BRACERS Record Detail for 19660
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"My Dear—The day of my departure comes near...."
This letter is undated but it is numbered "1". It was written after Russell's return from Russia on 30 June 1920. The date used here comes from a transcription.
It is printed in the Autobiography as part of a chapter, rather than at the end of a chapter, which was the usual practice, and appears as number 1. There are four letters in all printed in the Autobiography's Russia chapter. Before them Russell wrote: "After I returned to England I endeavoured to express my changing moods, before starting and while in Russia, in the shape of antedated letters to Colette...."
There are four transcriptions:
(ribbon copy), document .200648, record 19653, date of 24 April 1920 added in Colette's hand (carbon copy);
document .052462, record 99948, date of April 1920 added in BR's hand;
document .052454, record 99930, date of 24 April is typed;
Autobiography chapter "Russia", document .007050f2, pp. 148-9, record 116388, date of April 1920 is typed.
Note that the published version uses the more specific date of 24 April.
BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [24 APR. 1920]
BRACERS 19660. AL. McMaster. Auto. 2: 104–5; App. v.1, Papers 15
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell
My Dear
The day of my departure comes near, I have a thousand things to do, yet I sit here idle, thinking useless thoughts — the irrelevant, rebellious thoughts that well-regulated people never think, the thoughts that one hopes to banish by work, but that themselves banish work instead. How I envy those who always believe what they believe, who are not troubled by deadness and indifference to all that makes the framework of their lives. I have had the ambition to be of some use in the world, to achieve something notable, to give mankind new hopes. And now that the opportunity is near, it all seems dust and ashes. As I look into the future, my disillusioned gaze sees only strife and still more strife, rasping cruelty, tyranny, terror and slavish submission. The men of my dreams, erect, fearless and generous, will they ever exist on earth? Or will men go on fighting, killing and torturing to the end of time, till the earth grows cold and the dying sun can no longer quicken their futile frenzy? I cannot tell. But I do know the despair in my soul — I know the great loneliness, as I wander through the world like a ghost, speaking in tones that are not heard, lost as if I had fallen from some other planet.
The old struggle goes on, the struggle between little pleasures and the great pain. I know that the little pleasure are death, and yet ...a I am so tired, so very tired. Reason and emotion fight a deadly war within me, and leave me no energy for outward action. I know that no good thing is achieved without fighting, without ruthlessness and organization and discipline. I know that for collective action the individual must be turned into a machine. But in these things, though my reason may force me to believe them, I can find no inspiration. It is the individual human soul that I love — in its loneliness, its hopes and fears, it quick impulses and sudden devotions. It is such a long journey from this to armies and States and officials; and yet it is only by making this long journey that oneb can avoid a useless sentimentalism.
All through the rugged years of the war, I dreamed of a happy day after its end, when I should sit with you in a sunny garden by the Mediterranean, filled with the scent of heliotrope, surrounded by cypresses and sacred groves of ilex — and there, at last, I should be able to tell you of my love, and to touch the joy that is as real as pain. The time is come, but I have other tasks, and you have other desires; and to me, as I sit brooding, all tasks seem vain and all desires foolish.
Yet it is not upon these thoughts that I shall act.
- 1
[document] Document 200662.
- 2
[date] The letter is not dated but it is known that it was written after his return from Russia on 30 June 1920. The date added to this letter is taken from one of the transcriptions. The date was used when the letter was published in the Autobiography with the caveat that it had been antedated.
- 3
I. Colette in a note (document 200661) had indicated that this is “B’s original pre-Russia letter — intended as No 1 Letter for Book we intended publishing.” By this time, the project had been underway for some months, with other letters prepared and numbered. (In fact a letter from 28 September 1916 also has the number 1; BRACERS 99800.)
