BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 1 JUNE 1941
BRACERS 19810. ALS. McMaster. SLBR 2: #455
Edited by S. Turcon and N. Griffin. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

Little Datchet Farm,
R. D. 1, Malvern, Pa, USA.1
1 June 1941

My dearest Colette

I am not quite sure which of your letters I have answered. I have one written Jan. 1, one Feb. 18, one March 12.2 The one in which you told me you had a lump3 alarmed me very much, but your later letter seems to say it is not serious. I hope this is true. Your letters are extraordinarily interesting — I like all the details, giving one a picture of your life and surroundings. And it is consoling to be in touch with you. In these days old times are very much in one’s mind.

I do not get many letters from England — Lucy Silcox,4 Gilbert Murray,5 and Bob Trevy6 are my chief correspondents. Gilbert Murray says he is turning Conservative, feeling that the Christian tradition was important, and something of it should be preserved. I partly agree, but am struck here, more than elsewhere, by the evils of the Catholic Church. I think the Russian Revolution led Radicals up a blind alley; we shan’t get to anything good till a new Radicalism, less authoritarian, gets going. Bob Trevy devotes himself to translation. Do you remember Leopardi’s poem about the Infinite,7 which I always loved?  Here is his translation:

Dear to me always was this lonely hill
And this hedge that excludes so large a part
Of the ultimate horizon from my view.
But as I sit and gaze, my thought conceives
Interminable vastness of space
Beyond it, and unearthly silences,
And profoundest calm; whereat my heart almost
Becomes dismayed. And as I hear the wind
Blustering through these branches, I find myself
Comparing with this sound that infinite silence;
And then I call to mind eternity,
And the ages that are dead, and this that now
Is living, and the noise of it. And so
In this immensity my thought sinks drowned.
And sweet it seems to shipwreck in this sea.

I don’t know any other poem that says so much in so few words.

As for private news: John8 and Kate9 are just completing their second year at the University of California, and will come to us by car across the Continent, arriving in about 3 weeks. Kate has got a scholarship at Radcliffe, an annexe of Harvard, and John will probably go to Harvard in the autumn. I hope he too will get a scholarship, but it isn’t settled yet. I shall be glad to have them both not far off; all this winter and spring they have been 3000 miles away. John has become extremely scholarly. His tastes are classical, I think as an escape from present horrors. So far the British Government doesn’t want him, but he will go if they do. Kate is very good at her work, but less interested in it than John. Conrad10 is a joy, intelligent and beautiful and affectionate. I am thankful he is not in England. He doesn’t know there is a war. My lectures have just stopped for the summer.  Next autumn I have to tackle Christian philosophy from St. Augustine to Thomas Aquinas,11 and on to its breakdown in the renaissance. I like the work very much, although I half feel it futile at this time. Peter12 and I both find it very trying to be away from England.

I don’t know whether air mail or ordinary mail is best. I will send you a short letter by ordinary mail13 at the same time as this, and then you can judge. Very much love, dearest Colette.

Your B.
Bertrand Russell.

• 1

  [document] Document 200816.

• 2

  written Jan. 1, one Feb. 18, one March 12 Letter of 1 January 1941 (BRACERS 98430); letter of 18 February (BRACERS 98431); letter of 12 March (BRACERS 98432). The first letter notes that she had had a “beastly stiff and formal cable from Ralph [Edwards]” for Christmas. Their relationship had ended badly in the spring of 1940.

• 3

  you had a lump This news was contained in Colette’s letter of 1 January (BRACERS 98430). She had noticed the lump before Christmas; by the time she wrote BR it had shrunk in size. By her letter of 18 February (BRACERS 98431), she had visited a doctor, who had said there was no danger of cancer.

• 4

  Lucy Silcox Lucy Silcox (1862–1947), headmistress and feminist, long-time friend of BR’s. Only one letter from her to BR from this period is extant, 3 August 1942 (BRACERS 80422).

• 5

  Gilbert Murray (George) Gilbert Aimé Murray (1866–1957), classical scholar. For information on him, see BRACERS 19121, n.4.

• 6

  Bob Trevy Robert Calverley Trevelyan (1872–1951), poet and translator, a friend of BR’s from his undergraduate days at Trinity College.

• 7

  Leopardi’s poem about the Infinite “ L’Infinito” [The infinite] by Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1839). BR quoted the last line of the poem in his letter of 28 September 1916 (BRACERS 19046) and wrote out the poem for Colette (BRACERS 107339) in Italian. (Here he copied it in two columns.) The book of translation, Translations from Leopardi, by R.C. Trevelyan (Cambridge UP, 1941) is in Russell’s Library (no. 802) with this page book-marked.

• 8

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

• 9

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

• 10

  Conrad Conrad Sebastian Robert Russell, born 15 April 1937 to BR and his wife Patricia.

• 11

  tackle Christian philosophy from St. Augustine to Thomas Aquinas For his Barnes lectures which formed the basis for A History of Western Philosophy (B&R A79), Book Two.

• 12

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

• 13

  a short letter by ordinary mail Written on 1 June 1941 (BRACERS 19811).