BRACERS Record Detail for 131528

To access the original letter, email the Ready Division.

Collection code
RA3
Recent acquisition no.
69
Document no.
000043A
Box no.
2.53
Source if not BR

Texas, U. of, HRC

Recipient(s)
Morrell, Ottoline
Sender(s)
BR
Date
1911/04/26*
Form of letter
ALS(M)
Pieces
2
BR's address code (if sender)
TC
Notes, topics or text

To Lady Ottoline Morrell (1911 April 26)

"I have just seen the Dr." Mouth cancer proved unreal.

 
Transcription

BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [26 APR. 1911]
BRACERS 131528. ALS(M). Texas
Edited by K. Blackwell. Reviewed by A.G. Bone


<letterhead>
TRINITY COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE.1
<26 April 1911>

I have just seen the Dr.2 who says there is nothing much the matter, and has suggested a few simple remedies.3 There is, he says, nothing whatever of the slightest importance. This is a relief from what should have been a grave anxiety, though I can’t say it was, because I forgot about it except at moments. You will feel at first that I ought to have told you sooner, but if you think it over you will, I am sure, agree that it would have quite unnecessarily ruined our three days.4 What happened was this: The day before Easter5 I went to a dentist6 who happened to be also a qualified Dr. He became interested in a patch on my skin, and said he thought it was cancer. I felt sure he was a faddist and unreliable, but he recommended a specialist whom I have just seen, and who entirely scouts the idea. I knew if I said nothing about it I could forget about it, till it was decided, and I was determined not to spoil our days. The letter addressed “Prof. Russell”7 which reached me was from the specialist making the appointment. At first I thought I was bearing the anxiety well, and then I discovered I was enjoying it — it gave a heightened sense of life. This surprised me. I had often thought of being told one had cancer, and supposed it would be horrible — perhaps the certainty would have been, but the chance, which I never believed really, was not. Don’t be angry8 with me for having kept it back. If it had been true, it would have destroyed our one chance of real complete happiness to have told you. Being false, it would have been a sheer waste. I should not hereafter keep silence on such a matter, but you will see that I couldn’t be expected to give up the last chance of really complete happiness, which it would have been if true. However, now it is all right, unless you are angry. I must stop.a

Goodbye Darling Goodbye. Please don’t be angry.

B.

 
  • 1

    [address] BR wrote from London, not Cambridge as the letterhead would indicate.

  • 2

    I have just seen the Dr. The specialist is not known. In BRACERS record 17107 BR had told Ottoline that he was to go next day (26 April) “to see a Dr. about a small affection of the skin inside my mouth, which my dentist tells me I ought to have cured.” See his later account of the episode (Auto. 1: 204) for the worry that the spot was cancerous; also SLBR 1: 347 and Monk 1: 215–16. Ottoline suspected something, asking what the doctor said about his mouth in her letter crossing his (record 113386).

  • 3

    a few simple remedies It is unclear exactly what the remedies were for, though BR later had a gum disease. He may have already been “suffering from pyorrhoea, although I did not know it” (Auto. 1: 206), but SLBR 2: 45 dates the disease and cure to 1914–15.

  • 4

    our three days At Studland, 18–20 April 1911. Ronald W. Clark is good on the background to  Studland (The Life of Bertrand Russell [London: Cape/Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975], pp. 137–40).

  • 5

    day before Easter Easter Sunday was 16 April in 1911.

  • 6

    a dentist Dr. Willey Ditcham (as noted by BR in record 78619, dated 1 April), and otherwise identified as Dr. Wm. Vooght Ditcham, MD, DDS. He seems to have been from Cape Colony and in practice as a dental surgeon since before 1885. He published Our Teeth; Care and Preservation in 1895.

  • 7

    letter addressed “Prof. Russell” The specialist’s letter does not survive in RA.

  • 8

    angry Ottoline responded to his expression of guilt, “how could I be angry Bertie. That is out of the question” (27 April 1911, record 113387).

Textual Notes
  • a

    I must stop. A closing parenthesis in pencil is found at the end of the last paragraph, after “I must stop.” See the [document] note to record 17108 for the opening parenthesis.

Publication

Re B&R C10.07

Re B&R C04.12

Permission
Everyone
Transcription Public Access
Yes
Record no.
131528
Record created
Apr 21, 2017
Record last modified
Oct 25, 2023
Created/last modified by
duncana