S.W.Dec. 2nd (1893)My dear BertieOf course I know how matters stand, and naturally being as fond of mysister as I am, I do not regard your way of feeling as folly. And if you remainof the same mind after several years, I can assure you that I don’t know ofanyone who I should like better as a brother-in-law – nor indeed do I thinkthere is anyone who would make a better husband for Alys. But sincerely Ithink you would make a mistake by engaging yourself too soon – but I daresay you don’t intend to do that. One never knows what one will develop into,and anyhow the ?rst few years after 21 should be given to self education,and the search for one’s work, and marriage, or even a settled engagement,interferes sadly with all that.Yes I do believe in you, Bertie, though the faculty for belief is not one ofthose most developed in me – only I shall believe more in your decisionwhen I see that after a few years of good work and experience of the worldyou still remain the same. Win your spurs, mon cher – let us see that you aregood and sensible – as indeed we believe you are – your friends all havethe highest ideas of your ability and promise, only keep yourself free andinterested in your work. Love should be the servant, and not the master of life.Yours a?y.L. P. S.The following letters were written to Alys during our three-months’ separation.Pembroke LodgeRichmond, SurreyJuly 31st 1894My darling AlysAs was to be expected there is nothing particular to be told, as nothing hashappened. So far, however, it has not been particularly odious. When I arrivedI found my Grandmother on a sofa in her sitting-room, looking very pale andsad; still, I was relieved to ?nd her out of bed. Our meeting was very a?ectionate,the autobiography of bertrand russell 84though silent. We have talked only of indi?erent subjects; she obviouslyrealises that it is bad for her health to talk of anything agitating. The Doctordoes not allow her to have any correspondence but what my Aunt thinksgood for her (though she herself doesn’t know this), however she wasgiven my letter this morning and seems to have been pleased with it. Myfalse conscience has been rather subdued by thee and the atmosphere ofFriday’s Hill, so that I ?nd it far more endurable than last time in spite of mygrandmother’s illness; perhaps because of it too, in a way, because it setseverything in a kindlier and more natural key.My aunt has been cross-questioning me about all my plans, but her com-ments, though most eloquent, have been silent. I told her about America, andshe seemed to think it odd we should go unmarried: I said ‘Well we thought itwould be better than marrying before going out there’, but to that she madeno answer. All she said was ‘I shan’t tell Granny about that just yet’. She willprobably have to go away for her health in September and she ?shed for me too?er to stay here with my grandmother; but I said I should be at Friday’s Hill. Isaid I might in the following months come here every now and then, butshould mainly live at Friday’s Hill. She looked thunder, but said nothing.She has realised the uselessness of advice or criticism. She spoke about mygrandmother seeing thee, but I said it would be better not without me.My grandmother unfortunately is not so well this evening; she has to takesleeping-draughts and medicines for her digestion constantly and they areafraid both of stopping them and of her becoming dependent on them. She isvery a?ecting in her illness, but having steeled my conscience I don’t mind somuch. She has been writing verses about Arthur to try and distract her mindfrom this one topic; she has also been reading a good deal with the same endin view; but apparently she has not succeeded very well.But really it isn’t half so bad here as it might be, so thee needn’t makethyself unhappy about me or imagine I shall come back in the state of mind Iwas in yesterday fortnight. However I don’t want – if I can help it, to makeany promises as to when I shall come back. Goodnight Dearest. I am reallyhappy but for being unutterably bored and I hope thee is enjoying thecountry even without me to force thee to do so.Thine devotedlyBertieRamsbury ManorWiltshireAug. 30th 1894My DarlingI am very much perplexed by this o?er of a post in Paris. If I were sure itwouldn’t last beyond Xmas, and then would not tie me down to the sameengagement 85sort of post in future, I should feel inclined to accept it: it would pass the timeof our separation very enjoyably (for I should certainly enjoy being at theParis Embassy immensely); it would give me about as much of the world ascould well be crammed into the time; it would give me some knowledge ofthe inside of diplomacy, and would certainly be a valuable experience, if itcould remain an isolated episode. I don’t know whether it would necessarilypostpone our meeting and marriage; I fear it would; and that would be anargument against it. Also I am afraid of the world and its tone, as they are verybad for me, especially when I enjoy them, and I am very much afraid thatsuch a career, once entered on, would be very hard to leave. Besides it wouldmean a number of aristocratic ties, which would hamper our future activity.And hardly any home appointment could induce me to give up the year oftravel we propose, as I am sure that would not only be far the pleasantest wayof spending our ?rst year of marriage, but would also have great educationalvalue. I wish my grandmother had given me more particulars: all that is clearfrom her letter is that it would give her great satisfaction if I accepted it. Ishould probably o?end Lord Du?erin if I refused it, though perhaps thatcould be avoided. I do wish we could meet to discuss it; and I should like tohave Logan’s opinion.2 p.m. The more I think of it, the more it seems to me that it would be the?rst step in a career I wish to avoid; but I cannot be sure till I hear more. Andif I refuse, it would of course de?nitely cut me o? from Secretaryships etc.,as people wouldn’t want to o?er things to so fastidious and apparentlycapricious a young man. That is an advantage or the reverse according as youlook at it. My brain is in a whirl and it is too hot to think.Pembroke LodgeRichmond, SurreySep. 1, 9 p.m. ’94My darling AlysNow that I am home again I have time to write a really long letter, and Ifeel tonight as if I could write for ever: I am made sentimental and full ofthoughts by the place. I am reminded so vividly of last September that itseems as if I had all my work still before me. I went out today and sat bythe fountain and thought of the long solitary days I used to spend there,meditating, wishing, scarcely daring to hope; trying to read the minutestindications in the bare, dry little letters thee used to write me, and in thenumber of days thee waited before answering mine; miserable in a way, madwith impatience, and yet full of a new life and vigour, so that I used to startwith surprise at ?nding I no longer wished to die, as I had done for 5 years,and had supposed I always should do. How I counted the hours till Dunrozelcame to visit here, and I was free to leave my Grandmother! Being here alonethe autobiography of bertrand russell 86again I feel as if the intervening year had been a dream; as if thee still were tome a distant, scarcely possible heaven; indi?erent, as heaven must be, to mereearthly strugglers. But there is a strange weariness, like that of a troublesomedream, which forms an undercurrent to all my thoughts and makes thedream-feelings di?erent in tone from those of last September; a wearinesscompounded of all the struggles and anxieties and pains of the past year, ofall the strain and all the weary discussions and quarrels which winning theehas cost me. I am not unhappy, however, far from it; but for the moment itseems as if I had lived my life, and it had been good; it reached a climax, asupreme moment, and now there seems no more need to care about it: it canhave nothing better in store, and therefore there would be no bitterness indeath.I suppose thee will think these feelings morbid, but I don’t know that theyare particularly so. I got into a dreamy mood from reading Pater: I wasimmensely impressed by it, indeed it seemed to me almost as beautiful asanything I had ever read (except here and there, where his want of humourallowed him to fall into a discordant note, as with the valetudinarian cat);especially I was struck by the poplars and another passage I can’t ?nd again. Itrecalled no de?nite childish memories, because since the age of de?nitememories I have not lived in a world of sensuous impressions like that ofFlorian; but rather in the manner of Wordsworth’s Ode, I dimly feel againthe very early time before my intellect had killed my senses. I have a vagueconfused picture of the warm patches of red ground where the settingsummer sun shone on it, and of the rustling of the poplars in front of thehouse when I used to go to bed by daylight after hot days, and the shadow ofthe house crept slowly up them. I have a vague feeling of perpetual warmsunny weather, when I used to be taken driving and notice the speckledshadows moving across the carriage, before it occurred to me that they werecaused by the leaves overhead. (As soon as I discovered this, the scienti?cinterest killed the impression, and I began speculating as to why the patchesof light were always circular and so on.) But very early indeed I lost thepower of attending to impressions per se, and always abstracted from them andsought the scienti?c and intellectual and abstract that lay behind them, so thatit wouldn’t have occurred to me, as to Florian, to need a philosophy for them;they went bodily into my mental waste-paper basket. (That is why the bookmade me so dreamy, because it carried me back to my earliest childhood,where nothing seems really real.) I didn’t begin to need such a philosophy tillthe age of puberty, when the sensuous and emotional reasserted itself morestrongly than before or since, so that I felt carried back for a time to my infancy;then I made a sort of religion of beauty, such as Florian might have had; I had apassionate desire to ?nd some link between the true and the beautiful, sostrong that beauty gave me intense pain (tho’ also a tingling sensuous thrill ofengagement 87tremendous strength), for the constant sense of this unful?lled requirement ofharmony between it and fact. I read Alastor after I had lived some time in thisstate, and there I found the exact mood I had experienced, vividly described. Itwas only gradually, as I came to care less and less for beauty, as I got throughthe natural period of morbidness (for in me so intense a passion for thebeautiful was necessarily abnormal), only as I became more purely intellectualagain, that I ceased to su?er from this con?ict. Of course my taste of real life inthe Fitz episode got me out of such mere sentimentality, and since then it hasbeen only by moments I have su?ered from it. If I could believe in Bradley, as Ido most days, I should never su?er from it again....Sunday morning Sep. 2I sent thee a wire from Reading early yesterday morning to say ‘Shan’tcome since Nov. 17 is unchanged’, but I suppose thee was already gone fromChichester before it arrived. Thee says thee will come to Paris if I can’t cometo England, but I rather gather from my Grandmother that I shall be able tochuck this post when I like. Will thee send my hat in my hat-box, as I needboth? And please write by the 1st post tomorrow, otherwise I may be gone. Ishall probably go the day after hearing from Lord Kimberley. But I can’t goand see Edith and Bryson, as they surely are staying in Britanny till Nov? ShallI send the Pater to Mariechen, or straight to Carey Thomas? All these detailsare tiresome, and I am sorry not to have remembered all the things I wantsent in one batch, but my memory works that way unavoidably.I like the Tragic Muse immensely, it is such fun; besides it is singularlyappropriate to my present situation. – My Aunt Georgy yesterday was verykind, but too inquisitive (as indeed most women are); she said even in oldtimes at the slightest thought of a marriage my Grandmother used to get intoa sort of fever and be fussy and worried about it.......I am grown quite glad of the Paris plan, and shall make a great e?ortnot to hate my companions too much. At any rate I ought to be able to writeamusing letters from there. Give me literary criticisms of my descriptions, sothat I may make them as vivid as possible. – It is sad thee should have grownbored with thy friend’s talk, but it is di?cult to throw oneself into otherpeople’s petty concerns when one’s own are very absorbing and interesting. Iam not sorry thee has come to understand why I minded thy going right awayto America more than a separation with thee still in London. Thee thought itvery silly then, and so no doubt it is, but it is natural.I hope this letter is long enough to satisfy thee: it has been a great satisfac-tion to write it, and I shall expect a very long one in return. If thee hears fromEdith Thomas, thee will send me her letter, won’t thee? I will wire as soon as Iknow when I’m going to Paris.the autobiography of bertrand russell 88Goodbye my Darling. It was much better not to meet again and have thepain of a real parting.Thine devotedlyBertiePembroke LodgeRichmond, SurreySep. 3 ’94, 10 a.m.Dearest AlysI got three letters from thee by the 1st post this morning, which wasdelightful; one of them forwarded from Ramsbury, a particularly charmingone. I am returning the documents it contained, which amused me much.I have quite settled to accept the Paris o?er (owing to thy urging me to doso), and I fancy Lord Kimberley’s con?rmation of it is purely formal. I amonly waiting here for another letter from Lord Du?erin, and then I shall beo? immediately. But I am rather sorry thee makes so very light of the dangersand drawbacks of aristocracy; I begin to fear thee will never understand why Idread them, and that it is not a mere superstition. Thee and Logan could mixwith aristocrats to any extent (before thy engagement at any rate) withoutever coming across the stumbling-blocks they put in the way of one of theirown class who wishes to ‘escape’. Americans are liked in society just becausethey are for the most part queer specimens, and don’t do the things otherpeople do or abstain from the things other people abstain from; peopleexpect a sort of spectacular amusement from them, and therefore tolerateanything, though all but a very small minority make up for it by bitterlyabusing them behind their backs. It thus comes about that you wouldnever see aristocrats as they are with one of themselves; rigid and sti? andconventional, and horri?ed at the minutest divergence from family tradition.Besides they are mostly my relations and my Grandmother’s friends: unless Imake a fool of myself in Paris, this o?er will lead to others, at home; anyrefusal will give great pain to my Grandmother (whose death is by no meansto be counted on) and will o?end and annoy the whole set of them. Alsobeing my relations they all feel they have a right to advise; when I am tryingto work quietly and unobtrusively, in a way which seems to me honest, but isvery unlikely to bring me the slightest fame or success till I’m 50 at least, theywill come and badger me to go in for immediate success; from my manyconnections and the good will most of them unfortunately bear me, it willprobably be easily within my reach, and I shall be pestered and worriedalmost out of my life by their insistence. And (I must confess it) horrible assuch a thought is, I do not entirely trust thee to back me up. I have a passion forexperience, but if I am to make anything of the talents I have, I must eschew avast deal of possible experience, shut myself up in my study, and live a quietengagement 89life in which I see only people who approve of such a life (as far as possible); Iknow myself well enough to be sure (though it is a confession of weakness)that if thee insists on my having a lot of experience, on my seeing a hetero-geneous society and going out into the world, and perhaps having episodes ofan utterly di?erent, worldly sort of life, my nervous force will be unequal tothe strain; I shall either have to give up the work my conscience approves of, orI shall be worn out and broken down by the time I’m 30. In short, [I] know myown needs, much better than thee does; and it is very important to me that theeshould back me up in insisting on them. Casual experience of life is of verylittle use to a specialist, such as I aspire to be; good manners are absolutelyuseless. Thee has a sort of illogical kindness (not to call it weakness), whichprevents thy seeing the application of a general rule to a particular case, ifanybody is to derive a little pleasure from its infraction, so that thee is quitecapable, while protesting that in general thee wishes me to lead a quiet stu-dent’s life, of urging me in every particular case to accept o?ers, and go in forpractical a?airs, which really are hindrances to me. Both of us, too, are indanger of getting intoxicated by cheap success, which is the most damningthing on earth; if I waste these years, which ought to be given almost entirely totheoretic work and the acquisition of ideas by thought (since that is scarcelypossible except when one is young), my conscience will reproach methroughout the rest of my life. Once for all, G. A. [God Almighty] has mademe a theorist, not a practical man; a knowledge of the world is therefore ofvery little value to me. One hour spent in reading Wagner’s statistics isprobably of more value than 3 months in casual contact with society. Do bestern and consistent in accepting this view of myself, as otherwise (if I haveto ?ght thee as well as my relations and the world) I shall certainly miss whatI hope it lies in me to do. Thee may read what thee likes of this to Logan andsee if he doesn’t agree with me. The needs of a theorist are so utterlydi?erent from thine that it seems impossible for thee to realise how things ofthe greatest importance to thee may be utterly worthless to me. BeatriceWebb’s case is very di?erent, for she married a man whom all her smartrelations hated, while thee with thy damnably friendly manner cannot helpingratiating thyself with them all! Besides I should imagine she was a personwho feels it less than I do when she has to go against the wishes of thosewho are fond of her. And besides, all the early years of her life were wasted,so that she never can become ?rst-rate,9or more than a shadow of herhusband. – Excuse the tone of this letter: the fact is I have had the fear a longtime that thee would ruin my career by wishing me to be too practical, and ithas now at last come to a head....the autobiography of bertrand russell 90Pembroke LodgeRichmond, SurreySep. 3 1894Dearest Alys. . . It was hardly in early boyhood I wished to harmonise the true and thebeautiful, but rather when I was 16 and 17. I was peculiar chie?y because Iwas so constantly alone – when I had a spell of the society of other boys Isoon became much more like them. I think when I was quite a child I wasmore thoughtful than rather later. I remember vividly a particular spot on thegravel walk outside the dining-room here, where a great uncle of mine toldme one ?ne summer’s afternoon at tea time that I should never enjoy future?ne afternoons quite so much again. He was half in joke half in earnest, andwent on to explain that one’s enjoyments grow less and less intense andunmixed as one grows older. I was only 5 years old at the time, but, being apessimistic theory about life, it impressed me profoundly; I remember argu-ing against it then, and almost weeping because I felt he probably knew betterand was likely to be right; however I know now that he certainly wasn’t,which is a consolation. Then as now, I hugged my enjoyments with a sort ofpersonal a?ection, as tho’ they were something outside of me. Little did hethink what a profound impression his chance careless words had made!...Pembroke LodgeRichmond, SurreySunday morningSeptember 9th 1894Dearest Alys. . . It is strange, but I’m really in some ways happier than during themonth at Friday’s Hill; I realise that thee and I together were trying to stampout my a?ection for my Grandmother, and that the attempt was a failure. Myconscience was bad, so that I dreamt about her every night, and always had anuneasy consciousness of her in the background of even the happiestmoments. Now, if she dies, I shall have a good conscience towards her:otherwise I should have had, I believe for life, that worse sort of remorse, theremorse for cruelty to a person whom death has removed from one’s longingto make up for past de?ciencies. My love for her is altogether too real to beignored with impunity....Victoria, 9 a.m.September 10thDearest AlysI have got o? after all today! I got thy two letters at breakfast: they willsustain me during the voyage. I feel too journey?ed to be sentimental or toengagement 91have anything at all to say. I am very glad to be o?, of course. But I was a littleput o? by my visit to the d’Estournelles yesterday. All the people were Frenchexcept the Spanish Ambassador and the Italian Ambassadress, and I was notmuch impressed by their charms or even their manners: except the Spaniard,they were all oppressively and too restlessly polite for English taste: there wasnone of the repose and unobtrusiveness which constitutes good breeding tothe British mind. I am to see three of them again in Paris, worse luck. It is veryhard to live up to their incessant compliments and always have one ready to?re o? in return....British EmbassyParisFriday, October 12th, 18949.45 a.m.My dearest Alys...I had a perfectly delightful evening with Miss Belloc10last night – from7 till 12 – as she stayed so late I suppose she enjoyed it too. I believe she wasreally very nice but to me she was surrounded by the halo of Friday’s Hill andI should have thought her charming if she’d been the devil incarnate, oranything short of human perfection. We met at 7 at Neal’s Library, Rue Rivoli– then we walked some time in the Tuilleries Gardens and elsewhere, andthen dined at a queer quiet place in the Palais Royal. Then we walked aboutagain for a long time, and both smoked an enormous number of cigarettes,and ?nally I left her at the door of her hotel at midnight, with hopes ofanother meeting today or tomorrow. We talked of thee and all the family, ofFrench and English people, of Grant Allen, Stead and Mrs Amos, of theEmbassy and its dreariness – of the various French poets who’d been in lovewith her and whom she’d been in love with – of her way of getting on withher French conventional relations and of their moral ideas (alwaysincomprehensible and therefore interesting to me) – of Lady Henry andPollen (whom we agreed to loathe) and Miss Willard – of vice in general andthe di?erence between Parisian and London vice in particular and of herexperiences in the way of being spoken to – and many other things. I foundher talk very interesting and I think she enjoyed herself too – though not ofcourse as much as I did, because she was the ?rst congenial person I’d seensince I was at Vétheuil,11and the ?rst to whom I could talk about thee. HerFrench sentiments come in very oddly – it is di?cult to ?t them in with herlove of Stead – altogether being of two nations has made her not so much of apiece as she ought to be. But I did enjoy my evening – far more than anythingsince I left Friday’s Hill – for the ?rst time I was able to admire the Seine atnight (which is perfectly lovely) without growing maudlin....the autobiography of bertrand russell 92Monday, October 15th, 189412.30 a.m.My BelovedDon’t say thee thinks of me from my letters as ‘brains in the abstract’, itdoes sound so cold and dry and lifeless. Letters are bad, but they ought to havemore reality than that. To me too tonight ?ve weeks seems a long time – thatis because my brother is with me. I shall be glad when he goes. I hate him andhalf fear him – he dominates me when he is with me because I dread hiscomments if he should know me as I am. Thee hasn’t made me less sensitivebut more so – because I have had to embody one result of my real self in aform in which all the world can see it, which gives every one a hold forattacking me – I dread the moment when the Embassy people will discover it.Even the joy of getting away from all the people who annoy me would beenough by itself to be an intense source of joy....British Embassy, ParisWednesday, October 17th189410 a.m.My darling Alys...I don’t at all wish to alarm people – but my brother, of his own accordyesterday, while we were dining at La Perouse, said he could well imagine it,that he was afraid of me, though of hardly anyone else, because I never letmyself go, and one felt me coldly critical inside. – Of course that is what I feelwith my brother, but I’m sorry if I’m that way with people like Miss Belloc.He thinks himself a person of universal Whitmaniac sympathy; but if yousympathise with everybody it comes to much the same as sympathising withnone, or at any rate not with those who are hated!...My brother won’t want to come to Germany – I don’t think he likes thee,which is a mercy – he thinks thee has the American hardness, by whichhe means not submitting completely to the husband and not being sensual.He says American women only love from the waist upwards. Thee canimagine I don’t open my soul to him! It seems hard on thee to give thee asecond objectionable brother-in-law called Frank....British EmbassyOctober 20th 18943 p.m.My darling AlysI think the real use of our separation is to give me a good conscience and tohasten our marriage. Thee doesn’t think my good conscience will last, but Ithink it will if I don’t see too much of my Grandmother. I feel no duties