BR TO EDITH RUSSELL, 22 OCT. 1951
BRACERS 20257. ALS. McMaster
Edited by A.G. Bone. Reviewed by S. Turcon

<letterhead>1
The Waldorf-Astoria
<New York>
Oct. 22, 1951

My Beloved2 —

Your surprise letter3 waiting for me here was a most heavenly surprise when I arrived at one in the night. It was a beautiful letter, and it was a very loving and understanding thought that made you write it. It makes me almost feel your dear arms about me in this cold and very alien world. Dear Heart, I count the moments till I am home and with you again. You needn’t be afraid to “my affairs suppose”; they are not “affaires”.

I have had Press Conferences, Television,4 etc. Tonighta I have Herald Tribune Forum.5 Not only the Medlock6, but the head man on the literary side of Columbia Broadcasting Co., had never heard of Mr. Bowdler. They had heard of Shakespeare because Edith Sitwell has lately been doing Lady Macbeth.7

My Heart, you write letters that convey the very quintessence of tender love and that give me immense joy and peace. You have given me a kind of deep happiness that I had not known and had not expected ever to know — Take care of yourself, Beloved.

Yours
B

• 1

  [document] The letter was edited from a photocopy of the signed original written in BR’s hand on the recto and verso of a single leaf of letterhead from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York.

• 2

  [recipient] See BRACERS 20255, n. 2.

• 3

  your surprise letter BRACERS 120255, dated 16 October 1950 — three days before BR flew to New York.

• 4

  I have had Press Conferences, Television At noon on 21 October, barely twelve hours after BR’s long-delayed flight finally landed at Idlewild (see BRACERS 20255), BR spoke with reporters in his suite at the Waldorf-Astoria (see App. VIII.1 in Papers 26). Although he was a guest on NBC’s Meet the Press on 28 October, this earlier appearance on American television has not been identified. On 22 October, however, BR did record a discussion of Mill’s On Liberty for CBS radio’s Invitation to Learning.

• 5

  Tonight I have Herald Tribune Forum BR would speak on “New Hopes for a Changing World” (31 in Papers 26) — the title of his new book, already on sale in Britain but not published in the United States until the New Year. The text of the address featured in the next day’s issue of the New York Herald Tribune, as “British Philosopher Calls for Development of New Beliefs To Fit Techniques”, 28 Oct. 1951, sec. 9, pp. 16, 18. It closed the opening session of the newspaper’s twentieth annual forum, a three-day symposium on “Balancing Moral Responsibility and Scientific Progress”, held at the Waldorf-Astoria (where BR was staying in New York).

• 6

  the Medlock See BRACERS 20255, n. 3.

• 7

  Edith Sitwell has lately been doing Lady Macbeth English poet and critic Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) assumed the role of Lady Macbeth in a recital of scenes from Shakespeare’s play — interspersed with her commentary — staged at New York’s Museum of Modern Art on 16 November 1950.

Textual Notes

• a

  Tonight ] tonight