It's happened to me once, twice, perhaps three times in my life to feel an unconditional devotion to someone. The other recipients have gone on their way. You remain. There is no substitute for this sort of sentiment & no mistaking it when it occurs. If it does nothing else, it shows up the inferior imitations.
I wish I could give you something. If anything comes out of this novel (or its successor), it's all yours - as is everything else I have if you would. I love you, I love you absolutely and unconditionally - thank God for being able to say this with the whole heart.
I feel reluctant to close this letter because I know that I shan't feel so frank later on. Not that my feelings will have altered, ça ne change pas, but I shall feel more acutely the futility at these sort of exclamations. At this moment I am, même malgré toi, in communication with you in a way which may not be repeated. If your letters to me could be slightly less impersonal I should be glad. Mais ça ne ce choisit pas. I have become used to write impersonally too, & this was a mistake. My dear, it happens to me so rarely to be able to write a letter so wholeheartedly - almost the last but one was a letter I wrote to you in 1946. I love you as much as then. More, because of the passage of time.
Forgive what in this letter is purely 'tiresome'. Accept what you can. If there is anything here which can give you pleasure or could in any bad moment give you comfort I should be very happy. I love you so deeply that I can't help feeling that it must 'touch' you somehow, even without your knowing it. Again, don't be distressed. There is so much I should like to have said to you, & may one day. I don't want to stop writing - I feel I'm leaving you again. My very very dear Queneau -
I
Iris Murdoch writing to Raymond Queneau, August 24th, 1952
in Granta magazine, issue 111
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