BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [23 NOV. 1916]
BRACERS 19080. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

Address in B’ham c/o Barrett Brown1
Woodbrook, Selly Oak, B’ham
but I shall probably leave before the post comes.
Thurs. evg.2

My Beloved.

Your letter3 has just come — it was a joy to get it.  I have had a funny day too. I slept till 11, then found that Allen4 is out, Miss Marshall5 had tried to get me on the telephone, and then both disappeared. I have had no word since in spite of innumerable efforts.  It is vexing to know nothing.  I lunched with the Whiteheads6 — they were very kind, but I suffer because they are so war-like — it is very painful seeing them because I have to keep silence about so much.  I got two letters from Elizabeth,7 and wrote to her — I think she will come back.  Now I have to see the Murrys8 — he is the Dostoewsky man in the War Office.  I am glad Miles9 was such a success — I was sure he would be.  He wrote me a dear little letter10 from Manchester — please give him my very best thanks for it.

I hated leaving you last night my Darling.  My dearest loved one, my heart is full of you every moment — I long to be with you and to feel your arms and your kiss.  My heart, my joy, I love you, I love you.

B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200048.

• 2

  [date] Colette wrote “Thurs 23 Nov 1916” on the letter.

• 3

  Your letter Presumably Colette’s letter of 23 November 1916, which begins: “My Darling, such a comical day.” (BRACERS 1129661.)

• 4

  Allen For information on Allen, see BRACERS 19046, n.7.

• 5

  Miss Marshall For information on Marshall, see BRACERS 19043, n.5.

• 6

  the Whiteheads Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947), Cambridge-educated mathematician and philosopher. From 1884 to 1910 he was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and lecturer in mathematics there; from 1911 to 1924 he taught in London, first at University College and then at the Imperial College of Science and Technology; in 1924 he took up a professorship in philosophy at Harvard and spent the rest of his life in America. BR took mathematics courses with him as an undergraduate, which led to a lifelong friendship. Whitehead’s first major work was A Treatise on Universal Algebra (1898), which treated selected mathematical theories as “systems of symbolic reasoning”. Like BR’s The Principles of Mathematics (1903), it was intended as the first of two volumes; but in 1900 he and BR discovered Giuseppe Peano’s work in symbolic logic, and each decided to set aside his projected second volume to work together on a more comprehensive treatment of mathematics using Peano’s methods. The result was the three volumes of Principia Mathematica (1910–13), which occupied the pair for over a decade. After Principia was published, Whitehead’s interests, like BR’s, turned to the empirical sciences and, finally, after his move to America, to pure metaphysics. His wife was Evelyn (née Willoughby-Wade, 1865–1961). See Victor Lowe, Alfred North Whitehead: the Man and His Work, 2 vols. (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins U. P., 1985–90).

• 7

  Elizabeth Elizabeth Russell, born Mary Annette Beauchamp (1866–1941), was a novelist who in 1891 married Graf von Arnim-Schlagenthin. She became known as “Elizabeth”, the name she used in publishing Elizabeth and Her German Garden (1898), and she remained widely known as Elizabeth von Arnim, although the Library of Congress catalogues her as Mary Annette (Beauchamp), Countess von Arnim. She was a widow when she married BR’s brother, Frank, on 11 February 1916. The marriage was quickly in difficulty; she left it for good in March 1919, but they were never divorced and she remained Countess Russell (becoming Dowager Countess after Frank’s death in 1931).

• 8

  Murrys John Middleton Murray (1889–1957), and Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923), both writers. The couple was living together but would not marry until May 1918 after her divorce from her first husband. Murray worked in political intelligence in the War Office, 1916–1919. In 1916 he published Fyodor Dostoevsky: a Critical Study.

• 9

  Miles For information on Miles Malleson, see BRACERS 19046, n.4.

• 10

  dear little letter Most likely Miles’ undated letter at BRACERS 2006, inspired by The Nation’s review of Principles of Social Reconstruction ("A Prophet of Life", 18 Nov. 1916, pp. 253–5).