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23 May 1922
I feel as though I have become embedded in this hotel. The weeks pass and we do less and less, and seem to have no time for anything. Up and down in the lift, along the corridors, in and out of the restaurant - it's a whole, complete life. One has a name for everybody; one is furious if someone has taken ‘our table', and the little gritty breakfast trays whisk in and out unnoticed, and it seems quite natural to carry about that heavy key with the stamped brass disk 134, and Murry is 135.
Oh, dear - I have so much to tell you, so much I would like to write about. Your last enchanting letter has remained too long unanswered. I wish you could feel the joy such letters give me. When I have finished reading one of your letters, I go on thinking, wishing, talking it over, almost istening to it .... Do feel, do know how much I appreciate them - so much more than I can say!
I must reply about Ulysses. I have been wondering what people say are saying in England. It took me about a fortnight to wade through, but on the whole I'm dead against it. I suppose it was worth doing if everything is worth doing. . . but that is certainly not what I want from literature. Of course, there are amazingly fine things in it, but I prefer to go without them than to pay that price. Not because I am shocked (though I am fearfully shocked, but that's ‘personal': I suppose it's unfair to judge the book by that) but because I simply don't believe. [To Ottoline Morrell, 26 May 1922.]