7.15 PM | JU 3 | 11

Textual Notes

• a

  inoculation misspelt as innoculation