Baghdad. Nov. 25 1925                                                                                  For you only.

Darling. I so dreadfully want to answer your letter of Nov 9 and I don’t know that I shall have time before Sylvia comes back - she is out with Lionel. I love all you tell me of your doings and of the children. Tell me about George at Cambridge when you have been there and also tell him how much I love him. There is nothing about Pauline whom I love just as much.

            I’ve written a long letter about our affairs to Father, which you will see. I want to write to you about mine. The truth is that I care for Ken as much as [I] can and for no one and nothing in the world so much. Not like that, at any rate. After I came back we had some terribly bitter talks - I don’t see him often alone - and I know that that only puts him at his most stony worst. So now I’m bent on showing him, what he really knows, that he can’t do without me, and he can’t, any more than I can do without him. All the work has played wonderfully into my hands for it so happens that I have been most useful to him and given him inspiration after inspiration - this is really true or I should not bother to say it to you. He is beginning to look the thing in the face and to realise what 9 years here will be like when I am gone, for I have told him solidly that I am going. And that is all I can do. I know that if he will let me I can make him very happy and that he can make me happier than I could be any other way. For I want to stay here and do nothing but archaeology and my museum, which is a full time job and my passion; but I can’t except [her spelling] on my own terms with him. If he feels he can’t give them to me I shall go and try to make something of life with your love and help, and Elsa’s, and Father and Mother and Maurice, and not least the love of your children. But it cannot be any better than a half life. It is not because I don’t love you more than words can say, but the other sort of love is so overwhelming. It’s that of the lover and the mother and the sister all combined. You understand, I know.

            I shan’t write about this any more till I have something definite to tell you - whether I go or whether I stay. You will know what either means. Having Sylvia, even though she has been ill all the time, has been the greatest help to me. Partly because I have had to give her so much time and love and that always does one good.

            Your very loving sister, Gertrude

Transcription courtesy of Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone.