BRACERS Record Detail for 17325

To access the original letter, email the Russell Archives.

Collection code
RA3
Recent acquisition no.
69
Document no.
000239
Box no.
2.55
Source if not BR
Texas, U. of, HRC
Recipient(s)
Morrell, Ottoline
Sender(s)
BR
Date
1911/11/01*
Form of letter
ALS(M)
Pieces
1E
BR's address code (if sender)
TRN
Notes and topics

"Wed. mg. My Darling Love—Our days have been quite wonderful—all our talks so full, with so much behind them."

Transcription

BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [1 NOV. 1911]
BRACERS 17325. Morrell papers #239, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell et al.


<letterhead>
Great Northern Hotel
King’s Cross Station,
London, N.1, 2
In the train,
Wed. mg.

My Darling Love

Our days have been quite wonderful — all our talks so full, with so much behind them. There is something new now, which makes things in some ways better than ever before. I think partly it is because you are better and partly it is that the mere lapse of time has given us confidence. Just being with you, whatever happens, is so heavenly. — I really like very much seeing you with other people — it is funny how little I know you in the ordinary social way. It is good of you to talk about Philip — it is a great help to me, and I am very thankful to find him so friendly. — Do encourage your Lamb to come and see me in Cambridge. I really like him, tho’ I don’t believe he would like me, as I can’t resist making fun of him when he talks about himself. He told me how he liked quarrelling by means of silent contempt and I told him probably the supposed victims never noticed. He tried to assure me their hearts were wrung, but I expressed doubts. I think he is nicer than my Lamb.

Tonight you may imagine me feasting in gilded splendour. Trinity always celebrates All Saints’ Day by a feast, and I have asked Sheppard of King’s to dine with me. He is a classical man, very amusing, a wonderful comedian — ought really to have been an actor. There is a great deal of seriousness and morality in him which has never come out fully — Cambridge is the last place where he ought to live. He told me once that he was always brooding on his sins — it was intended to be taken as a joke but was obviously true.

If P. goes to speak for Arthur Stanley and that gives you unexpected free time I can get to London 7.59 even on a night when I lecture (except a Thursday) so I could be with you to dinner. — I have been reading George Trevy — he hasn’t got over his old faults of style — it is all too rhetorical and Macauleyesque. But still it is interesting. Only the touch of comic opera spoils the whole Risorgimento more or less. Even the prisoners from loathsome dungeons seem to come on as bass choruses, singing “From loathsome dungeons we tra la la” and so on.

It is the most heavenly morning. I wish we had had a fine day for going to Putney or Hampstead — there is still a good deal of autumn beauty but very soon there will be none. But it was so delightful in your little room that I hardly think Putney could have been better. — Darling you satisfy me as I didn’t think any human being could — partly because you never let me feel I have had everything — you always make me feel there is more beyond — that a lifetime will not be enough to unfold it all. One wants present possessions to foreshadow even more hereafter — and so my mind is always kept busy, and there is always a sense of infinity — never the feeling “now I have the whole and know the best”. I might feel that if either of us were dying but not before. — Goodbye my Heart my Joy my Ottoline.

Your
B

  • 1

    [document] Document 000239. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

  • 2

    [envelope] A circled “239”. The Lady Ottoline Morrell | 44 Bedford Square | W.C. Pmk: HITCHIN | 12.15 PM | NO 1 | 11

Permission
Everyone
Transcription Public Access
Yes
Record no.
17325
Record created
Aug 06, 1996
Record last modified
Sep 25, 2025
Created/last modified by
duncana