BR TO DORA RUSSELL, 18 APR. 1924
BRACERS 19949. ALS. McMaster. SLBR 2: #358
Edited by N. Griffin. Proofread by K. Blackwell

1037 Rush Street
Chicago,
Apr. 18, 1924

My Darling Love1 —

Here I am, in a bachelor flat, with 2½ days of peace, perfect peace ahead of me. I had a lecture this morning, then I came here to Eliot’s flat to lunch. Helen Dudley was here and stayed some time afterwards. To my great relief I found she had no wish for anything amatory. She is in a dreadful situation, with a disease like Barbellion’s,2 which is slowly bringing on paralysis, with recurrent insanity; yet she keeps up bravely, hates no one, is full of artistic interests. She is really a very nice person. I treated her very badly in the first days of the war and one might expect her to hate me, but she doesn’t, and she also doesn’t love me, which is a mercy. That was my only anxiety about these days. — Your letter of April 4 reached me when I got back from Milwaukee yesterday — I had dated my letter “Good Friday” by mistake — it was the day before. I am afraid my cable didn’t arrive on your birthday, though I sent it the morning of the day before. You sound terribly overworked, my Treasure. I shall feel much happier when you are in Cornwall as I’m afraid of your knocking yourself up. Poor little John, I am sorry he is nervy again — what a blessing it will be when all his teeth are through. — I have now $1600 in the bank, so I will send you some more money as soon as I get to New York (in about a fortnight) — probably £400.3 I will write to Withers4 to advise you about investing it. — The American ladies are quite dreadful. They all rush up to me after a lecture and I almost have to use fists to get away. Poor things, they get no male companionship, and they want it. They have to put up with nothing but sleepy copulation. So they try to rape the mind of every lecturer who comes along. That is why they are willing to pay for lectures. I am really a species of mental male prostitute. It is infinitely disgusting, and only parental affection enables me to go through with it. I have finished the severe part of my time in America; from now on I shall have a fairly easy time. It has not been such a severe strain as I expected. Four weeks tomorrow since I left you! Soon half the time will be gone. I keep thinking of Cornwall and how heavenly it will be to be at home again. If it is ever necessary to come again, I will only come at a time when you can come too. An extra fortnight would pay the extra expense, as I earn quite £200 a week. If you were with me I should find it all amusing. Yesterday at Milwaukee I addressed an aristocratic women’s club. The President, whom I sat next at lunch, evidently didn’t know me from Adam, as she told me, without meaning to be rude, that the two things she couldn’t stand were Socialism and pro-Germanism. Milwaukee has a socialist mayor, which all the ladies thought dreadful. Evidently they had applied to Feakins5 for a lecturer, and didn’t realize what they had got. In the evening I addressed a drawing-room meeting of an Arts Club, consisting of rich Jews and Jewesses.

I cannot flatter myself that my lectures are any use at all, except in a few instances, mostly in New York, where there are some people who have political intelligence. I should like to chuck politics altogether and make a living out of popular science. Everybody here knows The ABC of Atoms,6 so I hope it is selling well. Although the Nortons are a bit dull, they have two merits, one that they have a baby, the other that they are fond of each other. It worries me the way there is no companionship of men and women in America. Sweetest, how can you ever imagine that you don’t give me everything I want? You don’t “leave my spirit lonely” — not the tiniest atom of it. I am absolutely and completely happy with you — it is the most perfect comradeship imaginable. You must have been dreadfully tired when you wrote, or you could never have thought such a thing. Goodbye my lovely Treasure — I love you with all my being.

Your
B.

• 1

  envelope: Hon. Mrs B. Russell | 31 Sydney Street | London S.W.3 | England. Pmk: CHICAGO ILL APR 18 11³⁰ PM 1924.

• 2

  disease like Barbellion’s Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion, the pseudonym of Bruce Frederick Cummings, a naturalist best known for his poignant Diary of a Disappointed Man (1919). He died of disseminated sclerosis a few months after its publication.

• 3

  I will send you some more money … probably £400 Dora had said they had had some “horrible bills”.

• 4

  Withers John J. Withers, the Russells’ lawyer.

• 5

  Feakins William B. Feakins, Russell’s agent.

• 6

  The ABC of AtomsRussell’s first venture in popular science, published in 1923.