BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 25 OCT. 1920
BRACERS 19708. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

On the Yiangtze1
Oct 25, 1920

My Darling

For days now we have been going up this river in a slow steamer — It is very very beautiful — hills and lakes, exquisite flights of wild duck (they arrange themselves in a horse-shoe shape, always changing as they fly), sailing junks with lovely sails — we have sunshine all day and moonlight all night — It is the first quiet time since I came to China, and I love it. The Western Lake (Hangchow) was very beautiful but too hurried.

Today we arrive at Hankow, thence we go by train to Cheng-Sha,a where there is a teachers’ conference, and where I shall meet Dewey.2 He and I are both to give 6 lectures there — Thursday night we leave Cheng-Sha, and reach Peking Sunday 31st — I hope there it will be possible to get a little quiet time for work.

The people here have too much respect for their ancient sages, and too little sense of the importance of facts — They are charming and exquisitely courteous but intellectually not grown up — they love vague general principles. Their country is going to pieces politically, and they hope to save it by ethical maxims. But they are very lovable and I long to help them. I am kept fearfully busy — on this boat I have had to prepare 6 lectures3 at a moment’s notice and in every town I have to see swarms of people.

I wish I could write the sort of long letters I had meant to write4 but this is a life of bustle like America and it is quite impossible — I shall be glad to get to Peking and begin to get regular news of you. I hate being out of England during the coal strike.5 Goodbye Beloved — All my love, now and always.

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200709.

• 2

  Dewey John Dewey (1859–1952), American philosopher and educator. Dewey and his wife, the former Harriet Alice Chipman, had been in China since May 1919.

• 3

  6 lectures In his letter of 29 October (BRACERS 19710) BR revised the number to four. His four lectures (on Bolshevism) were reported in an unidentified Hankow (?) newspaper in November 1920. See B&R D20.03c. There was also a report, “Hon. Bertrand Russell’s Views on Russia”, Peking Leader, Nov. 1920 (clipping in RA1 710.048306).

• 4

  long letters I had meant to write BR first proposed this on 22 November 1919. For information, see BRACERS 19584, n.6.

• 5

  coal strike The strike began on 18 October 1920. It is not known how this information reached BR so rapidly. It ended on 4 November 1920.

Textual Notes

• a

  Cheng-Sha misspelling of Changsha