It’s terri?c to re?ect that I know you, and can speak to you, and even contra-dict you. Oh! – I shall have this engraved on my tombstone –?? ???? ????? ??? ???????and nothing more.Yours everG. L. Strachey57 Gordon SquareLondon W.C.3rd March, 1908My dear BertieI see in the papers that you are to be made an ???! What an honour! at yourage too. Ever since I saw it I have have been strutting about swelling withre?ected glory. It’s the ?rst sensible thing I ever heard of philosophy doing.One can understand that if one can’t your books.Seriously though I do congratulate you most heartily. I have always lookedon an ??? as superior to any position on earth, even Archbishop or PrimeMinister and the feeling still survives though I know a good many personally.Yours a?ectionatelyRussellCharing Cross HotelOctober 4, 1908Dear RussellI was at Oxford for three days last week, and hoped until the last day, when Ifound it was going to be quite impossible, to drive out and see you and MrsRussell. It was squeezed out by other necessities. I saw Schiller and spent anight at McDougall’s most pleasantly. I would fain have spent a night withyou, to make up for the rather blunt way in which I declined your invitationlast June. I was done-up then, and am comparatively fresh now, but a daughterand a son have come over since then and, as normal, their needs have seemedmore urgent than their parent’s, so the time has proved too short for manythings that I should have liked to accomplish. The son remains at Oxford, inA. L. Smith’s family (tutor at Balliol). The rest of us sail in the Saxonia onTuesday.‘principia mathematica’ 191One of the ?rst things I am going to do after I get back to my own library isto re-read the Chapter on Truth in your Phil. of M., which I haven’t looked atsince it appeared. I want to get a better grasp of it than you have of my theory!Your remarks on Dewey (sharp as your formulation is!) in the last Hibbertshows that you haven’t yet grasped the thing broadly enough. My dyingwords to you are ‘Say good-by to mathematical logic if you wish to preserveyour relations with concrete realities!’ I have just had this morning a three-hour conversation with Bergson which possibly may account for this ejacula-tion! Best regards to you both, in which my wife would join were she here.Truly yoursWm. James8 Grosvenor CrescentS.W.26th April, 1909Dear Bertrand RussellIt is a great pleasure to know that you are elected at the Athenaeum.My own balloting – in 1877 – was su?ciently anxious to make me alwaysfeel glad when any friend, however certain of success, is through the ordeal.I was not wanting on the occasion and spent a solid part of the afternoonthere while your ballot was on.Your membership will sensibly increase to me, and many others, the interestand pleasure of the Club.16I remainYours very sincerelyGeorge O. TrevelyanEleven, Cranmer RoadCambridgeMay 27/10Dear BertieThe College Council decided today to o?er you a lectureship in Logic andthe Principles of Mathematics to continue for ?ve years, the duties being(i) to give a course (24 lectures) of lectures in each term,(ii) to reside in Cambridge during term time –Also provided that you are willing to satisfy certain conditions as to thenumber of hours during which you will be present in College (15 hoursper week during term time, I think) they o?er rooms in College and dinner(i.e. free dinner). The stipend is ￡200 per year.All this is of course entirely uno?cial – I need not tell you how delightedI am about it – It will give you a splendid opportunity to ‘expose’ the subject –just what is wanted.the autobiography of bertrand russell 192By the bye, I ought to mention that there is no implication that the lecture-ship will be continued after ?ve years. – Of course the whole di?culty in thisrespect comes from the extremely few students who, as far as it can be foreseen,will be taught by you directly in lectures – I confess to a hope that there maybe much more to be done – now that we know our own subject – than any ofus can guarantee at present. – But the o?er is for 5 years and no more, directlyor indirectly.The Council has been very spirited, for at the same time we elected a‘prelector’ in Biochemistry.No more news at present.Yours a?ectionatelyA. N. W.Trinity LodgeCambridgeJune 3, 1910My dear B. RussellWe are delighted to hear that there is now more than a hope of having youamong us for some time to come. Not a shred of credit can I claim for thestep which we have so wisely taken, but I rejoice to have given the heartiestassent to the advice of your scienti?c friends. I can hardly hope to last outduring the whole of your happy Quinquennium, but I may at least lookforward to giving you an early and a hearty greeting.With our united kindest regards to Mrs Russell.Believe me to be most truly yoursH. Montagu ButlerThere cannot be many living who, like myself, saw Lord John Russellstarting from the Hotel at Callender in 1850, through a good Scotch Rain, for‘Rest and be Thankful’. I wonder if you know those delightful regions.Merton CollegeOxfordApril 11/10Dear Mr RussellMany thanks for your letter. I have no doubt that in what I wrote I havemisinterpreted you more or less. And that makes me unwilling to write at all,only no one else seemed doing it. I shall look forward to reading the o?prints of the article from the Revue and I will attend to what you have writtenin your letter.I feel, I confess, some alarm at the prospect of you being occupied withpolitics, if that means that you will have no time for philosophy. Will it not‘principia mathematica’ 193be possible to combine them? If not it is not for me to venture to judge inwhat direction you feel the greater ‘call’. The only thing I feel clear about isthis that no one else will do your work in philosophy so far as humanprobability goes. And more than this I don’t feel I have any right to say.If you are able to write something for ‘Mind’ I am sure that it will bewelcome to the readers thereof and not least to myself.Yours trulyF. H. BradleyI have no idea as to who will get this Professorship. I hear that Webb’schances are thought good on the ground that the two clerics are likely to votefor him and Warren also. But nothing is really known.Merton CollegeOxfordApril 20/10Dear Mr RussellI am really glad to hear that you have no intention of going permanentlyinto politics which of course are very absorbing. It is quite another thing toget a temporary change of occupation and you must have worked very hardat philosophy now for some years.Certainly in the study of philosophy, &, I presume, in many other studies,the having to work alone so much is inhuman & trying. And I do not see anyremedy for it. The amount to which one can collaborate with another is sosmall. My health has always been too bad for me to get a change by way ofanother occupation, but I am afraid that I have been driven to take a great dealof holidays instead. Another occupation might have been better.I am too stupid now to read your article even if I had it but I shall lookforward to seeing it.I have always had a high opinion of your work from the ?rst, & I feel nodoubt whatever that philosophy would lose greatly by your permanent with-drawal. I don’t see who else is going to do the work there, which you would,&, I hope, will do.Yours trulyF. H. Bradleythe autobiography of bertrand russell 1947CAMBRIDGE AGAINPrincipia Mathematica being ?nished, I felt somewhat at a loose end. The feelingwas delightful, but bewildering, like coming out of prison. Being at the timevery much interested in the struggle between the Liberals and the Lordsabout the Budget and the Parliament Act, I felt an inclination to go intopolitics. I applied to Liberal Headquarters for a constituency, and wasrecommended to Bedford. I went down and gave an address to the LiberalAssociation, which was received with enthusiasm. Before the address,however, I had been taken into a small back room, where I was subjected to aregular catechism, as nearly as I remember in the following terms:Q. Are you a member of the Church of England?A. No, I was brought up as a Nonconformist.Q. And have remained so?A. No, I have not remained so.Q. Are we to understand that you are an agnostic?A. Yes, that is what you must understand.Q. Would you be willing to attend church occasionally?A. No, I should not.Q. Would your wife be willing to attend church occasionally?A. No, she would not.Q. Would it come out that you are an agnostic?A. Yes, it probably would come out.In consequence of these answers, they selected as their candidate Mr Kellaway,who became Postmaster General, and held correct opinions during the War.They must have felt that they had had a lucky escape.I also felt that I had had a lucky escape, for while Bedford was deliberating,I received an invitation from Trinity College to become a lecturer in theprinciples of mathematics. This was much more attractive to me than politics,but if Bedford had accepted me I should have had to reject Cambridge. I tookup my residence at the beginning of the October term in 1910. Alys and I hadlodgings in Bridge Street, and I had rooms in letter I, Nevile’s Court. I becamevery fond of these rooms, which were the ?rst place exclusively my own thatI possessed since leaving Cambridge in 1894. We sold our house at BagleyWood, and it seemed as if life were going to be settled in a new groove.This, however, was not the case. In the Election of January, 1910, while Iwas still living at Bagley Wood, I decided that I ought to help the Liberals asmuch as I could, but I did not want to help the Member for the constituencyin which I was living, as he had broken some pledges which I consideredimportant. I therefore decided to help the Member for the neighbouringconstituency across the river. This Member was Philip Morrell, a manwho had been at Oxford with my brother-in-law, Logan, who had beenpassionately attached to him. Philip Morrell had married Lady OttolineCavendish-Bentinck, sister of the Duke of Portland. I had known her slightlysince we were both children, as she had an aunt named Mrs Scott,1who livedat Ham Common. I had two vivid memories connected with Mrs Scott’shouse, but neither of them concern Ottoline. The ?rst of these memories wasof a children’s party at which I ?rst tasted ice-cream. I thought it was anordinary pudding, and took a large spoonful. The shock caused me to burstinto tears, to the dismay of the elders, who could not make out what hadhappened. The other experience was even more unpleasant. In getting out ofa carriage at her door, I fell on the paving-stones, and hurt my penis. After thisI had to sit twice a day in a hot bath and sponge it carefully. As I had alwayshitherto been taught to ignore it, this puzzled me. When Philip ?rst becameengaged to Ottoline, Logan was ?lled with jealous rage, and made unkind funof her. Later, however, he become reconciled. I used to see her and Philipoccasionally, but I had never had any high opinion of him, and she o?endedmy Puritan prejudices by what I considered an excessive use of scent andpowder. Crompton Davies ?rst led me to revise my opinion of her, becauseshe worked for his Land Values Organisation in a way that commanded hisadmiration.During the Election of January 1910, I addressed meetings in support ofPhilip Morrell most nights, and spent most days in canvassing. I remembercanvassing a retired Colonel at I?ey, who came rushing out into the hallexclaiming: ‘Do you think I’d vote for a scoundrel like that? Get out of thehouse, or I’ll put the dogs on you!’ I spoke in almost every village betweenOxford and Caversham. In the course of this campaign I had many opportun-ities of getting to know Ottoline. I discovered that she was extraordinarilythe autobiography of bertrand russell 196kind to all sorts of people, and that she was very much in earnest aboutpublic life. But Philip, in common with all the other Liberal Members in theneighbourhood, lost his seat, and was o?ered a new constituency at Burnley,for which he was Member from December 1910 until the ‘Hang-the-Kaiser’Election. The result was that for some time I did not see much of the Morrells.However, in March 1911 I received an invitation to give three lectures inParis, one at the Sorbonne and two elsewhere. It was convenient to spend thenight in London on the way, and I asked the Morrells to put me up at theirhouse, 44 Bedford Square. Ottoline had very exquisite though rather startlingtaste, and her house was very beautiful. In Alys there was a con?ict betweenQuaker asceticism and her brother’s aestheticism. She considered it right tofollow the best artistic canons in the more public part of one’s life, such asdrawing-rooms and dresses for the platform. But in her instincts, and whereshe alone was concerned, Quaker plainness held sway; for example, shealways wore ?annel night-gowns. I have always liked beautiful things, butbeen incapable of providing them for myself. The atmosphere of Ottoline’shouse fed something in me that had been starved throughout the years of my?rst marriage. As soon as I entered it, I felt rested from the rasping di?cultiesof the outer world. When I arrived there on March 19th, on my way to Paris,I found that Philip had unexpectedly had to go to Burnley, so that I was lefttête-à-tête with Ottoline. During dinner we made conversation about Burnley,and politics, and the sins of the Government. After dinner the conversationgradually became more intimate. Making timid approaches, I found them tomy surprise not repulsed. It had not, until this moment, occurred to methat Ottoline was a woman who would allow me to make love to her, butgradually, as the evening progressed, the desire to make love to her becamemore and more insistent. At last it conquered, and I found to my amazementthat I loved her deeply, and that she returned my feeling. Until this moment Ihad never had complete relations with any woman except Alys. For externaland accidental reasons, I did not have full relations with Ottoline that even-ing, but we agreed to become lovers as soon as possible. My feeling wasoverwhelmingly strong, and I did not care what might be involved. I wantedto leave Alys, and to have her leave Philip. What Philip might think or feel wasa matter of indi?erence to me. If I had known that he would murder us both(as Mrs Whitehead assured me he would) I should have been willing to paythat price for one night. The nine years of tense self-denial had come to anend, and for the time being I was done with self-denial. However, there wasnot time to settle future plans during that one evening. It was already latewhen we ?rst kissed, and after that, though we stayed up till four in themorning, the conversation was intermittent. Early the next day I had to go toParis, where I had to lecture in French to highly critical audiences. It wasdi?cult to bring my mind to bear upon what I had to do, and I suspect that Icambridge again 197must have lectured very badly. I was living in a dream, and my surroundingsappeared quite unreal. Ottoline was going to Studland (in those days quite atiny place), and we arranged that I should join her there for three days. Beforegoing, I spent the weekend with Alys at Fernhurst. I began the weekend bya visit to the dentist, who told me that he thought I had cancer, and recom-mended a specialist, whom, however, I could not see for three weeks, as hehad gone away for his Easter holiday. I then told Alys about Ottoline. She ?ewinto a rage, and said that she would insist upon a divorce, bringing inOttoline’s name. Ottoline, on account of her child, and also on account of avery genuine a?ection for Philip, did not wish for a divorce from him. Itherefore had to keep her name out of it. I told Alys that she could have thedivorce whenever she liked, but that she must not bring Ottoline’s nameinto it. She nevertheless persisted that she would bring Ottoline’s name in.Thereupon I told her quietly but ?rmly that she would ?nd that impossible,since if she ever took steps to that end, I should commit suicide in order tocircumvent her. I meant this, and she saw that I did. Thereupon her ragebecame unbearable. After she had stormed for some hours, I gave a lesson inLocke’s philosophy to her niece, Karin Costelloe, who was about to take herTripos. I then rode away on my bicycle, and with that my ?rst marriage cameto an end. I did not see Alys again till 1950, when we met as friendlyacquaintances.2From this scene I went straight to Studland, still believing that I had cancer.At Swanage, I obtained an old-fashioned ?y with an incredibly slow horse.During his leisurely progress up and down the hills, my impatience becamealmost unendurable. At last, however, I saw Ottoline sitting in a pine-woodbeside the road, so I got out, and let the ?y go on with my luggage. The threedays and nights that I spent at Studland remain in my memory as amongthe few moments when life seemed all that it might be, but hardly ever is. Idid not, of course, tell Ottoline that I had reason to fear that I had cancer, butthe thought of this possibility heightened my happiness by giving it greaterintensity, and by the sense that it had been wrenched from the jaws ofdestruction. When the dentist told me, my ?rst reaction was to congratulatethe Deity on having got me after all just as happiness seemed in sight. Isuppose that in some underground part of me I believed in a Deity whosepleasure consists of ingenious torture. But throughout the three days atStudland, I felt that this malignant Deity had after all been not wholly success-ful. When ?nally I did see the specialist, it turned out that there was nothingthe matter.Ottoline was very tall, with a long thin face something like a horse, and verybeautiful hair of an unusual colour, more or less like that of marmalade, butrather darker. Kind ladies supposed it to be dyed, but in this they weremistaken. She had a very beautiful, gentle, vibrant voice, indomitable courage,the autobiography of bertrand russell 198and a will of iron. She was very shy, and, at ?rst, we were both timid of eachother, but we loved profoundly, and the gradual disappearance of the timiditywas an added delight. We were both earnest and unconventional, botharistocratic by tradition but deliberately not so in our present environment,both hating the cruelty, the caste insolence, and the narrow-mindednessof aristocrats, and yet both a little alien in the world in which we chose tolive, which regarded us with suspicion and lack of understanding becausewe were alien. All the complicated feelings resulting from this situation weshared. There was a deep sympathy between us which never ceased as long asshe lived. Although we ceased to be lovers in 1916, we remained always closefriends.Ottoline had a great in?uence upon me, which was almost whollybene?cial. She laughed at me when I behaved like a don or a prig, and whenI was dictatorial in conversation. She gradually cured me of the belief that Iwas seething with appalling wickedness which could only be kept under byan iron self-control. She made me less self-centred, and less self-righteous.Her sense of humour was very great, and I became aware of the danger ofrousing it unintentionally. She made me much less of a Puritan, and muchless censorious than I had been. And of course the mere fact of happy loveafter the empty years made everything easier. Many men are afraid of beingin?uenced by women, but as far as my experience goes, this is a foolish fear.It seems to me that men need women, and women need men, mentally asmuch as physically. For my part, I owe a great deal to women whom I haveloved, and without them I should have been far more narrow-minded.After Studland various di?culties began to cause trouble. Alys was stillraging, and Logan was quite as furious as she was. The Whiteheads, whoshowed great kindness at this time, ?nally persuaded them to abandon theidea of a divorce involving Ottoline, and Alys decided that in that case adivorce was not worth having. I had wished Ottoline to leave Philip, but Isoon saw that this was out of the question. Meanwhile, Logan went to Philip,and imposed conditions, which Philip in turn had to impose upon Ottoline.These conditions were onerous, and interfered seriously with the happinessof our love. The worst of them was that we should never spend a nighttogether. I raged and stormed, along with Philip and Logan and Alys. Ottolinefound all this very trying, and it produced an atmosphere in which it wasdi?cult to recapture the ?rst ecstasy. I became aware of the solidity ofOttoline’s life, of the fact that her husband and her child and her possessionswere important to her. To me nothing was important in comparison with her,and this inequality led me to become jealous and exacting. At ?rst, however,the mere strength of our mutual passion overcame all these obstacles. She hada small house at Peppard in the Chilterns, where she spent the month of July.I stayed at Ipsden, six miles from Peppard, and bicycled over every day,cambridge again 199arriving about noon, and leaving about midnight. The summer was extra-ordinarily hot, reaching on one occasion 97? in the shade. We used to takeour lunch out into the beech-woods, and come home to late tea. That monthwas one of great happiness, though Ottoline’s health was bad. Finally, shehad to go to Marienbad, where I joined her after a while, staying, however, ata di?erent hotel. With the autumn she returned to London, and I took a ?at inBury Street, near the Museum, so that she could come and see me. I waslecturing at Cambridge all the time, but used to come up in the morning, andget back in time for my lecture, which was at 5.30. She used to su?er fromterrible headaches, which often made our meetings disappointing, and onthese occasions I was less considerate than I ought to have been. Nevertheless,we got through the winter with only one serious disagreement, arising out ofthe fact that I denounced her for being religious. Gradually, however, Ibecame increasingly turbulent, because I felt that she did not care for me asmuch as I cared for her. There were moments when this feeling disappearedentirely, and I think that often what was really ill-health appeared to me asindi?erence, but this was certainly not always the case. I was su?ering frompyorrhoea although I did not know it, and this caused my breath to beo?ensive, which also I did not know. She could not bring herself to mentionit, and it was only after I had discovered the trouble and had it cured, that shelet me know how much it had a?ected her.At the end of 1913 I went to Rome to see her, but Philip was there, and thevisit was very unsatisfactory. I made friends with a German lady whom I hadmet in the summer on the Lake of Garda. Sanger and I had spent a monthwalking from Innsbruck over the Alps, and had arrived at Punto San Vigilio,where we joined a party of friends, consisting of Miss Silcox, the mistress ofSt Felix School, Melian Stawell, and the latter’s protegée, whose name I haveforgotten. We observed a young woman sitting at a table by herself, anddiscussed whether she was married or single. I suggested that she wasdivorced. In order to settle the point, I made her acquaintance, and found thatI was right. Her husband was a psychoanalyst, and apparently professionaletiquette required that he should not get on with his wife. Consequently, atthe time when I knew her, she was divorced. But as soon as honour wassatis?ed, they remarried, and lived happily ever after. She was young andcharming, and had two small children. At that time my dominant passion wasdesire for children, and I could not see even a child playing in the streetwithout an almost unbearable ache. I made friends with the lady and we madean expedition into the country. I wished to make love to her, but thought thatI ought ?rst to explain about Ottoline. Until I spoke about Ottoline, she wasacquiescent, but afterwards she ceased to be so. She decided, however, that forthat one day her objections could be ignored. I have never seen her since,though I still heard from her at intervals for some years.the autobiography of bertrand russell 200An event of importance to me in 1913 was the beginning of my friendshipwith Joseph Conrad, which I owed to our common friendship with Ottoline.I had been for many years an admirer of his books, but should not haveventured to seek acquaintance without an introduction. I travelled down tohis house near Ashford in Kent in a state of somewhat anxious expectation.My ?rst impression was one of surprise. He spoke English with a very strongforeign accent, and nothing in his demeanour in any way suggested the sea.He was an aristocratic Polish gentleman to his ?ngertips. His feeling for thesea, and for England, was one of romantic love – love from a certain distance,su?cient to leave the romance untarnished. His love for the sea began at avery early age. When he told his parents that he wished for a career as a sailor,they urged him to go into the Austrian navy, but he wanted adventure andtropical seas and strange rivers surrounded by dark forests; and the Austriannavy o?ered him no scope for these desires. His family were horri?ed at hisseeking a career in the English merchant marine, but his determination wasin?exible.