1 Dear K. P.
2
3 Your letter was very refreshing to me when I came back from four hours
4in Bow Street Court. I cannot live among human creatures & not live in
5them & for them if they are suffering. I can feel them & their very
6own abstract intellectual life bubbles up clear & free at once. Ought
7I to? That is the question I ask of myself.
8
9 //As I write Mrs Nettle-ship has come in to ask me to get Mrs Weldon
10to come & take a room near this till the trial, so that I can look
11after her. They are afraid she may run away or kill herself & then
12Howard will they think kill himself: He really loves this woman he
13doesn’t care a straw for his wife as compared to her - but you
14don’t want to hear about my individuals!!
15
16 //It is horrid of you not to like that poem – it’s nearly as
17wicked of you as not to like my little stories. I’ve got a number
18I’d like to show you, but I’m ashamed to.
19
20 //You don’t know how terrible it was in the court yesterday. That
21poor woman would have been there utterly alone if I had not been there
22with her: all the others were together; she seemed such an outcast.
23The case will be tried on the 25th.
24
25 //To-day has just come. I think the article is good. Don’t you?
26Thank-you. I’ve written to E. Carpenter about the club.
27
28 //No, I’ll not sell my copy right to you. You’d soon have enough
29of worrying old Chapman & you must waste your time over "individual"
30things!
31
32 //Why have I a "splendid opportunity of working straight for an end"??
33
34 //It is not my reason that has failed in my friendship with Donkin. I
35was first selfish in letting him come to see me when I knew he loved
36me; & then sorry. (It is strange that the most wrong things I have
37done in my life I have done from pity.)
38
39 I am writing this in great haste with people coming & going. Tomorrow
40or next week I want to write out & send you what I, during the last
41few months, have come to conceive of as the fundamental difference in
42matters of sex between man & woman. I feel almost satisfied that I
43have got a bit of truth here.
44
45 //I ought not to write this in pencil for your eyes, but I have not a
46pen here. Can you understand in what haste I am writing.
47
48 Yours
49 O.S.
50
51 I don’t understand the prophecy at the end of your letter!!
52
53 I am sure Carpenter wouldn’t mind my sending you enclosed letter.
54It’s very characteristic.
55
56 ^Got a delightful letter from Mrs Wilson.^
57
58