BR TO GAMEL BRENAN, 29 MAY 1947
BRACERS 56422. ALS(X). New York Public Library
Proofread by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
TRINITY COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE.
May 29,1947

My dear Gamel

It was delightful to get your good letter, telling about Charleston and your book — which I shall very much want to see when it is out.

I think almost any time during the first fortnight in July will suit me. Peter will probably be in Wales, but in any case her mood is changed and she is no longer difficult. I am not coming to Cambridge again till October. June 7–21 Paris and Marseilles,a then London for a while, then N. Wales.

I am enjoying having come to the end of odd jobs. My French lectures are written out, and I have no work in prospect except my big book,1 which I itch to finish. After that I think of starting on my autobiography. I am 75, but do not feel mortal. I have had an active time, with broadcasting and Lords in addition to regular work. I think broadcasting well worth doing; the B.B.C. estimates that six or seven million people heard the atomic broadcasts.2 No book except the Bible comes anywhere near it. When I do make myself feel mortal, I find it a stimulus. I know my own mind much better than I used to, and it is a help; I know what to do with the years that remain.

Gamel my Dear I hope you will be able to manage some time in July. I like your letters very much, but I like you even better. It is such a desperately long time since we last met. Things are always occurring to me that I want to say to you and to no one else. Shall we arrive in heaven with Platonic reminiscences of the way it used to be, and find it all modernized, with skyscrapers and gramophones? And so wander to hell and find it hygienic with smoke-abatement reforms? Alas.

All my love.

B

• 1

  my big bookHuman Knowledge.

• 2

  the atomic broadcasts The “Atomic Week” series, to which Russell contributed “The Outlook for Mankind”. See record 57567.

Textual Notes

• aand Marseilles, inserted