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able. Seeing Grace just before her departure, the other day, seemed to bringAmerica nearer. Usually, when I write to you or Helen, I feel almost as ifI were writing to dead people whom I have read about in books – the wholeplace seems so remote, so plunged in memories of an utterly di?erent personwho occupied my body seven years ago, that I can hardly believe it to be realor inhabited by real people. But when you come over in the autumn, I shalldoubt whether you have really been in America all this time.The last four months, I have been working like a horse, and have achievedalmost nothing. I discovered in succession seven brand-new di?culties, ofwhich I solved the ?rst six. When the seventh turned up, I became discour-aged, and decided to take a holiday before going on. Each in turn required areconstruction of my whole edi?ce. Now I am staying with Dickinson; ina few days I shall go to town and plunge into the Free Trade question (as astudent only). We are all wildly excited about Free Trade; it is to me the lastpiece of sane internationalism left, and if it went I should feel inclinedto cut my throat. But there seems no chance whatever of Chamberlain’ssucceeding – all the brains are against him, in every class of society....Yours very sincerelyB. Russell14 Cheyne WalkChelsea, S.W.February 28, 1904My dear Lucy. . . Really the feeling of the worthlessness of one’s work, where it is notjusti?ed, is the last refuge of self-love. It comes partly of too high an ideal ofwhat one might hope to achieve, which is a form of pride; and partly ofrebellion against one’s private su?erings, which, one feels, can only beoutweighed by some immense public good. But I know it is intolerably hardto drive self-love from this entrenchment, and I certainly have not yetsucceeded. I do wish I could be with you, not only for the beauty of Sicily,but because it would be a great pleasure to see you, and because it would beso much easier to say just the things to build up in you the self-respect youthe autobiography of bertrand russell 162deserve to have. You are really too modest altogether; but your friends’ a?ec-tion ought to persuade you that you have things to give which people value. Ihave not found myself, though, any way of banishing self except work; andwhile you are unable to work, it is very di?cult for you.I am glad Helen writes you nice letters. But I gather from what you say thather happiness is not great enough to exclude pains. That is a pity; yet perhapsit is a safeguard against greater pains in the future. This sounds a common-place re?ection, and I confess I think it better to have both pain and pleasurein an extreme degree than to have both soberly. But consolations are not to berejected, even if they are commonplace...There is not much news here. I have been very busy, but now my laboursare practically ended. We go to Cambridge for two days this week, and Alysgoes to visit Logan and look for sites at Oxford. I have been reading novels:Diana, and Beauchamp’s Career, are the two I have read last. Meredith’s psych-ology seems to me very good as a rule, though I didn’t think Diana’s betrayalwas made credible. I fell in love with her at the Ball, and remained so throughall her vagaries.Last night I went to a remote part of London, to lecture to the local Branchof the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. They meet in a Public House, butpermit no drinks during their meeting. They seemed excellent people, veryrespectable – indeed I shouldn’t have guessed they were working men. Theywere of all shades of opinion, from Tory to Socialist. The Chairman, when Ihad ?nished, begged them not to follow their usual practice of ?attering thelecturer; but even so I got not much criticism. The Secretary explained this tome on the way home by saying my arguments had ‘bottled them up’. I likedthem all, and felt an increased respect for the skilled workman, who seemsusually an admirable person.In a fortnight I shall have done with ?scal things, and then I shall go awalking-tour in Devonshire and Cornwall, before settling down to Phil-osophy. MacCarthy will go with me.Write again as soon as you can. I feel there is much more to be said inanswer to your letter, but Politics has rather scattered my thoughts. Try tokeep up your spirits; and please don’t imagine your life a useless one.Yours a?ectionatelyBertrand RussellSt Catherine’s HouseFirst Class Private HotelFowey, CornwallMarch 29, 1904My dear Lucy. . . As for work, I have not thought at all, either with satisfaction or the‘principia mathematica’ 163reverse, about my ?scal career, now happily closed – that whole episodeseems to have just faded away. Also I have not thought much about phil-osophy; though when I do think of it, the thought is rather pleasant.MacCarthy, who was an ideal companion, left me about 5 days ago. Sincethen I have been alone, and have found the time most valuable. A great senseof peace comes over me as I walk over green hills by the sea, with nobody toconsult, and nobody to be careful of. In a quiet instinctive way (veryuncommon with me) I think through practical di?culties that had seemedinsoluble, and lay up a store of peace of mind to last through the agitationsand fatigues of ordinary life. When I am not thinking of the way, or thescenery, I am mostly thinking about people’s a?airs; trying to get the factsstraight, and to decide how much I can do to better the facts. It takes a gooddeal of time and thought to imagine oneself in a certain situation, and decidewhether one could be su?ciently impressive to e?ect a great result. My Selfcomes in in being ?attered by my knowledge of people’s a?airs, and anxiousto have their con?dence; but I try hard to make Self in this form subservientto good ends.Then, when I reach an Inn, the people are all interesting owing to thesolitude of my walks; I observe their little ways, compare landladies, andlisten to the local gossip and the trials of innkeepers’ lives. I could write atlength on this subject, but it would be rather Pickwickian. In this Hotel, weare a happy family party, and all dine together. As I came downstairs, amiddle-aged woman was giving herself some ?nal touches before the Halllooking-glass; she looked round quickly, and when she saw I was not theman for whom she was doing it, she went on as before. Another middle-agedwoman, with an earnest manner and a very small waist, was in great form,because the young man had given her a bunch of white violets, which she waswearing. Then there was the inevitable old lady who dined at a table apart,and only joined the conversation occasionally, throwing in a remark abouthow sweet the spring ?owers are; and there was the pompous man, who wassaying, ‘Well, my opinion is that the directors have just thrown away ￡12,000of the shareholders’ money’. Then there was myself, much ashamed of hav-ing no change of clothes among all these respectable people, and muchdespised by them for the same reason; and like the man at the helm in theSnark, I spoke to no one and no one spoke to me; but I was well amused.Yesterday I stayed at a place called Mevagissey, where there was a ParishCouncil Election going on. The landlady’s daughter was laying my dinnerwhen I asked her if it was a contest of Liberal and Tory.‘Oh no, Sir, it’s only some of them wanted to put up a Doctor, and otherssaid he wasn’t a Mevagissey man, and had only lived 6 or 7 years in the place.’‘Disgraceful,’ I said.‘Yes it is, Sir, ain’t it? And they had a show of hands and he got the worstthe autobiography of bertrand russell 164of it, but he demanded a poll and now the ?shermen hope he’ll beturned out.’‘Well,’ I said, ‘he doesn’t seem to have much chance.’‘You see, Sir, the people who are backing him are powerful people, they’re?sh-buyers, and some of the ?shermen get their nets from them. Then he’sbacked up by what they call the Christians, the people who are against uspoor innkeepers.’Oho, I thought, now I’m getting it. ‘Is he a Nonconformist?’ I asked.‘Oh yes, Sir, he’s not a churchman’ – in a tone of great contempt.Then I found his backers were also Nonconformists, that they had madetheir own money, were very kind to sober men, but very hard on drunkards;and that several pubs had been annoyed by them. I was interested to ?nd that,in the common parlance of church-people ‘Christian’ is the antithesis to‘Churchman’. I found further from the Landlady that these monsters inhuman shape actually proposed a new drainage scheme and a new watersupply, although the rates were already dreadfully high.‘How high?’ I asked.‘I couldn’t say, Sir, but I know they’re dreadfully high.’The Doctor was not elected; but I was consoled to learn that the parson hadalso been turned out. – These little distractions keep me from having amoment’s boredom....Yours a?ectionatelyBertrand RussellCastle HowardYorkAugust 15, 1904My dear Lucy. . . This place is a large 18th century house, embodying family pride andthe worship of reason in equal measure. It is a family party – the Murrays,whom you know; Cecilia and Roberts – she, devoted to all her family, espe-cially her mother, placid usually, but capable of violent sudden rage, in whichshe utters magni?cent invective, though at all other times she is a fat good-humoured saint and (oddly enough) a Christian; Roberts (her husband) tall,thin, nervous, quivering like a poplar in the wind, an idealist disillusionedand turned opportunist; Oliver Howard, lately back from Nigeria, where headministered brilliantly a lately-conquered district, containing a town of500,000 inhabitants, in which he was almost the only white man. He issmart, thin, delicate, conventional, with a soft manner concealing an orientalcruelty and power of fury, of which his mother is the occasion and his wifethe victim – at least probably in the future. He is very beautiful and his wife isvery pretty: both are Christians; she too is very smart and very conventional,‘principia mathematica’ 165but she has real good nature, and is on the whole likeable. They are veryopenly a?ectionate; in him, one dimly feels in the background the kind ofjealousy that would lead to murder if it saw cause. Being very like his motherin character, he di?ers from her in every opinion, and relations are painfullystrained. – Then there is Dorothy, who seems to me just like my grandmotherStanley – crude, sometimes cruel, plucky, very honourable, and full ofinstinctive vitality and healthy animalism, oddly overlaid with her mother’sprinciples. Last there is Leif Jones,4Lady Carlisle’s private secretary, an in?n-itely lovable man: he does everything for everybody, has sunk his own career,his own desires, the hope of a private life of any personal kind: and all thefamily take him as a matter of course, and no more expect him to makedemands than they expect the stones to call out for food.Lady Carlisle conducts conversation in a way which makes it a game of skillplayed for high stakes. It is always argument, in which, with consummate art,she ignores relevancy and changes the issue until she has the advantage, andthen she charges down and scatters the enemy like cha? before the wind. Alarge proportion of her remarks are designed to cause pain to someone whohas shown independence or given ground for one of the thousand forms ofjealousy. She has the faults of Napoleonic women, with less mendacity andmore deliberate cruelty than in the case you know best, but with a desire tocause quarrels and part friends which is really terrible. On the other hand, shehas really great public spirit, and devotes time and money to really importantobjects. She has a just sense of values, and a kind of high-mindedness – amost mixed and interesting character...Yours a?ectionatelyBertrand RussellAudierne, FinistèreOctober 3, 1904My dear LucyThis is not a real letter, but only a counter-irritant to my last. As soon asI got away I began to see things in their true proportions, and to be no longeroppressed by the complication of things. But on the whole, I think I shall haveto avoid growing intimate with people I don’t respect, or trying to help them:it seems to be a job for which I am not ?tted.Brittany is quite wonderful – it has a great deal of purely rural beauty,woods and streams and endless orchards of big red apples, scenting all the air;and besides all this, it has a combination of the beauties of Devonshire andCornwall. We have been walking lately round the S.W. coast, places where theAtlantic rules as God. Every tiny village has a huge Gothic church, usuallyvery beautiful; many churches stand quite by themselves, facing the sea asrelics of ancient courage. At ?rst I wondered how anyone could believe inthe autobiography of bertrand russell 166God in the presence of something so much greater and more powerful as thesea; but very soon, the inhumanity and cruelty of the sea became so oppres-sive that I saw how God belongs to the human world, and is, in their minds,the Captain of an army in which they are the soldiers: God is the mostvigorous assertion that the world is not all omnipotent Matter. And so the?shermen became and have remained the most religious population in theworld. It is a strange, desolate, wind-swept region, where long ago greattowns ?ourished, where Iseult of Brittany lived in a castle over the sea, andwhere ancient legends seem far more real than anything in the life of thepresent. The very children are old: they do not play or shout, like otherchildren: they sit still, with folded hands and faces of weary resignation,waiting for the sorrows that time is sure to bring. The men are ?lled withmelancholy; but they escape from it by drink. I have never imagined a popula-tion so utterly drunken; in every village we have seen men reeling into thegutter. Ordinary days here are as bad as Bank Holiday with us – except thatI don’t think the women drink much.A very curious contrast to the Bretons was the proprietor of the last Inn westayed at, at a place called St Guénolé, near the Pointe de Penmarc’h. He wastall and very erect, with a magni?cent black beard, and quick, vigorousdramatic movements. We were wet, so we sat in the kitchen, where he wascooking the dinner with an energy and delight in his work which I havenever seen surpassed. We soon found that he was a Parisian, that he had asister married to a hotel-keeper in Lancaster, & another in the service of LordGerard (!) in Egypt; that he had been cook on a Far-Eastern liner, & that hehad now at last saved up enough capital to start on a venture of his own. Hetold us that he was really a sculptor, not a cook, & that in winter, when noguests come, he devotes his time to statuary. He had a voice that would easilyhave ?lled the Albert Hall, & he used it as a dinner-gong. Indeed, at all sortsof times, from sheer good spirits, he would bellow some joke or somecommand through the Hotel, so that all the walls resounded. His cooking,needless to say, was perfect. We saw a poor ?sherman come in & sell sardinesto him for our dinner; a vast number were purchased for threepence, which,as far as I could discover, the miserable wretch immediately spent in the bar.Yours a?ectionatelyBertrand Russell4 Ralston StreetTite Street, S.W.February 8, 1905My dear Lucy...Now that we are back in Chelsea, I often wish you too were here again,and when I walk the Battersea Park round, I miss you very much. There is‘principia mathematica’ 167much too much of the Atlantic. This year, when I go walks, it is usually withMacCarthy, whom I ?nd wonderfully soothing and restful, full of kindlyhumour, which makes the world seem gay. George Trevelyan also I walk with;but he, though he maintains that the world is better than I think, maintains itwith an air of settled gloom, by comparison with which my jokes againstoptimism seem full of the joy of life! His wife, by the way, is one of the mostsimply lovable people I have ever met. She has not much to say, and I often?nd the talk ?agging when I am with her; but she is ?lled full of generousloves and friendships, and honest and sincere in a very rare degree. She isignorant of the world, as everyone is who has met with nothing but kindnessand good fortune: she instinctively expects that everybody she meets will benice. This gives her the pathos of very young people, and makes one long tokeep sorrows away from her, well as one may know that that is impossible. Ihave liked and respected other people more, with almost no desire to shieldthem from pain; but towards her I feel as one does towards a child.We see a great many people now that we are in town. Last night we dinedat the Sidney Webbs, to meetLion PhillimoreMackinder, whom you doubtless remember – the head Beast of the Schoolof EconomicsGranville Barker, the young and beautiful actor, who has been producingShaw’s and Murray’s playsSir Oliver Lodge, Scientist and SpiritualistArthur Balfour; and, greatest of all,Werner, of Werner Beit and Co, the chief of all the South African million-aires; a fat, good-natured, eupeptic German with an equally fat gold watch-chain and a strong German accent (characteristic of all the ?nest types ofBritish Imperialists), bearing very lightly the load of blood, of nations des-troyed and hatreds generated, of Chinese slavery and English corruption,which, by all the old rules, ought to weigh upon him like a cope of lead.It was an amusing occasion. When everyone had come except Balfour andWerner, Mrs Webb observed that we should see which of them thoughthimself the bigger swell, by which came last. Sure enough, Werner came last;for though Balfour governs the Empire, Werner governs Balfour. Balfour wasmost agreeable, absolutely free from the slightest sign of feeling himself apersonage, sympathetic, anxious to listen rather than to talk. He puts his?nger in his mouth, with the air of a small child deep in thought. He is quiteobviously weak, obviously without strong feelings, apparently kindly, andnot apparently able; at least I saw nothing I should have recognised as show-ing ability, except his tact, which probably is the main cause of his success.He professed not to know whether the Government would last anotherfortnight; said he could not arrange to see Shaw’s play, for fear of a Generalthe autobiography of bertrand russell 168Election intervening. All this I took to be blarney. He drew me out aboutMoore’s philosophy, and then listened to a lecture from Mrs Webb on ‘the?rst principles of Government, for beginners’; at least that would have beenan appropriate title for her dinner-table discourse.Sir Oliver Lodge, though I had a prejudice against him on account oftheological di?erences, struck me as delightful: calm, philosophic, and dis-interested. Poor Mackinder made a bee-line for Balfour, but got landed withme, much to my amusement. It was a sore trial to his politeness, from whichhe extricated himself indi?erently.5I am not working now, but merely seeing people and enjoying myself.I have ?ts of depression at times, but they don’t last long. I have had a fairshare of other people’s tragedies lately; some in which intimate friends havebehaved badly, which is always painful. Others, which vex me almost more,I only suspect and have to watch their disastrous e?ects in total impotence.Who was the heartless fool who said that loving other people made onehappy? Still, with all its pains, it does help to make life tolerable....Yours a?ectionatelyBertrand RussellLower CopseBagley Wood, OxfordJune 13, 1905My dear Lucy...I did not remember (if I ever knew) that the Spectator had spoken of mywriting; your allusion makes me curious to know what it said. I have notdone any more of that sort of writing, but I have been getting on very wellwith my work. For a long time I have been at intervals debating this conun-drum: if two names or descriptions apply to the same object, whatever is trueof the one is true of the other. Now George the Fourth wished to knowwhether Scott was the author of Waverley; and Scott was as a matter of fact thesame person as the author of Waverley. Hence, putting ‘Scott’ in the place of‘the author of Waverley’, we ?nd that George the Fourth wished to knowwhether Scott was Scott, which implies more interest in the Laws of Thoughtthan was possible for the First Gentleman of Europe. This little puzzle wasquite hard to solve; the solution, which I have now found, throws a ?ood oflight on the foundations of mathematics and on the whole problem of therelation of thought to things. It is a great thing to ?nd a puzzle; because, solong as it is puzzling one knows one has not got to the bottom of things. Ihave hopes that I shall never again as long as I live have such di?cult work as Ihad last year, and the year before; certainly this year, so far, my work has notbeen nearly so hard, and I have been reaping the harvest of previous work.This place is a very great success. The house is pretty and comfortable, my‘principia mathematica’ 169study is so palatial that I am almost ashamed of it, and the country round hasthe typical English charm of ?elds and meadows and broad open views, withOxford and the river besides. Alys seems to like the place thoroughly, and hasbeen on the whole much better than in town. I ?nd it a great advantage beingin touch with Oxford people – it is easier to keep alive my interest in workwhen I can bring it into some relation with human interests. I have had totake myself in hand rather severely, and being here has made it much morefeasible....Do write to me again as soon as you can, and tell me about yourself andalso about Helen. Your letters are always a great pleasure to me. Just nowI am in the middle of a ?t of work; but though I shall do my best, it is likely tostop soon. Life would be delightfully simple if one could enjoy all one’sduties, as some people do; it would be simpler than it is if one always did theduties one doesn’t enjoy. Failing both, it is complicated to a frightful extent.But I live in hopes of becoming middle-aged, which, they tell me, makeseverything easy.Yours a?ectionatelyBertrand Russell14 Barton StreetWestminsterAugust 3, 1905My dear LucyYou will probably have heard, by the time this reaches you, of the disasterwhich has befallen us all. Theodore Davies, bathing alone in a pool nearKirkby Lonsdale, was drowned; presumably by hitting his head against a rockin diving, and so getting stunned. It is a loss, to very many, which we shallfeel as long as we live; and the loss to the public is beyond anything one canpossibly estimate. But all other losses seem as nothing compared to Cromp-ton’s. They had been always together, they shared everything, and Theodorewas as careful of Crompton and as tender with him as any mother could havebeen. Crompton bears it with wonderful courage; his mind endures it, butI doubt whether his body will. I am here to do what I can for him – there islittle enough except to sit in silence with him and su?er as he su?ers. As soonas he can get away, I am going abroad with him. This is Miss Sheepshanks’shouse; she and the other inmates are all away, and she has kindly lent it to me.Alys was very much upset by the news. When we got it, we were just startingfor Ireland, to stay with the Monteagles. It seemed best for her not to bealone, so I went over with her, and then came back here. She will be thereanother 10 days or more. They are kind good people, who will take care ofher. Crompton’s sorrow is crushing, and I hardly know how to bear it. But itis a comfort to feel able to be of some help to him. Theodore had very manythe autobiography of bertrand russell 170devoted friends, and all have done everything they could; their sympathy haspulled Crompton through the ?rst shock, but there is a long anxious timeto come....I have written an article6on George IV for ‘Mind’, which will appear indue course; there you will ?nd the ‘answer’ ...I am too tired to write more now. I wanted to write to you aboutTheodore, but I have no thoughts for other things.Yours a?ectionatelyBertrand RussellRozeldene, GrayshottHaslemere, SurreySeptember 3, 1905My dear LucyThank you very much for your kind letter. Crompton and I went to Francefor a fortnight, which was all the holiday he could get. I think it did himgood. We stayed ?rst with the Frys and then with the Whiteheads. I have notseen him since we got home 10 days ago. But I feel good hopes that he willavoid a complete collapse.It has been, in a less degree, a rather terrible time for me too. It madeeverything seem uncertain and subject to chance, so that it was hard to keepany calm about all the goods whose loss one fears. And it brought up, asmisfortunes do, all the memories of buried griefs which one had resolved tobe done with. One after another, they burst their tombs, and wailed in thedesert spaces of one’s mind. And the case was one which admitted of nophilosophy at all – I could not see that there was anything to be said inmitigation of the disaster. But I have got myself in hand now, and tomorrowI go back to work, after a week’s tour by myself. This Sunday I am with myAunt Agatha. We talk of long-ago things, of people who are dead and old-world memories – it is very soothing. It is odd how family feeling is stirredby anything that makes one feel the universe one’s enemy....Yours a?ectionatelyBertrand RussellLower CopseBagley Wood, Oxford