BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 1 MAY 1939
BRACERS 19804. ALS. McMaster. SLBR 2: #438
Edited by S. Turcon and N. Griffin. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

Leandro Cottage, San Leandro Lane,
Montecito, Santa Barbara, Cal.1
[Address till Sp. 15]
May 1st, 1939.

Dearest Colette

Thank you for your letter of April 3, which reached me while I was on a lecture tour,2 now just finished. Now to your questions.3

War. I have been thinking day and night about the whole thing. At moments I think one must fight Hitler, but deep down I still believe that war would be worse than Hitler. At the same time, I feel as you do that one couldn’t refuse to help civilians. The last war was decided by man power, and one couldn’t, as a pacifist, do anything that enabled them to send to the trenches some one else who would otherwise have been kept at home. This war will not be decided by man power, and home will be as dangerous as the trenches.

I have written to John4 (who is 17½) advising him, if conscripted, to accept alternative service of a kind designed to save life — A.R.P.,5 ambulance, hospital work, etc. — but not munition making or anything of that kind. I think the same applies to you, except that, until war comes, you may have better things than A.R.P. to do with your time. The Govt. will, no doubt, in the end conscript women for various kinds of civilian work. I don’t think, in your place, I should rush in before the Govt. grows insistent; doing so tends to make war more probable, and in any case the Govt. is likely to demand at least as much as one ought to concede. But this is a difficult question, which might be altered at any moment by a change in the political situation.

Poor C.A! I felt absolutely nothing when he died.6

I don’t mind in the least your using fragments of your book in periodicals.7 I am sorry you are having such perplexities with personal matters.8 How strange that you are going to Rodborough!9 The house is gone,10 and little is left of the beauty that was there in my parents’ time.

The University of California in Los Angeles has offered me a 3-year professorship, which for financial reasons I have had to accept. I don’t like exile, but the England I loved is moribund, and America is better for the young. If I can get John and Kate11 over, I shall be glad to be distant from bombs. But absence from people and places that are important to one is painful.

Peter12 sends love, and is comforted that you feel as she does about work in the war. We have discussed it endlessly, and have come to just your conclusions.

Much love.
B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200811.

• 2

  a lecture tour The lecture tour had lasted the month of April, beginning in New Orleans and ending in Brooklyn, NY. See Michael Stevenson, “‘In Solitude I Brood On War’: Bertrand Russell’s 1939 American Lecture Tour”, Russell 33 (Winter 2013): 101–42.

• 3

  Now to your questions. They were posed in her letter of 3 April 1939 (BRACERS 98412).

• 4

  John John Conrad Russell born 16 November 1921 to BR and his wife Dora.

• 5

  A.R.P. The Air Raid Precautions organization, which was made up of volunteer air raid wardens.

• 6

  I felt absolutely nothing when he died Allen (Reginald) Clifford Allen (1889–1939), peace activist, often referred to as “CA”. Colette had written: “So Allen is dead, body as well as spirit. I wonder what you felt. They did not invite me to the memorial service!” (BRACERS 98412). Allen had died on 3 March 1939 in a sanatorium in Switzerland. BR’s friendship with Allen had foundered first over their differing reactions to Soviet Russia. In the 1930s they disagreed over politics. For further information on Allen, see BRACERS 19046, n.7.

• 7

  fragments of your book in periodicals Colette wrote on 3 April that she had had to “smash” her book (BRACERS 98412). She may have had some of these fragments published in periodicals using one of her many pseudonyms. She had begun work on In the North: Autobiographical Fragments in Norway, Sweden, Finland, 1936-1946 (London: Gollancz, 1946) and some of her work from this period appeared in it, including parts of a typescript titled “Rust Red”.

• 8

  perplexities with personal matters Her relationship with Ralph Edwards. See BRACERS 19803, n.3.

• 9

  going to Rodborough! Colette had written that she and Ralph Edwards had not yet decided about marriage. They were, however, going to spend Easter weekend at Rodborough in Gloucestershire. Colette would have BR’s mother’s hair-brush with her, thus taking it home in a way. She called it her most treasured possession.

• 10

  house is gone Rodborough Manor, where BR’s parents had lived until 1870, had been sold by Lord John Russell, forcing them to move to Ravenscroft, Monmouthshire. The manor was later destroyed by fire in 1906 (The Times, 30 Aug., p. 6).

• 11

  Kate Katharine Jane Russell born 29 December 1923 to BR and his wife Dora. Her surname became Tait upon her marriage.

• 12

  Peter Patricia (“Peter”) Russell, née Spence (1910–2004). She and BR were married from 1936 until 1952.