Archimedes, to be killed because of absorption in eternal things. And whenonce men get away from their rights, from the struggle to take up more roomin the world than is their due, there is such a capacity of greatness in them. Allthe loneliness and the pain and the eternal pathetic hope – the power of loveand the appreciation of beauty – the concentration of many ages and spacesin the mirror of a single mind – these are not things one would wish todestroy wantonly, for any of the national ambitions that politicians praise.There is a possibility in human minds of something mysterious as the night-wind, deep as the sea, calm as the stars, and strong as Death, a mystic con-templation, the ‘intellectual love of God’. Those who have known it cannotthe autobiography of bertrand russell 302believe in wars any longer, or in any kind of hot struggle. If I could give toothers what has come to me in this way, I could make them too feel thefutility of ?ghting. But I do not know how to communicate it: when I speak,they stare, applaud, or smile, but do not understand.To Ottoline Morrell August 8th, 1918All you write about S.S. [Siegfried Sassoon] is interesting and poignant. Iknow so well the indignation he su?ers from – I have lived in it for months,and on the edge of it for years. I think that one way of getting over it is toperceive that others might judge oneself in the same way, unjustly, but withjust as good grounds. Those of us who are rich are just like the young womenwhose sex ?ourishes on the blood of soldiers. Every motor-tyre is made outof the blood of negroes under the lash, yet motorists are not all heartlessvillains. When we buy wax matches, we buy a painful and lingering death forthose who make them . . . War is only the ?nal ?ower of the capitalist system,but with an unusual proletariat. S.S. sees war, not peace, from the point ofview of the proletariat. But this is only politics. The fundamental mistake liesin wrong expectations, leading to cynicism when they are not realised. Con-ventional morality leads us to expect unsel?shness in decent people. This isan error. Man is an animal bent on securing food and propagating the species.One way of succeeding in these objects is to persuade others that one is aftertheir welfare – but to be really after any welfare but one’s own and one’schildren’s is unnatural. It occurs like sadism and sodomy, but is equallyagainst nature. A good social system is not to be secured by making peopleunsel?sh, but by making their own vital impulses ?t in with other people’s.This is feasible. Our present system makes self-preservation only possible atthe expense of others. The system is at fault; but it is a weakness to bedisgusted with people because they aim at self-preservation. One’s idealismneeds to be too robust for such weaknesses. It doesn’t do to forget or deny theanimal in man. The God in man will not be visible, as a rule, while the animalis thwarted. Those who have produced stoic philosophies have all hadenough to eat and drink. The sum total of the matter is that one’s idealismmust be robust and must ?t in with the facts of nature; and that which ishorrible in the actual world is mainly due to a bad system. Spinoza, always, isright in all these things, to my mind.11th August, 1918It is quite true what you say, that you have never expressed yourself – butwho has, that has anything to express? The things one says are all unsuccess-ful attempts to say something else – something that perhaps by its very naturecannot be said. I know that I have struggled all my life to say something that Inever shall learn how to say. And it is the same with you. It is so with all whothe first war 303spend their lives in the quest of something elusive, and yet omnipresent, andat once subtle and in?nite. One seeks it in music, and the sea, and sunsets; attimes I have seemed very near it in crowds when I have been feeling stronglywhat they were feeling; one seeks it in love above all. But if one lets oneselfimagine one has found it, some cruel irony is sure to come and show one thatit is not really found. (I have come nearest to expressing myself in the chapteron Education in Social Reconstruction. But it is a very long way from a really fullself-expression. You are hindered by timidity.)The outcome is that one is a ghost, ?oating through the world without anyreal contact. Even when one feels nearest to other people, something in oneseems obstinately to belong to God and to refuse to enter into any earthlycommunion – at least that is how I should express it if I thought there wasa God. It is odd isn’t it? I care passionately for this world, and many thingsand people in it, and yet . . . what is it all? There must be something moreimportant, one feels, though I don’t believe there is. I am haunted – someghost, from some extramundane region, seems always trying to tell me some-thing that I am to repeat to the world, but I cannot understand the message.But it is from listening to the ghost that one comes to feel oneself a ghost.I feel I shall ?nd the truth on my deathbed and be surrounded by people toostupid to understand – fussing about medicines instead of searching forwisdom. Love and imagination mingled; that seems the main thing so far.Your B.27th August, 1918I have been reading Marsh38on Rupert [Brooke]. It makes me very sad andvery indignant. It hurts reading of all that young world now swept away –Rupert and his brother and Keeling and lots of others – in whom one fool-ishly thought at the time that there was hope for the world – they were full oflife and energy and truth – Rupert himself loved life and the world – hishatreds were very concrete, resulting from some quite speci?c vanity orjealousy, but in the main he found the world lovable and interesting. Therewas nothing of humbug in him. I feel that after the war-mongers had killedhis body in the Dardanelles they have done their best to kill his spiritby ——’s lies . . . When will people learn the robustness of truth? I do notknow who my biographer may be, but I should like him to report ‘with what?ourish his nature will’ something like this: ‘I was not a solemn stained glasssaint, existing only for purposes of edi?cation; I existed from my own centre,many things that I did were regrettable, I did not respect respectable people,and when I pretended to do so it was humbug. I lied and practised hypocrisy,because if I had not I should not have been allowed to do my work; but thereis no need to continue the hypocrisy after my death. I hated hypocrisy andlies: I loved life and real people, and wished to get rid of the shams thatthe autobiography of bertrand russell 304prevent us from loving real people as they really are. I believed in laughterand spontaneity, and trusted to nature to bring out the genuine good inpeople, if once genuineness could come to be tolerated.’ Marsh goes buildingup the respectable legend, making the part of youth harder in the future, sofar as lies in his power – I try so hard not to hate, but I do hate respectableliars and oppressors and corruptors of youth – I hate them with all my soul,and the war has given them a new lease of power. The young were shakingthem o?, but they have secured themselves by setting the young to kill eachother. But rage is useless; what is wanted is to carry over into the new timesomething of the gaiety and civilised outlook and genial expansive love thatwas growing when the war came. It is useless to add one’s quota to the sumof hate – and so I try to forget those whom I cannot but hate when Iremember them.Friday, 30 Aug. 18My dearest OIt was a delight seeing you – tho’ you do not seem in very good health – andthose times are di?cult for talking – letters are really more satisfactory – yourletters are the very greatest joy to me – To begin with personal things: I do trustmy friends to do everything possible – no one ever had such kind and devotedfriends – I am wonderfully touched by what all of you have done; the peopleI don’t trust are the philosophers (including Whitehead). They are cautiousand constitutionally timid; nine out of ten hate me personally (not withoutreason); they consider philosophical research a foolish pursuit, only excusablewhen there is money in it. Before the war I fancied that quite a lot of themthought philosophy important; now I know that most of them resembleProfessors Hanky and Panky in Erewhon Revisited.I trust G. Murray, on the whole, over this business. If he gets me a post, Ihope it will be not very far from London – not further than Birmingham say. Idon’t the least desire a post except as a way of getting round Geddes: whatI desire is to do original work in philosophy, but apparently no one inGovernment circles considers that worth doing. Of course a post will interfereto some extent with research tho’ it need not interfere very much. I musthave some complete holiday when I ?rst come out of prison. I do not wantresidence away from London: I would almost as soon face another term ofimprisonment, for reasons which can’t be explained to G. Murray. But I ammost grateful to him for all the trouble he is taking. I am not worrying inthe least.How delightful of you to think of Lulworth too. It was the very place I hadbeen thinking of, because I came upon it in R. Brooke. I was only there oncefor a moment on a walking-tour (1912) and have always wanted to go back.Do stick to the plan – latish October. We can settle exactly when, later. It willbe glorious.the first war 305I wonder whether you quite get at Brett. I am sure her deafness is the maincause of all that you regret in her. She wrote a terrible account of what itmeans to her the other day in a letter you sent me – I don’t know whetheryou read it. If not I will show it you. I am very sorry about Burnley. It is a blow.There will be no revival of paci?sm; the war will go on till the Germans admitthemselves beaten, which I put end of next year. Then we shall have theLeague to Enforce Peace, which will require conscription everywhere. – Muchinterested about S.S. and munition factory; all experience may be useful. Itwould never occur to me to think of it as an ‘attitude’.I was sorry to refuse so many books, and also to give you the trouble oftaking so many away. I believe in future I shall be able to send them by CarterPaterson. My cell is small and I must keep down the number of books. Betweenbooks and earwigs I have hardly had room to turn round.Please thank Miss Bentinck most warmly for the lovely peaches. I think itvery kind of her to send them when she thinks me so wicked. – I don’t knowhow long you are staying at Kirkby Lonsdale – All that region is so associatedin my mind with Theodore’s death.Oh won’t it be glorious to be able to walk across ?elds and see the horizonand talk freely and be with friends – It is near enough now to believe it willcome – I am settled into this existence, and fairly placid, but only because itwill end soon. All kinds of delights ?oat before my mind – above all talk, talk,TALK. I never knew how one can hunger for it – The time here has done megood, I have read a lot and thought a lot and grown collected, I am burstingwith energy – but I do long for civilisation and civilised talk – And I long forthe SEA and wildness and wind – I hate being all tidy like a book in a librarywhere no one reads – Prison is horribly like that – Imagine if you knew youwere a delicious book, and some Jew millionaire bought you and bound youuniform with a lot of others and stuck you up in a shelf behind glass, whereyou merely illustrated the completeness of his System – and no anarchist wasallowed to read you – That is what one feels like – but soon now one will beable to insist on being read. – Goodbye – Much much love – and endlessthanks for your endless kindness. Do stick to Lulworth –Your B.P.S. Letter to Brett elsewhere. Please return commonplace books – Wednesdaywill do. But I run short of them unless they are returned.To Dorothy Brett 30.8.18My dear BrettThank you for your letter. It is a kindness writing letters to me when I amhere, as they are the only unhampered contact I can have with other people. Ithe autobiography of bertrand russell 306think prison, if it lasted, would be worse than your fate, but as mine is sobrief it is nothing like as bad as what you have to endure. I do realise howterrible it is. But I believe there are things you could do that would make itless trying, small things mostly. To begin with a big thing: practise the mentaldiscipline of not thinking how great a misfortune it is; when your mindbegins to run in that direction, stop it violently by reciting a poem to yourselfor thinking of the multiplication-table or some such plan. For smaller things:try, as far as possible, not to sit about with people who are having a generalconversation; get in a corner with a tête-à-tête; make yourself interesting inthe ?rst place by being interested in whoever you are talking with, untilthings become easy and natural. I suppose you have practised lip-reading?Take care of your inner attitude to people: let it not be satirical or aloof, setyourself to try and get inside their skins and feel the passions that move themand the seriousness of the things that matter to them. Don’t judge peoplemorally: however just one’s judgment, that is a barren attitude. Most peoplehave a key, fairly simple; if you ?nd it, you can unlock their hearts. Yourdeafness need not prevent this, if you make a point of tête-à-tête. It has alwaysseemed to me fearfully trying for you at Garsington to spend so much time inthe middle of talk and laughter that you cannot understand. Don’t do more ofthat than you must. You can be ‘included in human life’. But it wants e?ort,and it wants that you should give something that people will value. Thoughyour deafness may make that harder, it doesn’t make it impossible. Pleasedon’t think all this very impertinent. I have only written it because I can’tbear to think how you su?er.Poor Mr Green! Tell him to consult me when he wants to make a conquest;I will give him sage advice, which he evidently needs. – Your picture of the3 women sounds most exciting. I do hope it will be glorious. I hope I shallsee you when you return from destroying your fellow-creatures in Scotland –I sympathise with the Chinese philosopher who ?shed without bait, becausehe liked ?shing but did not like catching ?sh. When the Emperor found himso employed, he made him Prime Minister. But I fear that won’t happento me.Yrs.B.R.The lady to whom the above letter is addressed was a daughter of Lord Esher but was known to allher friends by her family name of Brett. At the time when I wrote the above letter, she wasspending most of her time at Garsington with the Morrells. She went later to New Mexico in thewake of D. H. Lawrence.the first war 307To Ottoline Morrell 31/8/18(For any one whom it may interest)There never was such a place as prison for crowding images – one afteranother they come upon me – early morning in the Alps, with the smell ofaromatic pines and high pastures glistening with dew – the lake of Garda asone ?rst sees it coming down out of the mountains, just a glimpse far below,dancing and gleaming in the sunlight like the eyes of a laughing, mad,Spanish gypsy – thunderstorm in the Mediterranean, with a dark violet sea,and the mountains of Corsica in sunshine far beyond – the Scilly Isles in thesetting sun, enchanted and unreal, so that you think they must have vanishedbefore you can reach them, looking like the Islands of the Blest, not to beachieved during this mortal life – the smell of the bog myrtle in Skye –memories of sunsets long ago, all the way back into childhood – I can hearnow as if it were yesterday the street-cry of a man in Paris selling ‘artichauxverts et beaux’ 24 years ago almost to a day. Quite from childhood I remembera certain row of larches after rain, with a raindrop at the end of every twig –and I can hear the wind in the tree-tops in midnight woods on summernights – everything free or beautiful comes into my thoughts sooner or later.What is the use of shutting up the body, seeing that the mind remains free?And outside my own life, I have lived, while I have been here, in Brazil andChina and Tibet, in the French Revolution, in the souls of animals and even ofthe lowest animals. In such adventures I have forgotten the prison in whichthe world is keeping itself at the moment: I am free, and the world shall be.September 4th, 1918Dearest OIt is dreadful the killing of the people who might have made a better future.As for me: I am sure it is a ‘sure ?rm growth’. It is two quite distinct things:some quite good technical ideas, which have come simply because they weredue, like cuckoos in April; and a way of feeling towards life and the world,which I have been groping after especially since the war started, but alsosince a certain moment in a churchyard near Broughton, when you told meto make a place for wildness in my morality, and I asked you what youmeant, and you explained. It has been very di?cult: my instinctive moralitywas so much that of self-repression. I used to be afraid of myself and thedarker side of my instincts; now I am not. You began that, and the warcompleted it.the autobiography of bertrand russell 3089RUSSIAThe ending of the war enabled me to avoid several unpleasant things whichwould otherwise have happened to me. The military age was raised in 1918,and for the ?rst time I became liable to military service, which I should ofcourse have had to refuse. They called me up for medical examination, butthe Government with its utmost e?orts was unable to ?nd out where I was,having forgotten that it had put me in prison. If the War had continued Ishould very soon have found myself in prison again as a conscientiousobjector. From a ?nancial point of view also the ending of the War was veryadvantageous to me. While I was writing Principia Mathematica I felt justi?ed inliving on inherited money, though I did not feel justi?ed in keeping anadditional sum of capital that I inherited from my grandmother. I gave awaythis sum in its entirety, some to the University of Cambridge, some toNewnham College, and the rest to various educational objects. After partingwith the debentures that I gave to Eliot, I was left with only about ￡100 a yearof unearned money, which I could not get rid of as it was in my marriagesettlement. This did not seem to matter, as I had become capable of earningmoney by my books. In prison, however, while I was allowed to write aboutmathematics, I was not allowed to write the sort of book by which I couldmake money. I should therefore have been nearly penniless when I came outbut for the fact that Sanger and some other friends got up a philosophicallectureship for me in London. With the end of the War I was again able toearn money by writing, and I have never since been in serious ?nancialdi?culties except at times in America.The ending of the War made a di?erence in my relations with Colette.During the War we had many things to do in common, and we shared all thevery powerful emotions connected with the War. After the War thingsbecame more di?cult and more strained. From time to time we would partfor ever, but repeatedly these partings proved unexpectedly temporary.During the three summer months of 1919, Littlewood (the mathematician)and I rented a farmhouse on a hill about a mile outside Lulworth. There werea good many rooms in this farmhouse, and we had a series of visitorsthroughout the whole summer. The place was extraordinarily beautiful, withwide views along the coast. The bathing was good, and there were placeswhere Littlewood could exhibit his prowess as a climber, an art in which hewas very expert. Meantime I had been becoming interested in my secondwife. I met her ?rst in 1916 through her friend Dorothy Wrinch. Both wereat Girton, and Dorothy Wrinch was a pupil of mine. She arranged in thesummer of 1916 a two days’ walk with herself, Dora Black, Jean Nicod, andme. Jean Nicod was a young French philosopher, also a pupil of mine, whohad escaped the War through being consumptive. (He died of phthisis in1924.) He was one of the most delightful people that I have ever known, atonce very gentle and immensely clever. He had a type of whimsical humourthat delighted me. Once I was saying to him that people who learnedphilosophy should be trying to understand the world, and not only, as inuniversities, the systems of previous philosophers. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but thesystems are so much more interesting than the world.’ Dora Black, whom Ihad not seen before, interested me at once. We spent the evening at Shere,and to beguile the time after dinner, I started by asking everybody what theymost desired in life. I cannot remember what Dorothy and Nicod said; I saidthat I should like to disappear like the man in Arnold Bennett’s Buried Alive,provided I could be sure of discovering a widow in Putney as he did. Dora,to my surprise, said that she wanted to marry and have children. Until thatmoment I had supposed that no clever young woman would confess to sosimple a desire, and I concluded that she must possess exceptional sincerity.Unlike the rest of us she was not, at that time, a thorough-going objectorto the War.In June 1919, at Dorothy Wrinch’s suggestion, I invited her to come to teawith Allen and me at the ?at that I shared with him in Battersea. She came,and we embarked on a heated argument as to the rights of fathers. She saidthat, for her part, if she had children she would consider them entirely herown, and would not be disposed to recognise the father’s rights. I repliedhotly: ‘Well, whoever I have children by, it won’t be you!’ As a result of thisargument, I dined with her next evening, and at the end of the evening wearranged that she should come to Lulworth for a long visit. I had on that dayhad a more than usually de?nitive parting from Colette, and I did not sup-pose that I should ever see her again. However, the day after Littlewood and Igot to Lulworth I had a telegram from Colette to say that she was on her waydown in a hired car, as there was no train for several hours. Fortunately, Dorathe autobiography of bertrand russell 310was not due for some days, but throughout the summer I had di?culties andawkwardnesses in preventing their times from overlapping.I wrote the above passage in 1931, and in 1949 I showed it to Colette.Colette wrote to me, enclosing two letters that I had written to her in 1919,which showed me how much I had forgotten. After reading them I remem-bered that throughout the time at Lulworth my feelings underwent violent?uctuations, caused by ?uctuations in Colette’s behaviour. She had threedistinct moods: one of ardent devotion, one of resigned determination topart for ever, and one of mild indi?erence. Each of these produced its ownecho in me, but the letters that she enclosed showed me that the echo hadbeen more resounding than I had remembered. Her letter and mine show theemotional unreliability of memory. Each knew about the other, but questionsof tact arose which were by no means easy. Dora and I became lovers whenshe came to Lulworth, and the parts of the summer during which she wasthere were extraordinarily delightful. The chief di?culty with Colette hadbeen that she was unwilling to have children, and that I felt if I was ever tohave children I could not put it o? any longer. Dora was entirely willing tohave children, with or without marriage, and from the ?rst we used noprecautions. She was a little disappointed to ?nd that almost immediately ourrelations took on all the character of marriage, and when I told her that Ishould be glad to get a divorce and marry her, she burst into tears, feeling, Ithink, that it meant the end of independence and light-heartedness. But thefeeling we had for each other seemed to have that kind of stability that madeany less serious relation impossible. Those who have known her only in herpublic capacity would scarcely credit the quality of el?n charm which shepossessed whenever the sense of responsibility did not weigh her down.Bathing by moonlight, or running with bare feet on the dewy grass, she wonmy imagination as completely as on her serious side she appealed to mydesire for parenthood and my sense of social responsibility.Our days at Lulworth were a balance of delicious outdoor activities,especially swimming, and general conversations as good as any that I haveever had. The general theory of relativity was in those days rather new, andLittlewood and I used to discuss it endlessly. We used to debate whether thedistance from us to the post-o?ce was or was not the same as the distancefrom the post-o?ce to us, though on this matter we never reached a conclu-sion. The eclipse expedition which con?rmed Einstein’s prediction as to thebending of light occurred during this time, and Littlewood got a telegramfrom Eddington telling him that the result was what Einstein said it should be.As always happens when a party of people who know each other well isassembled in the country, we came to have collective jokes from which casualvisitors were excluded. Sometimes the claims of politeness made these jokesquite painful. There was a lady called Mrs Fiske Warren whom I had knownrussia 311when I lived at Bagley Wood, rich and beautiful and intellectual, highlyintellectual in fact. It was for her uno?cial bene?t that Modern Greats were?rst invented. Carefully selected dons taught her Greek philosophy withoutdemanding a knowledge of Greek. She was a lady of deep mystical intuitions,and an admirer of Blake. I had stayed at her country house in Massachusetts in1914, and had done my best to live up to her somewhat rare?ed atmosphere.Her husband, whom I had never met, was a fanatical believer in Single Tax,and was in the habit of buying small republics, such as Andorra, with a viewto putting Henry George’s principles into practice. While we were atLulworth, she sent me a book of her poems and a book of her husband’s onhis hobby. At the same time a letter came from her husband, who was inLondon, saying that he wished to see me. I replied that it was impossible as Iwas not in London. He telegraphed back to say that he would come to lunchMonday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, whichever suited me,although to do so he had to leave London at six in the morning. I choseFriday, and began hastily cutting the pages of his wife’s poems. I found apoem headed ‘To One who Sleeps by my Side’, in which occurred the line:‘Thou art too full of this world’s meat and wine.’ I read the poem to thecompany, and called up the housekeeper, giving orders that the meal shouldbe plentiful and that there should be no de?ciency of alcohol. He turned outto be a lean, ascetic, anxious character, too earnest to waste any of themoments of life here below in jokes or frivolities. When we were allassembled at lunch, and I began to o?er him food and drink, he replied in asad voice: ‘No, thank you. I am a vegetarian and a teetotaller.’ Littlewoodhastily made a very feeble joke at which we all laughed much more than itsmerits warranted.Summer, the sea, beautiful country, and pleasant company, combined withlove and the ending of the War to produce almost ideally perfect circum-stances. At the end of the summer I went back to Cli?ord Allen’s ?at inBattersea, and Dora went to Paris to pursue the researches which she wasmaking, in her capacity of Fellow of Girton, into the beginnings of Frenchfree-thinking philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I stillsaw her occasionally, sometimes in London, sometimes in Paris. I was stillseeing Colette, and was in a mood of indecision.At Christmas Dora and I met at the Hague, to which place I went to seemy friend Wittgenstein. I knew Wittgenstein ?rst at Cambridge before theWar. He was an Austrian, and his father was enormously rich. Wittgensteinhad intended to become an engineer, and for that purpose had gone toManchester. Through reading mathematics he became interested in theprinciples of mathematics, and asked at Manchester who there was whoworked at this subject. Somebody mentioned my name, and he took up hisresidence at Trinity. He was perhaps the most perfect example I have ever