BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, 20 OCT. 1911
BRACERS 17314. ALS. Morrell papers #228, 222, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.

Trin. Coll.1
Friday evg. Oct. 20. ’11.

My Dearest Love

I found your letter of yesterday when I got back here at tea-time. It is too wonderful that we shall meet tomorrow. Just now you must be rolling along between Dover and London. I do hope you won’t be utterly exhausted. I will come tomorrow at 11.30. I engaged a sitting-room (No. 28, first floor) at the Grafton Hotel, Tottenham Ct Rd, for Monday and Tuesday but I can disengage it if you think it better. I had no great success at Gray’s Inn. I found a charming apartment and was just deciding on it when I observed that opposite, on the same floor, were Sidgwick and Uthwatt, whom Alys knows and who inherited a parlour-maid of ours. The only other place vacant is very small and has a hideous outlook; and it is not vacant till earlya November. I think perhaps I had better decide on it — it is cheap at any rate. But I am rather against Gray’s Inn on inspection. It is liable to be full of acquaintances. I almost think a flat in some less eligible place would be safer. Besides, one shares a servant with the other people on the staircase at Gray’s Inn. So my time was fruitless, unless I take the small and ugly apartment.

I am much amused by the cubes. It seems quite mad — except as an amusing game I can’t see what the point of it is. I am sending them back now — I should forget tomorrow.

Before showing Prisons to Dickinson I will hear your criticisms, also Mrs W’s detailed criticisms — I only heard general things the other day. She thought even the last Chapter no good — not as to the thought, but as to the expression. I have no doubt the whole is too bald. But I have difficulty in believing the last chapter is not good. However, we shall see what Dickinson says. You and I have lived in it too much to be able to judge. But I am quite certain I can improve it, tho’ probably I shall do well to wait till next summer.

I also have never been to Saint Cloud — it must be worth going to. — Oh yes, I did go there once with Mildred Minturn — I had quite forgotten, tho’ it was not very long ago — shortly before her marriage. I remember meeting Scott (whom I didn’t know) in her place, and thinking there was something between them.

I met dear Jane at the station, going to London to hear Bergson, but I avoided travelling up with her — I took Bergson with me and read a lot of him in the train.

Since I got home I have had a great time tidying up — I don’t want to have that sort of thing left over to do after you are back. Also I have prepared my Monday lecture. I can stay in town Tuesday night and till 3 on Wed. if you will be able to spare any time — but what with parlourmaids etc. I dare say you will find it impossible.

Darling I feel dumb till we meet — It is not long now — really only the night — I like being in trains when I am impatient — the motion is soothing — I can even work better in a train. The country was beautiful today but very autumnal and sad — a penetrating melancholy. What a funny thing it is the way an infinite sadness comes over one sometimes all of a sudden for no reason — and I can never get over the feeling that those are the times when one sees deepest, and that other moods come from some intoxication. Doing one’s duty is an intoxication like another — it shuts one up in a narrow circle of interests and prevents an impartial contemplation. If this were the last word of wisdom it would follow that impartial contemplation is a mistake. This is the fundamental pessimism that I am always on the edge of, and sometimes I fall into it. It is a result of fatigue, but then fatigue is essential to doing one’s work, or rather to not having all one’s desires fully satisfied. If one could subdue desires it would be easy, but then one would not be alive — it seems as if everything worth doing could only be done through great pain. The truth is hard to get at — but I doubt whether the peace that religious people sometimes achieve is compatible with creative work — it seems as if creation were always the outcome of restless desire. I dare say all this is nonsense, but I don’t know. I don’t think if God had achieved peace he would have created the world — he must have been dissatisfied with the existing state of things. Perhaps it would have been as well if he hadn’t created it.

Goodnight Darling — all these lugubrious reflections only mean that I want you — I know I shall be happy as soon as I am with you, but I have lost the power of imagining it. Now you must be just arrived in London — Tomorrow —

Your
B

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  [document] Document 000228. Proofread against a colour scan of the original. “228” is noted on the verso of the first leaf. Leaf #222 has the remainder of the letter, starting with the paragraph “Since I got home”. The various references to BR’s schedule and Ottoline’s return from abroad on 21 October fit perfectly together.

Textual Notes

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  early after deleted the middle of