51
182
182. LAWRENCE, D.H. Autograph letter signed in full to ottoline morrell. Porthcothan, St. Merryn, North Cornwall. 15 feb 1916. £3,500 4to., 6 pages, signs of earlier folding, otherwise in fine condition. A long personal and chatty letter to his close friend lady ottoline morrell discussing the books he is reading, various friends and marriage.
on bertram russell “today we have a letter from bertie: very miserable. he doesn’t know why he lives at all: mere obstinacy and pride, he says, keeps him alive. his lectures are all right in themselves, but their effect is negligible. they are a financial success. but all the people who matter are too busy doing other things to come to listen. he lives only for fussy trivialities, and for nothing else… i am sorry for him, but my heart doesn’t soften to him just yet: i don’t know why. i feel he is obstinate in going his own way, and until he ceases to be obstinate, all is useless”; on katherine mansfield and John middleton murray “i had a similar despairing letter from the murrays…i forgot to tell you, she has £130 a year from her father; he has what he makes. he can make quite a lot by his journalism. it is rather surprising that newspaper editors hold him in such esteem”.
there is then a long section discussing philip heseltine (peter Warlock the composer) and his love affairs.”About h. and mlle - i tell him he ought to tell her. i suppose he will. it is queer. he declares he does not like this one, the puma, but he does really. he declares that he wants her to go. but he is really attached to her in the senses, in the unconsciousness, in the blood. he is always fighting away from this. but in doing so he is a fool. she is very nice and very real and simple, we like her. his affection for mlle is a desire for the light because he is in the dark. if he were in the light he would want the blood connection, the dark, sensuous relation. With puma he has this second, dark relation, but not the first. she is quite intelligent, in her way, but no mental consciousness; no white consciousness, if you understand, all intuition, in the dark, the consciousness of the senses…perhaps he is very split and would like to have the two things separate, the real blood connection and the real conscious or spiritual connection, always separate. for these people i really believe in two wives. i don’t see why there should be monogamy for people who can’t have full satisfaction in one person, because they themselves are too split…monogamy is for those who are whole and clear, all in one stroke…for myself, thank god, i feel myself becoming more and more unified, more and more a oneness. And frieda and i become more and more truly married - for which i thank heaven. it has been such a fight. but it is coming right. And then we can all three be real friends. then we shall be really happy, all of us, in our relation”
At the beginning of 1916 Warlock, a conscientious objector, had followed lawrence to cornwall and involved himself in an unsuccessful venture to publish lawrence’s books. here lawrence is discussing his love affairs with Juliette baillot “mlle” and an artists’ model, minnie lucy channing “puma”. lawrence and Warlock’s friendship did not last and the two split with some acrimony. Warlock returned to cornwall for a brief while in April 1917 and, outwardly, at least, resumed cordial, if distant, relations with lawrence. What he did not know was that lawrence was at the time writing Women in Love in which he and puma were being introduced as two unattractive characters. When in 1921 he learnt that the book was to be published, he threatened legal action and lawrence was forced to rewrite certain passages.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96