three weeks.From Lieut. A. Graeme West 9th Batt. Oxfordshire &Buckinghamshire LightInfantryBovington CampWarehamDorsetSunday, Sept. 3. 1916Dear Mr RussellSeeing the new scene that has been added to this amazing farce of whichyou are the unfortunate protagonist, I could not help writing to you. Ofcourse you know that such sane men as still live, or have kept their sanity,have nothing but admiration for you, and therefore you may cry that thisnote is impertinent. Literally, I suppose it is; but not to me.I cannot resist the joy of communicating directly with one whom Iadmired so much before the war, as the writer of the clearest and ?nestphilosophical English prose, and whom I admire so much more now whenall the intellectuals, except, thank god, Shaw, have lost the use of their reason.I think there may be some shade of excuse for this liberty at a time whenreason and thought are in danger and when you, their ablest champion, arethe autobiography of bertrand russell 282the victim of incompetence and derision: at such a time those who loveJustice should speak.I know you must have many friends in the army, and are aware that it, too,contains men of good-will, though it is through it and its domination thatEngland ?nds herself as she is; yet one more assurance of complete under-standing and sympathy may not annoy you.Were I back in the Ranks again – and I wish I were – I could have pickedhalf-a-dozen men of our platoon to have signed with me: here, it is not so.Thank you, then, for all you are and all you have written, for ‘A Free Man’sWorship’ and Justice in War Time and The Policy of the Entente and many others; andI hope that I (and you, of course, for we don’t know what they mayn’t doto you) may live to see you.Yours sincerelyA. Graeme West2nd Lieut.From H. G. Wells 52, St James’s Court[to Miles Malleson] Buckingham Gate, S.W.[1916]My dear SirI think that a small minority of the ??’s are sincerely honest men but Ibelieve that unless the path of the ?? is made di?cult it will supply a stam-pede track for every variety of shirker. Naturally a lot of the work of controlfalls on the hands of clumsy and rough minded men. I really don’t feel verymuch sympathy for these ‘martyrs’. I don’t feel so sure as you do that all ??’sbase the objection on love rather than hate. I have never heard either Cannanor Norman speak lovingly of any human being. Their normal attitude hasalways been one of opposition – to anything. Enthusiasm makes them liver-ish. And the Labour Leader group I believe to be thoroughly dishonest, RamseyMacDonald, I mean, Morel and the editor. I may be wrong but that is my slowand simple conviction.Very sincerely yoursH. G. WellsMy statement concerning my meeting with General Cockerill on September 5th, 1916:I called at the War O?ce with Sir Francis Younghusband by appointment at3.15 to see General Cockerill. He had beside him a report of my speeches inS. Wales and drew special attention to a sentence in a speech I made at Cardi?saying there was no good reason why this war should continue another day. Hesaid that such a statement made to miners or munition workers was calculatedto diminish their ardour. He said also that I was encouraging men to refuse tothe first war 283?ght for their country. He said he would withdraw the order forbidding me toenter prohibited areas if I would abandon political propaganda and returnto mathematics. I said I could not conscientiously give such an undertaking.He said:‘You and I probably regard conscience di?erently. I regard it as a still smallvoice, but when it becomes blatant and strident I suspect it of no longerbeing a conscience.’I replied:‘You do not apply this principle to those who write and speak in favour ofthe war; you do not consider that if they hold their opinions in secret they areconscientious men, but if they give utterance to them in the Press or on theplatform they are mere propagandists. There seems some lack of justice inthis di?erentiation.’He remained silent a long while and then replied:‘Yes, that is true. But’, he said, ‘you have said your say, can you not restcontent with having said it and return to those other pursuits in which’ – sohe was pleased to add – ‘you have achieved so much distinction? Do you notthink there is some lack of a sense of humour in going on reiterating thesame thing?’I failed to reply that I had observed this lack – if it were one – in The Times,the Morning Post and other patriotic organs, which appeared to me to besomewhat addicted to reiteration, and that if it would not serve any purposeto repeat myself I failed to see why he was so anxious to prevent me fromdoing so. But what I did say was that new issues are constantly arising and Icould not barter away my right to speak on such issues. I said:‘I appeal to you as a man, would you not feel less respect for me if I agreedto this bargain which you propose?’After a long hesitation he replied:‘No, I should respect you more; I should think better of your sense ofhumour if you realised the uselessness of saying the same thing over and overagain.’I told him that I was thinking of delivering lectures on the general principlesof politics in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Newcastle. He asked whether thesewould involve the propaganda he objected to. I said no, not directly, but theythe autobiography of bertrand russell 284would state the general principles out of which the propaganda has grown,and no doubt men with su?cient logical acumen would be able to drawinferences. He then gave it to be understood that such lectures could not bepermitted. He wound up with an earnest appeal to me not to make the task ofthe soldiers more di?cult when they were engaged in a life and deathstruggle.I told him that he ?attered me in supposing my in?uence su?cient to haveany such result, but that I could not possibly cease my propaganda as theresult of a threat and that if he had wished his appeal to have weight he oughtnot to have accompanied it by a threat. I said I was most sincerely sorry to becompelled to do anything which the authorities considered embarrassing,but that I had no choice in the matter.We parted with mutual respect, and on my side at least, without thefaintest feeling of hostility. Nevertheless it was perfectly clear that he meantto proceed to extremities if I did not abandon political propaganda.To Ottoline Morrell [September 1916]Monday nightMy DarlingThere seems a good chance that the authorities will relent towards me – Iam half sorry! I shall soon have come to the end of the readjustment with MrsE. [Mrs T. S. Eliot] I think it will all be all right, on a better basis. As soon as itis settled, I will come to Garsington. I long to come.I have been realising various things during this time. It is odd how one?nds out what one really wants, and how very sel?sh it always is. What I wantpermanently – not consciously, but deep down – is stimulus, the sort of thingthat keeps my brain active and exuberant. I suppose that is what makes me avampire. I get a stimulus most from the instinctive feeling of success. Failuremakes me collapse. Odd things give me a sense of failure – for instance, theway the ??s all take alternative service, except a handful. Wittgenstein’scriticism gave me a sense of failure. The real trouble between you and me hasalways been that you gave me a sense of failure – at ?rst, because you werenot happy; then, in other ways. To be really happy with you, not onlymomentarily, I should have to lose that sense of failure. I had a sense ofsuccess with Mrs E. because I achieved what I meant to achieve (which wasnot so very di?cult), but now I have lost that, not by your fault in the least.The sense of success helps my work: when I lose it, my writing grows dulland lifeless. I often feel success quite apart from happiness: it depends uponwhat one puts one’s will into. Instinctively, I turn to things in which successis possible, just for the stimulus.I have always cared for you in yourself, and not as a stimulus or for anyself-centred reason; but when I have felt that through caring for you andthe first war 285feeling unsuccessful I have lost energy, it has produced a sort of instinctiveresentment. That has been at the bottom of everything – and now that I haveat last got to the bottom of it, it won’t be a trouble any longer. But unless I cancease to have a sense of failure with you, I am bound to go on looking forstimulus elsewhere from time to time. That would only cease if I ceased tocare about work – I am sure all this is the exact truth.I would set my will in a di?erent direction as regards you, if I knew of anydirection in which I could succeed. But I don’t think it can be done in that way.The rare moments of mystic insight that I have had have been when I wasfree from the will to succeed. But they have brought a new kind of success,which I have at once noticed and wanted, and so my will has drifted back intothe old ways. And I don’t believe I should do anything worth doing withoutthat sort of will. It is very tangled.To Constance Malleson (Colette) Gordon SquareSeptember 29, 1916You are already where I have struggled to be, and without the weariness oflong e?ort. I have hated many people in the past. The language of hate stillcomes to me easily, but I don’t really hate anyone now. It is defeat that makesone hate people – and now I have no sense of defeat anywhere. No one needever be defeated – it rests with oneself to make oneself invincible. Quite latelyI have had a sense of freedom I never had before . . . I don’t like the spirit ofsocialism – I think freedom is the basis of everything.***‘The keys to an endless peace’ –I am not so great as that, really not – I know where peace is – I have seen it,and felt it at times – but I can still imagine misfortunes that would rob me ofpeace. But there is a world of peace, and one can live in it and yet be activestill over all that is bad in the world. Do you know how sometimes all thebarriers of personality fall away, and one is free for all the world to come in –the stars and the night and the wind, and all the passions and hopes of men,and all the slow centuries of growth – and even the cold abysses of spacegrow friendly – ‘E il naufragar m’e dolce in questo mare’. And from that momentsome quality of ultimate peace enters into all one feels – even when one feelsmost passionately. I felt it the other night by the river – I thought you weregoing to withdraw yourself – I felt that if you did I should lose the mostwonderful thing that had ever come to me – and yet an ultimate fundamentalpeace remained – if it hadn’t, I believe I should have lost you then. I cannotbear the littleness and enclosing walls of purely personal things – I want to livealways open to the world, I want personal love to be like a beacon ?re lightingup the darkness, not a timid refuge from the cold as it is very often.the autobiography of bertrand russell 286London under the stars is strangely moving. The momentariness of theseparate lives seems so strange –In some way I can’t put into words, I feel that some of our thoughts andfeelings are just of the moment, but others are part of the eternal world, likethe stars – even if their actual existence is passing, something – some spirit oressence – seems to last on, to be part of the real history of the universe, notonly of the separate person. Somehow, that is how I want to live, so thatas much of life as possible may have that quality of eternity. I can’t explainwhat I mean – you will have to know – of course I don’t succeed in living thatway – but that is ‘the shining key to peace’.Oh, I am happy, happy, happy –B.Gordon SquareOctober 23, 1916I have meant to tell you many things about my life, and every time themoment has conquered me. I am strangely unhappy because the pattern ofmy life is complicated, because my nature is hopelessly complicated; a massof contradictory impulses; and out of all this, to my intense sorrow, pain toyou must grow. The centre of me is always and eternally a terrible pain – acurious wild pain – a searching for something beyond what the world con-tains, something trans?gured and in?nite – the beati?c vision – God – I donot ?nd it, I do not think it is to be found – but the love of it is my life – it’slike passionate love for a ghost. At times it ?lls me with rage, at times withwild despair, it is the source of gentleness and cruelty and work, it ?lls everypassion that I have – it is the actual spring of life within me.I can’t explain it or make it seem anything but foolishness – but whetherfoolish or not, it is the source of whatever is any good in me. I have knownothers who had it – Conrad especially – but it is rare – it sets one oddlyapart and gives a sense of great isolation – it makes people’s gospels oftenseem thin. At most times, now, I am not conscious of it, only when I amstrongly stirred, either happily or unhappily. I seek escape from it, thoughI don’t believe I ought to. In that moment with you by the river I felt it mostintensely.‘Windows always open to the world’ I told you once, but through one’swindows one sees not only the joy and beauty of the world, but also its painand cruelty and ugliness, and the one is as well worth seeing as the other, andone must look into hell before one has any right to speak of heaven.B.the first war 287From Lieut. A. Graeme West Wednesday nightDec. 27. 1916Dear Mr RussellTo-night here on the Somme I have just ?nished your Principles of SocialReconstruction which I found waiting for me when I came out of the line. I hadseen a couple of Reviews of it, one in the Nation, one in Land and Water and fromthe praise of the former and the thinly veiled contempt of the latter I augureda good book. It encouraged me all the more as the state of opinion in Englandseems to fall to lower and lower depths of undigni?ed hatred. It is only onaccount of such thoughts as yours, on account of the existence of men andwomen like yourself that it seems worth while surviving the war – if oneshould haply survive. Outside the small circle of that cool light I can discernnothing but a scorching desert.Do not fear though that the life of the spirit is dying in us, nor that hope orenergy will be spent; to some few of us at any rate the hope of helping tofound some ‘city of God’ carries us away from these present horrors andbeyond the grayer intolerance of thought as we see in it our papers. We shallnot faint and the energy and endurance we have used here on an odious taskwe shall be able to redouble in the creative work that peace will bring to do.We are too young to be permanently damaged in body or spirit, even by thesesu?erings.Rather what we feared until your book came was that we would ?nd noone left in England who would build with us. Remember, then, that we areto be relied on to do twice as much afterwards as we have done during thewar, and after reading your book that determination grew intenser than ever;it is for you that we would wish to live on.I have written to you before and should perhaps apologise for writingagain, but that seems to me rather absurd: you cannot mind knowing thatyou are understood and admired and that those exist who would be glad towork with you.Yours sincerelyA. Graeme West. 2nd Lt.6th Oxford & Bucks. L.I.B.E.F.From the Press:?????? ?????????? ?????? ?????? ????, Oxford and BucksLight Infantry, whose death is o?cially announced to-day, was the eldest sonof Arthur Birt West, 4 Holly Terrace, Highgate. He fell on April 3 [1917],aged 25.the autobiography of bertrand russell 288To Colette GuildfordDecember 28, 1916How can love blossom among explosions and falling Zeppelins and all thesurroundings of our love? It has to grow jagged and painful before it can livein such a world. I long for it to be otherwise – but soft things die in thishorror, and our love has to have pain for its life blood.I hate the world and almost all the people in it. I hate the Labour Congressand the journalists who send men to be slaughtered, and the fathers who feela smug pride when their sons are killed, and even the paci?sts who keepsaying human nature is essentially good, in spite of all the daily proofs to thecontrary. I hate the planet and the human race – I am ashamed to belong tosuch a species – And what is the good of me in that mood?B.From Dorothy Mackenzie 77, Lady Margaret RoadHighgate. N.W.5June 5th. [1917]Dear Mr RusselI am glad you sent Graeme West’s letters to the Cambridge Magazine, for I amvery sure he speaks for a great many, some of whom will survive.When I had read your Principles of Social Reconstruction, being a youngwoman instead of a young man, I had the joy of being able to come and hearyou speak at the Nursery of the Fabian Society. And I dared to say you weretoo gloomy, and that the world was not so spoilt as you thought. It wasbecause West was in my thoughts that I was able to do that, and kindlyyou smiled at the optimism of youth, but the sadness of your smiling setme fearing.Now I know that you were right and I was wrong. But I assure youMr Russel, that we women want to build, and we unhappily do survive. And Ican end my letter as he ended his and say very truly ‘it is for you that wewould wish to live on’.It is very di?cult to know what to do. I am an elementary teacher, andevery class in the school but mine is disciplined by a military method. Ihave to work as it were by stealth, disguising my ideas as much as possible.Children, as you are aware, do not develop themselves, in our elementaryschools. Your chapter on education encouraged me more than anything Ihave read or heard since I started teaching. I thank you for that encourage-ment. It is most sad to teach in these days; underpaid, overworked, the man Iloved most killed for a cause in which he no longer believed, out of sympathywith most of my friends and relations, I ?nd strength and comfort in youthrough your book. I feel indeed that you understand.Dorothy Mackenziethe first war 289From A. N. Whitehead TwelveElm Park GardensChelsea. S.W.Jan. 8th, 17Dear BertieI am awfully sorry, but you do not seem to appreciate my point.I don’t want my ideas propagated at present either under my name oranybody else’s – that is to say, as far as they are at present on paper. The resultwill be an incomplete misleading exposition which will inevitably queer thepitch for the ?nal exposition when I want to put it out.My ideas and methods grow in a di?erent way to yours and the period ofincubation is long and the result attains its intelligible form in the ?nalstage, – I do not want you to have my notes which in chapters are lucid, toprecipitate them into what I should consider as a series of half-truths. I haveworked at these ideas o? and on for all my life, and should be left quite bareon one side of my speculative existence if I handed them over to some oneelse to elaborate. Now that I begin to see day-light, I do not feel justi?ed ornecessitated by any view of scienti?c advantage in so doing.I am sorry that you do not feel able to get to work except by the help ofthese notes – but I am sure that you must be mistaken in this, and that theremust be the whole of the remaining ?eld of thought for you to get to workon – though naturally it would be easier for you to get into harness withsome formed notes to go on. But my reasons are conclusive. I will send thework round to you naturally, when I have got it into the form whichexpresses my ideas.Yours a?ectlyAlfred N. WhiteheadBefore the war started, Whitehead had made some notes on our knowledge of the external worldand I had written a book on this subject in which I made use with due acknowledgement of ideasthat Whitehead had passed on to me. The above letter shows that this had vexed him. In fact, itput an end to our collaboration.To Lady Emily Lutyens 57, Gordon SquareW.C. (1)21.III.17Dear Lady EmilyI have shortened my article by seven lines, which was what seemedneeded – six lines close to the end and one in the middle of the last column.Is it really necessary to say that I am ‘heir-presumptive to the presentEarl Russell’? I cannot see that my brother’s having no children makes myopinions more worthy of respect.the autobiography of bertrand russell 290I have corrected a few inaccuracies in the biography.‘Critical detachment’ is hardly my attitude to the war. My attitude isone of intense and passionate protest – I consider it a horror, an infamy,an overwhelming and unmitigated disaster, making the whole of lifeghastly.Yours very sincerelyBertrand RussellTo Colette Gordon SquareMarch 27, 1917I cannot express a thousandth part of what is in my heart – our day inthe country was so marvellous. All through Sunday it grew and grew, andat night it seemed to pass beyond the bounds of human things. I feel nolonger all alone in the world. Your love brings warmth into all the recessesof my being. You used to speak of a wall of separation between us. Thatno longer exists. The winter is ending, we shall have sunshine and the songof birds, and wild ?owers, primroses, bluebells, and then the scent ofthe may. We will keep joy alive in us. You are strong and brave and free, and?lled with passion and love – the very substance of all my dreams cometo life.Gordon SquareSeptember 23, 1917The whole region in my mind where you lived, seems burnt out.There is nothing for us both but to try and forget each other.Goodbye –B.From Colette Mecklenburgh SquareSeptember 26, 1917I thought, until last night, that our love would grow and grow until it wasstrong as loneliness itself.I have gazed down Eternity with you. I have held reins of glory in my twohands – Now, though I will still believe in the beauty of eternal things, theywill not be for me. You will put the crown on your work. You still stand onthe heights of impersonal greatness. I worship you, but our souls arestrangers – I pray that I may soon be worn out and this torture ended.C.the first war 291To Colette Gordon SquareOctober 25, 1917I have known real happiness with you – If I could live by my creed, Ishould know it still. I feel imprisoned in egotism – weary of e?ort, too tiredto break through into love.How can I bridge the gulf?B.From The Tribunal. Thursday, January 3rd, 1918??? ?????? ????? ?????by Bertrand RussellThe more we hear about the Bolsheviks, the more the legend of our patrioticpress becomes exploded. We were told that they were incompetent, visionaryand corrupt, that they must fall shortly, that the mass of Russians were againstthem, and that they dared not permit the Constituent Assembly to meet. Allthese statements have turned out completely false, as anyone may seeby reading the very interesting despatch from Arthur Ransome in the DailyNews of December 31st.Lenin, whom we have been invited to regard as a German Jew, is really aRussian aristocrat who has su?ered many years of persecution for his opin-ions. The social revolutionaries who were represented as enemies of theBolsheviks have formed a connection with them. The Constituent Assembly isto meet as soon as half its members have reached Petrograd, and very nearlyhalf have already arrived. All charges of German money remain entirelyunsupported by one thread of evidence.The most noteworthy and astonishing triumph of the Bolsheviks is in theirnegotiations with the Germans. In a military sense Russia is defenceless, andwe all supposed it a proof that they were mere visionaries when they startednegotiations by insisting upon not surrendering any Russian territory to theGermans. We were told that the Germans would infallibly insist upon annex-ing the Baltic Provinces and establishing a suzerainty over Poland. So far fromthis being the case, the German and Austrian Governments have o?ciallyannounced that they are prepared to conclude a Peace on the Russian basis ofno annexations and no indemnities, provided that it is a general Peace, and