BRACERS Record Detail for 131572

To access the original letter, email the Ready Division.

Collection code
RA3
Recent acquisition no.
710
Document no.
104404
Box no.
6.68
Source if not BR

Malleson, Constance

Recipient(s)
Morrell, Ottoline
"Any One Whom It May Interest"
Sender(s)
BR
Date
1918/08/31
Form of letter
AL
Pieces
1
BR's address code (if sender)
LBP
Notes, topics or text

"There never was such a place as prison for crowding images...." The letter is identified by Edith Russell as being for Ottoline, even though there is a heading "[For any one whom it may interest]". This identification is found in another transcription, document .007052ft, record 93486. There is another transcription, Rec. Acq. 14, record 117686.

In the Autobiography both designations are used.

Transcription

Letter 90
BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL / “FOR ANYONE WHOM IT MAY INTEREST”, 31 AUG. 1918

BRACERS 131572. AL. McMaster. Auto. 2: 93–4; Papers 14: 102
Previous Brixton letter, BRACERS 18690; next letter, BRACERS 19355
Edited by K. Blackwell, A. Bone, N. Griffin and S. Turcon


<Brixton Prison>1
31.8.18

[For any one whom it may interest]

There never was such a place as prison for crowding images — one after another they come upon me — early morning in the Alps, with the smell of aromatic pines and high pastures glistening with dew — the lake of Garda2 as one first sees it coming down out of the mountains, just a glimpse, far 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 the setting sun, enchanted and unreal, so that you think they must have vanished before you can reach them, looking like the Islands of the Blest, not to be achieved during this mortal life3 — the smell of the bog myrtle in Skye — memories of sunsets long ago, all the way back into childhood. I can hear now as if it were yesterday the street-cry of a man in Paris selling “artichaux verts et beaux”, 24 years ago4 almost to a day. Quite from childhood I remember a certain row of larches after rain, with a rain drop at the end of every twig. And I can hear the wind in the tree-tops in midnight woods on summer nights. 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 and China and Tibet,5 in the French Revolution, in the souls of animals and even of the lowest animals.6 In such adventures I have forgotten the prison in which the world is keeping itself at the moment: I am free, and the world shall be.7

 

  • 1

    [document] The letter was edited from the unsigned, single-sheet original in BR’s hand in the Malleson papers in the Russell Archives. The sheet was folded four times. The letter was published in BR’s Autobiography, 2: 93–4, and as 102 in Papers 14.

  • 2

    lake of Garda BR had long rhapsodized over Lake Garda, in northern Italy, known for its crystal-clear water. He told Ottoline in 1911: “How lovely the journey is from Verona to Milan — the lake of Garda, and the campaniles in the plain” (14 Oct. 1911, BRACERS 17304); and next day, “No, I don’t like lakes, except Garda, which I love” (BRACERS 17306). It was there he met Liese von Hattingberg in August 1913, with whom he had an affair in Rome later that year (Auto. 1: 206).

  • 3

    Islands of the Blest … this mortal life The three legendary Islands of the Blest (or Fortunate Isles), located at the heart of Elysium, were an earthly paradise reserved for the bravest and most virtuous heroes of Greek mythology.

  • 4

    man in Paris selling “artichaux verts et beaux”, 24 years ago BR recalled the three months he spent in Paris in the fall of 1894 as an honorary attaché at the British Embassy.

  • 5

    I have been … Brazil and China and Tibet See Letters 7, 9, 80, 84 and 86.

  • 6

    animals BR’s prison reading included studies of animal behaviour. While there he read Margaret Floy Washburn, The Animal Mind: a Text-Book of Comparative Psychology (1908); see Papers 8: App. III, “Philosophical Books Read in Prison”.

  • 7

    I am free, and the world shall be Alan Wood termed this letter “one of the finest testaments to the freedom of the human spirit” (Bertrand Russell: the Passionate Sceptic [London: Allen & Unwin, 1957], p. 116).

Publication
Wood, 116; Auto. 2: 93-4; Papers 14: 102; https://russell-letters.mcmaster.ca/brixton-letter-90
Permission
Everyone
Image
Transcription Public Access
Yes
Record no.
131572
Record created
Sep 01, 2017
Record last modified
Oct 13, 2022
Created/last modified by
duncana