BR TO EDITH RUSSELL, [5 NOV. 1951]
BRACERS 20261. ALS. McMaster
Edited by A.G. Bone. Reviewed by S. Turcon

<Washington, D.C.>1

My Darling Edith.2

This will be my last letter. I hope it will arrive before me. I got 2 lovely letters from you3 yesterday at Oberlin Ohio. They were a great comfort. The Western Wind will blow (D.V.) before the week is out. I am sorry you are having such a deluge from John and Susan:4 I feel a little guilty. The worst of my tour is over and I am still alive. On Friday I was supposed to leave Purdue (Ind.) at 8 am and arrive at Cleveland (for Oberlin) at noon. I got up at that unearthly hour and learnt that the plane was not running. So I took train to Chicago and plane from there. I was to lecture at 8, and time was running short. At Detroit I was informed that the plane would not go to Cleveland. I discovered (though no one told me) that passengers were being taken by bus to Cleveland. The bus took six hours through a blizzard. I reached Cleveland at midnight having missed the lecture. Every spare moment had been taken up telephoning to Oberlin. They put the lecture next day so I didn’t lose financially. But I was rather exhausted. Now I am at Washington waiting for a plane to N. Carolina. Here it is warm and sunny: in Ohio it was deep in snow and freezing hard.

Medlock is not with me, but all the same I am hating every moment. People who know me are kind but strangers are apt to be rude. Nothing will induce me to come again. Absolutely nothing either pleasant or interesting has happened to me, except Kate and David.5

My Beloved I long to be with you, but you may find me a little dim with fatigue. I think however that I shall revive after one good night. Let us pray that my return plane does not take root in Labrador or on the slopes of Hekla.6 Goodbye my dearest Love. This time will end though at times I find it hard to believe.

B

• 1

  [document] The letter was edited from a photocopy of the signed original written in BR’s hand on an airmail form. The date of the letter has been inferred from the physical location (an airport in Washington, DC) where BR wrote it. He arrived in Greensboro, NC on 5 November 1951.

• 2

  [recipient] See BRACERS 20255, n. 2.

• 3

  2 lovely letters from you Presumably BRACERS 120259 and 120260, dated 31 October and 2 November, respectively, with two earlier letters — BRACERS 120257 (25 Oct. 1951) and 120258 (27 Oct. 1951) — possibly arriving at last after he complained on 1 November to Edith about his lack of mail (BRACERS 20260, n. 10) but before he reached Oberlin College.

• 4

  I am sorry you are having such a deluge from John and Susan BR’s son and daughter-in-law had arranged to visit Edith again (to do more literary recording: see BRACERS 20258, n. 4) on 1 November, but Susan cancelled at extremely short notice (see BRACERS 120260). Although the couple may eventually have seen Edith on 7 November, she did not report on this for BR’s benefit as he was returning from the United States only three days later.

• 5

  David Tait (1951–2016), BR’s infant grandson.

• 6

  slopes of Hekla This volcano near Iceland’s southern shore was known as the “Gateway to Hell” in medieval Europe on account of its intermittently ferocious eruptions (the most recent of which had lasted from March 1947 until April 1948).