you think of it?We must certainly get together to talk (& perhaps conspire) & that soon.What are your times & seasons? My daughter in law Marjorie ?xes mostof my engagements and you & Madame must come to tea one day & see whatwe can do.I have been ill & I keep ill. I am President of the Diabetic Soc’y & diabeteskeeps one in & out, in & out of bed every two hours or so. This exhausts, andthis vast return to chaos which is called the peace, the in?nite meanness ofgreat masses of my fellow creatures, the wickedness of organised religiongive me a longing for a sleep that will have no awakening. There is a longhistory of heart failure on my paternal side but modern palliatives are verye?ective holding back that moment of release. Sodium bicarbonate keeps mein a grunting state of protesting endurance. But while I live I have to live and Iowe a lot to a decaying civilisation which has anyhow kept alive enough ofthe spirit of scienti?c devotion to stimulate my curiosity [and] make me itsdebtor.Forgive this desolation. I hope to see you both before very long & am yoursmost gratefully.H. G. WellsFrom Clement Attlee10, Downing StreetWhitehall11 October, 1945My dear RussellMany thanks for your letter of October 9 and for sending me your article –‘What America could do with the Atomic Bomb’. I have read this withinterest and I am grateful to you for bringing it to my notice. I need hardlytell you that this is one of the most di?cult and perplexing problems withwhich statesmen have ever been faced and I can assure you that all the pointsyou have made are present in my mind.Yours sincerelyC. R. AttleeThe following is the account that I wrote to my wife Peter immediately after the plane accidentin which I was involved. It is dated October 1948.You will no doubt have learnt that I was in an accident to-day – luckily onein which I su?ered no damage beyond loss of suit-case etc. I was sure thenewspapers would exaggerate so I telegraphed to you at once. I came fromthe autobiography of bertrand russell 516Oslo in a sea-plane, and just as it touched the water on arrival here a suddenwind blew it onto its side and let the water in. Boats were sent out instantly,and we had to jump from a window and swim till they reached us, whichwas only about a minute. I did not know till later that some who could notswim were drowned. It did me no harm whatever. My writing is queerbecause my pen is lost. I went to bed because I had no dry clothes. The Consulhas now brought me some and the Vice-Consul has lent me a suit till mineis dry. Everybody has made far more fuss of me than the occasion warranted.I was struck by the good behaviour of the passengers – all did exactly as theywere told without any fuss.I will try to relate everything.The weather was stormy, heavy rain and a gale of wind. The sea-plane hadjust touched the water of the fjord when there was a violent jerk and I foundmyself on the ?oor with some inches of water in which hats, coats, etc. were?oating. I exclaimed ‘well, well!’ and started looking for my hat, which I failedto ?nd. At ?rst I thought a wave had broken in at a window; it didn’t occur tome it was serious.I was in the very back of the plane, the only part where one could smoke;this turned out to be the best place to be. After a few minutes the crew openeda door and got the passengers from the back through to an open window, andshoved us one by one into the sea. By this time their haste had made merealise that things were serious. I jumped, clutching my attache case, but hadto let go of it to swim. When I got into the water I saw there was a boat closeby. We swam to it and were pulled on board. When I looked round, nothingwas visible of the plane except the tip of a wing. The swim was about20 yards. I saw nothing of what happened at the other end of the plane;I imagine they jumped through another window. I gather the people killedwere stunned when the accident happened. One of them was a Professorconcerned in arrangements about my lecture. I pointed out my ?oating attachecase to the people on the boat, and last night a policeman brought it. Thethings in it were all right, except that the silly books were somewhat damaged.No other piece of luggage was rescued.The people who had come to the airport to meet me were very solicitous,and drove me at breakneck speed to the hotel, where I got my wet clothes o?,went to bed, and consumed large quantities of brandy and co?ee, after whichI went to sleep. The Consul brought me socks, shirt, etc., and the Vice-Consullent me a suit. My own will be wearable to-morrow. Then came an avalancheof journalists. One from Copenhagen asked what I thought while in thewater. I said I thought the water was cold. ‘You didn’t think about mysticismand logic?’ ‘No’ I said, and rang o?.I was not brave, only stupid. I had always thought a sea-plane would ?oat.I did not realise there was danger, and was mainly concerned to save myreturn to england 517attache case. My watch goes as well as ever, and even my matches strike. Butthe suitcase, with a suit, shirts, etc. is gone for ever. I am writing with a beastlypen, because mine is lost.To Willard V. Quine18 Dorset HouseGloucester Place, N.W.1Feb. 4, 1949Dear Dr QuineThank you for your kind letter, and for your paper on ‘What There is’ – asomewhat important subject. When I ?rst sent my theory of description toMind in 1905, Stout thought it such rubbish that he almost refused to print it.I am glad you noticed the allusion to yourself on p. 140.I was lucky in the aeroplane accident, as nearly half those on the planeceased to be among ‘what there is’.Your sincerelyBertrand RussellAfter my return to England I paid several visits to my ?rst wife at her invitation, and received thefollowing letters from her. The friendly correspondence lasted till her death very early in 1951.25 Wellington SquareChelsea, S.W.3June 9. 1949Dearest BertieI feel I must break the silence of all these years by sending thee a line ofcongratulation on thy ??. No one can rejoice in it more heartily than I do,just as no one was more sorry for the prison sentence and thy di?culties inAmerica. Now I hope thee will have a peaceful old age, just as I am doing at81, after a stormy time with Logan. I miss dear Lucy Donnelly’s letters verymuch, but am glad they have raised over $50,000.00 to endow a Scholarshipin English in her memory.As ever, a?ectionately thineAlys25 Wellington SquareChelsea, S.W.3Sept. 30 1949Dearest BertieI found these letters and this article of thine among my papers, and thinkthee may like to have them. I think I must have destroyed all thy other letters.Our scrapbook about the Sozial-Demokrats in Berlin in 1895 I presented tothe autobiography of bertrand russell 518the London School of Economics, but have borrowed it back now as the ???may want a Talk on it. I have told them thee could give it much better than I.I have been told thee is writing thy Autobiography, which ought to bedeeply interesting. (I don’t care for B. B. [Bernard Berenson]’s but like GeorgeTrevelyan’s.) I am also writing some Memoirs, and enclose a copy ofwhat I think of saying about our marriage. But if thee thinks it incorrect, orwounding to thee, I could make it much shorter.Thine everAlysI hope thee will be interested in these recently published Letters ofMother’s.What Alys wrote of our marriage:Bertie was an ideal companion, & he taught me more than I can ever repay.But I was never clever enough for him, & perhaps he was too sophisticatedfor me. I was ideally happy for several years, almost deliriously happy, until achange of feeling made our mutual life very di?cult. A ?nal separation led toa divorce, when he married again. But that was accomplished without bitter-ness, or quarrels, or recriminations, & later with great rejoicing on my partwhen he was awarded the ??. But my life was completely changed, & I wasnever able to meet him again for fear of the renewal of my awful misery,& heartsick longing for the past. I only caught glimpses of him at lectures orconcerts occasionally, & thro’ the uncurtained windows of his Chelsea house,where I used to watch him sometimes reading to his children. Unfortunately,I was neither wise enough nor courageous enough to prevent this one disasterfrom shattering my capacity for happiness & my zest for life.25 Wellington SquareChelsea, S.W.3Jan. 13. 1950Dearest BertieIn September I sent thee a book of Mother’s Letters, A Religious Rebel, with a1909 packet of thy own letters to me, and a note from myself. I could notunderstand why I had no reply, but now the packet has been returned to me –my name was on the outside and it was addressed to the Hon. BertrandRussell, ??, Penralltgoch, Llan Ffestiniog, Merioneth but marked ‘not known’.I should like it to reach thee if I knew thy address.Thine everAlysreturn to england 51925 Wellington SquareChelsea, S.W.3Feb. 14. ’50Dearest BertieI enjoyed thy visit immensely, & hope we can be friends & see each othersoon again. I wrote to B. B. about thy coming here, & he sends thee a warminvitation to go & stay with him at any time. He says there is no man alivewhom he would rather be seeing and talking with than thee, & that hepractically always agrees with everything thee writes. He has asked me to lendthee his book on Aesthetics, which I will do, tho’ I do not think thee will carefor it. The Autobiography is better, tho’ not well written.I should like to know thy opinion of Bob Gathorne-Hardy’s Recollections ofLogan, & will send thee my extra copy, if thee has not already seen it. It hasbeen very well reviewed, & B. B. calls it ‘a masterpiece’.Ever thineAlys25 Wellington SquareChelsea, S.W.3Mar. 9. 1950Dearest BertieThanks for thy letter. I was not surprised at thy not answering mine ofSept. 30th. as I thought thee probably preferred not to have any intimate talkof the past, but I am thankful that thee did not feel unduly censured, nor thatmy radiant memories of our life together should be marred. Please do come& have lunch with me again as soon as thee can possibly spare time. I shallcount the days till then, as I have so many questions I want to discuss withthee, & I hope it will be soon. Ring up before 9.30 or after 12.I don’t think I want thy letters from Paris, nor the German volumes, as the??? decline a talk on Germany in 1895.Thine everAlys25 Wellington SquareChelsea, S.W.3April 14. 1950Dearest BertieI have so enjoyed our two meetings & thee has been so friendly, that I feelI must be honest & just say once (but once only) that I am utterly devotedto thee, & have been for over 50 years. My friends have always known thatI loved thee more than anyone else in the world, & they now rejoice with methat I am now able to see thee again.the autobiography of bertrand russell 520But my devotion makes no claim, and involves no burden on thy part, norany obligation, not even to answer this letter.But I shall still hope thee can spare time to come to lunch or dinner beforevery long, & that thee will not forget May 18th.Thine everAlys25 Wellington SquareChelsea, S.W.3June 8. 1950Dearest BertieThanks for my book returned, with the address I wanted on a very smallslip of paper, & now for thy two volumes. I am immensely pleased to havethem from thee (tho’ I hope thee doesn’t think I was hinting!) & shall enjoythem very much, & send my warmest thanks. Florence Halévy is delightedthee should have my copy of Elie’s posthumous book, & sends thee herkindest remembrances & regards.If thee can spare a minute before the 18th., do telephone about breakfasttime any day to give me thy address in Australia. I should like to write to theeon my b. day in July.Ever thineAlys25 Wellington SquareChelsea, S.W.3July 21. 1950Dearest BertieI have had a nice 83rd birthday with many callers with ?owers & books &fruits & telegrams, & it would have been perfect if there had been a letterfrom thee. But I know thee must be desperately busy, & worse still desper-ately worried over Korea & this awful drift to War. We can hardly think or talkof anything else, but I try to keep serene & to distract my visitors from toomuch worry, when there seems nothing we can any of us do, & I think I havebeen successful today. This little poem was a help, by Helen Arbuthnot & thefriend she lives with: ‘Alys Russell, hail to thee! Angel of the Square, wherewould Wellontonia be If thou were not there.’ (The rest too fulsome to quote.I tried to write a poem to thee on May 18th. but got no further than ‘BertrandRussell, hail to thee! Darling of the ???’. – but cld. get no further.) I have onlyjust read thy Conquest of Happiness & some of the chapters would have helped mevery much in my talk on ‘Being over 80’. But nothing thee says cld. equal myconcluding paragraph, wh. I think thee missed, literally taken from The Times,my wished-for epitaph ‘In loving memory of John & Mary Williams wholived such beautiful lives on Bromley Common.’return to england 521This letter will be full of happy events, as my last was full of woes, & I hopeit will distract thee for a few minutes.1. My kind Irish housekeeper, of 30 years service, is better from a bad heartattack, & will be back soon.2. My Tennyson Talk was a great success, with much approval fromthe 3rd Prog. Producers, & Bob G. H. [Gathorne-Hardy] wrote to me:‘Your Broadcast was absolutely delicious, like an enchanting, exquisite,complete little short story, with a perfect twist at the end “How we musthave bored him!”.’3. Karin seems quite well again, & is writing a book on ‘Despair’. Desmondis speaking, I hear, on the despair of old age, which is a pity and notgood news, & Hugh Trevor-Roper writes that the Berlin Congress (onCultural Freedom?) would not have been sponsored by thee if thee hadknown how it would turn out, being a political demonstration, whichthe Eng. representatives (following the now classical tradition of OxfordDons) did their best to disrupt. I am surprised at his criticism, as he ishimself a narrow Oxford Don.I could write on forever, but must walk up to the King’s Rd. & post thisletter. I have said nothing about thy cruel private grief in not seeing Conrad, &perhaps thy fear that John may have to go back to the Navy. I do feel for thee,but hope thee is somehow managing to conquer happiness.Thine everAlys25 Wellington SquareChelsea, S.W.3July 24. 1950Dearest BertieThy letter of the 16th arrived too late for my b. day, but is most welcome. Iam glad the Australians are friendly & appreciative, but wish I cld. hear thedetails of the Cath. B. Control invigorating ?ght. I remember Cath. trouble atthe Wimbledon Election, but think it was over Education. Thee may notremember my little Cardi? friend, Maud Rees Jones, who helped us atWimbledon. She only remembers wanting to pick up the windblown stampsin thy room, & thy begging her not to, saying ‘If you scrounge for them Ishall have to scrounge too, but if we leave them, Alys will pick them up’, wh.I did presently, – I can’t ?nd Chas. Wood’s name in Edith Finch’s book, onlyon p. 35 ‘He (Blunt) saw much of the 2 younger Stanley sisters, Kate &Rosalind. Beautiful & vivid they whirled him away in an orgy of lively talkwith all the piquancy of enthusiastic prejudice. Nothing in heaven & earththe autobiography of bertrand russell 522passed unquestioned or undiscussed. They stimulated in him an intellectualactivity that had much to do with the later individuality of his views, & that,more immediately proved disconcerting during his life in Germany’, wherein 1861 he became very intimate with Lady Malet who troubled him by herconstant speculation on religious troubles.Here is an amusing extract from one of my honeymoon letters from TheHague: ‘I have sewed 2 buttons on Bertie’s shirts & he doesn’t mind mysewing as much as he thought he would.’I envy thee seeing a Coral Island. Did we read together Curzon’s Monasteriesof the East? Robt. Byron, that clever yng. writer killed in the War, has hadrepublished his excellent book on Mt Athos, beautifully written & deeplyinteresting. – Another b. day poem ends with:‘So here’s a toast & drink it upIn lemonade or cyder cup(For Auntie’s Temperance)That decades on we still shall beBlessed by her merry companyHer lovely countenance.’But not ‘merry’ now with the attack on Formosa, & defeats in Korea, alas!Thine everAlys25 Wellington SquareChelsea, S.W.3Nov. 19. 1950Dearest Nobel LordI am enchanted with thy new Honour, & am only sorry I was not sureenough of thy address to cable my congratulations. I knew of it on the 7th.,when a Swedish journalist friend came here for information about thee. (I lenthim Leggatt’s book, tho’ it has been transdinto Swedish I believe.) He toldme incidentally that Churchill & Croce were thy runners-up, but thee won.The papers here have been very enthusiastic, including a ??? Talk to children,calling thee ‘an apostle of humanity & of free speech’. The American papersmust have gone wild over thee. I hope thee will not share the Prize with theAmer. dentist’s wife, tho’ she must be feeling rather ?at.Thanks for thy letter from Swarthmore. I am shocked at thy account of poorEvelyn [Whitehead]! & feel most sorry for her without her angelic Alfred tocare for her. I hope her children are some comfort. I look forward to seeingthee before or after Stockholm, but agree that Scandinavia is unhealthy forphilosophers. But anyhow the present King will not get thee up at 5 a.m., norreturn to england 523force thee to sit on or in a stove for warmth. (He is a ‘connustur’ friend of B.B.’sbye the way, & has paid a fairly recent visit to I Tatti. B. B. telegraphed hiscongratulations to thee thro’ me, & I hope thee remembered to send him thyEssays.) I send on some cuttings thee may have missed, & also a letter fromFlorence Halévy. Also Desmond on Shaw. Has thy article on Shaw appeared yet?I am glad thee doesn’t mean to travel again, as I feel thee shd. not have thestrain of it, & that thee can better serve the cause of Internationalism, for whichI have worked passionately for 30 years, by broadcasting at home, & writing.Also it will save me from buying thee a new sponge bag for Xmas, whichI felt sure thee must need!Thine devotedlyAlysFrom and to T. S. Eliot24 Russell Square, W.C.110 June 1949Dear BertiePermit me to add my sincere felicitations to your others; on the occasion ofyour joining this small and odd miscellaneous order. It is a ?tting thoughbelated tribute to the author of The Philosophy of Leibnitz, the Principia and the otherworks on which I fed thirty-?ve years ago. And also to the author of the ReithLectures – who is one of the few living authors who can write English prose.Yours everT. S. EliotThe Master of Trinity recommends safety pins in the ribbon; but a neattuck on each side is much better.Ffestiniog, N. Wales13.6.49Dear TomThank you very much for your nice letter. In old days when we werehuddled together in Russell Chambers, we could hardly have expected thatlapse of time would make us so respectable.I will test your opinion against George Trevy’s as soon as I get the chance.Yours everB.R.the autobiography of bertrand russell 524Faber and Faber Ltd.24 Russell SquareLondon W.C.120th May, 1964The Rt. Hon. The Earl Russell, ??Plas PenrhynPenrhyndeudraethMerionethshireDear BertieMy wife and I listened the other night to your broadcast interview andthought it went over extremely well.As you may know, I disagree with your views on most subjects, but Ithought that you put your beliefs over in a most digni?ed and even persuasiveway. I wanted you to know this as you are getting on so far, and as I myselfam, I hope, somewhat mellowed by age.With grateful and a?ectionate memories,Yours everTomPlas Penrhyn23 May, 1964Dear TomMany thanks for your letter of May 20. I am glad that you found mybroadcast remarks ‘digni?ed and even persuasive’. It was nice to hear fromyou again.Yours everBertieFrom N. B. FootGeneral Secretary of the New Commonwealth Society(President British Section:The Rt. Hon. Winston S.Churchill, ??, ??, ??)25 Victoria StreetLondon S.W.1September 25th, 1947Dear Lord RussellI am sending you this letter on the eve of your departure for the Continentin the hope that it may provide you with a little information about the NewCommonwealth which you may ?nd useful. In the ?rst place, however, Ishould like to reiterate our thanks to you for having taken on this journey. Wereturn to england 525are deeply appreciative of the honour you are doing us in acting as ourrepresentative, and we feel con?dent that your visit will be quite invaluable inarousing interest in the Society’s proposals. I hope the arrangements whichMiss Sibthorp has made for you will prove satisfactory in every way.It was very kind of you to provide us with a precis of your address. I haveread it with the greatest admiration and, if I may venture to say so withoutpresumption, it seems to me to provide a masterly analysis of the problemsthat confront us and of the solution which it is our purpose to o?er. As youknow, we have always laid stress on the urgent need for the internationalisa-tion of the major weapons of war and the creation of machinery for thepeaceful settlement of all disputes, political as well as judicial. We believe, asyou do, that the establishment of a full-?edged World Parliament is likely to