Total Published Records: 135,546
BRACERS Notes
Record no. | Notes, topics or text |
---|---|
124201 | BR has not time to give Mr. Bonche for sittings. |
124202 | BR thanks Zahedy for the "lovely book of illustrations for Omar Kayyam". |
124203 | BR suspends his order for Golden Mixture tobacco until further notice (but not the Silcut cigarettes). |
124204 | BR returns the transcript of an interview on March 7 "which you have made very interesting". BR has "made some questions ["corrections" in the TL(CAR) at record 84467]", "partly of indiscretions and partly of errors of fact." |
124205 | BR tells her that 15 Cheyne Walk belonged to Leonard Courtenay, whose wife was one of the 9 Potter sisters. |
124206 | BR now accepts the "television programme" that was under discussion and involves 13 15-minute periods a day. |
124207 | BR thanks him for The Hedgehog and the Fox (by Berlin) and the return of his Quine correspondence. BR would like to see Holland. |
124208 | BR recommends that he contact Gilbert McAllister rather than the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament for his scheme. |
124209 | BR sends a cheque for £50 for his quarterly payment to Dora Russell. |
124210 | BR sends Rotblat an unspecified letter that he cannot understand. He does not know if it concerns Pugwash. |
124211 | BR will come and autograph 100 copies (presumably of My Philosophical Development). "You say, after 6 p.m.—does that mean that 6 p.m. would be all right, or ought it to be later?" |
124212 | BR sends his "attempt at the 300 word advertisement" for the Manchester CND meeting. |
124213 | BR believes most moralists would take the view that only some wars are justified. |
124214 | BR blames King Leopold's personal rule for Belgian atrocities and refers him to E.D. Morel's books. |
124215 | "No". |
124216 | BR agrees entirely with Rotblat's letter of March 13 and has signed and dispatched the 21 letters he enclosed. |
124217 | A contract is to be sent to the BBC. |
124218 | BR thanks Foges for "The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly". He would like to see him and the Blacks earlier than April 13, when BR goes to London. |
124219 | BR sends a cheque for Kate's copy of the paper. |
124220 | BR must limit his speaking engagements but encourages Hamlet's new branch. |
124221 | BR sends 2 letters, which are unacknowledged: an Indian letter about The ABC of Relativity and a Persian about Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare. |
124222 | BR agrees to sponsor the programme of the Society for African Culture, provided no work is involved. |
124223 | "No". |
124224 | BR discusses Susan Lindsay and her attitude as a mother. He asks Lloyd-Williams for any advice she may have. |
124225 | "I have to eat very soft food very slowly, since otherwise the food sticks in my throat", and this affliction keeps BR from eating in public. In case of imperative need, BR eats at home first. Thus he must decline the Club's invitation to dine, as "I have greatly enjoyed the past meetings that I have attended." |
124226 | The dental appointment (possibly for the grandchildren) is being arranged for April 9. |
124227 | Alys writes from Churt, Farnham: |
124228 | Alys writes about the death of her mother, Hannah Whitall Smith. This is the second letter written that day. |
124229 | |
124230 | |
124231 | |
124232 | |
124233 | |
124234 | |
124235 | |
124236 | |
124237 | Alys reacts to news of Mary's death. |
124238 | The photocopy is of very poor quality. |
124239 | "Bertie is very happy at Cambridge, with working rooms in Trinity. He gets £300 a year as a Fellow, and makes other larger sums by lecturing, broadcasting and journalism. His wife [Patricia Russell] is universally disliked, but his son John (in the British Navy), and his daughter, Kate, the cleverest girl they ever had at Radcliffe, a translator for this govt. are perfect characters and altogether satisfactory." |
124240 | "Santayana's The Middle Span has come from America, and is very disappointing except the chapter 'Russell', all about Frank and his affairs. Bertie's wife [Patricia Russell] has begun her publicity. [She] quarrels in Cambridge, and is thoroughly disliked there, and she has forced him to write to the papers that he wishes to use his title, except in writing." Another passage, about a broadcaster, may be about BR. [The photocopy is poor quality and needs to be replaced from the microfilm.] |
124241 | On the Labour victory ("I am, of course, delighted, Logan less so as he fears socialism will lead to dictatorship, but nothing can damp my spirits. What will Churchill do now, and what will happen at Potsdam, and how will our tame Labour leaders [?] pan out?" |
124242 | Alys is not hopeful about the Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in London this week. "What will they do about the peace settlement for Italy and Trieste, the plant necessary for Germany's peacetime economy, and about all the refugees, and the feeding of Europe this winter? And what will Keynes accomplish over mend [sic] lease in Washington?" "But anyhow the fighting is over, and the bombs no longer threaten us." |
124243 | The Foreign Office "badly needs reform." |
124244 | Attlee has "come on or come out very much since he became Prime Minister." They miss Churchill's wonderful speeches. |
124245 | |
124246 | She remarks on the Foreign Secretaries' conference, which collapsed on "procedural" issues. |
124247 | An imaginative writing, copied by Alys, by Connelly on Logan Pearsall Smith's 80th birthday. |
124248 | "I enclose an American review [not present] of Bertie's book [A History of Western Philosophy] which has not been published here yet. But Trevy has a copy of the American edition, and promises to lend it to us. I do hope it will sell well, and make some money for him. He wants to leave Cambridge next summer, as the climate does not suit him and his family. They will go somewhere in the country, with a pied-a-terre small flat in London, from where he can go to Cambridge for his lectures, and see his friends, they hope, without his wife. She [Patricia Russell] is an insistent bore, and never allows him to talk. His Cambridge lectures are a tremendous success, and so is his broadcasting in the 'Brains Trust'." |
124249 | Alys is working as much "as 77 can" for Labour in the election. The Tories "are purely capitalist and anti-Russian in their internationalist policy." |
124250 | "The Commissar and the Yogi by Arthur Koestler is the only really interesting book we have read lately." |
124251 | "Trevy has lent us his copy of Bertie's 800 page book [History of Western Philosophy] and we have both skimmed it through, with great interest and amusement. It is very good reading, especially in the character sketches ... slightly malicious and very Bertiean." "He sums up a period or a movement very well." |
124252 | Logan has become very difficult to live with. |
124253 | Logan has become vicious towards Alys. |
124254 | Lucy Donnelly sent Alys A Life of Joseph Smith. She has not seen Logan for 6 weeks. |
124255 | Alys refers to "Mary's box of papers". |
124256 | Alys wants a copy of The Golden Urn for Desmond MacCarthy. Apparently Logan has died. |
124257 | Logan died yesterday (the 2nd), after a period of euphoria that was wearing him out. The Times has a long and excellent article today (4th). |
124258 | Alys has had a severe abscess. |
124259 | Alys has moved into 25 Wellington Square, S.W.3. Alys has Logan's income for life. She refers to his "malicious" will. His estate of £10,000 will ultimately go to "that stranger", John Russell, "and not a penny to the devoted Bob Gathorne-Hardy. |
124260 | Alys mentions several obituaries of Logan. |
124261 | "To-day London is celebrating the Victory parade ... but I shall only follow it by the radio. Most people I know are bored by it and consider it an unnecessary expense, but the soldiers, particularly the colonial and foreign ones wanted it, and the ordinary people love a pageant." |
124262 | "I don't quite understand what an existentialist is". |
124263 | "Saturday bro't the favourable vote on the [U.S.] loan, about which we are all rejoicing, tho' it will not soften our bread ration...." |
124264 | Rosalind Murray left Arnold Toynbee, who has now married his secretary. |
124265 | Alys provides details of Logan's wealth, now that his will has been probated. |
124266 | Alys refers to Karen's being "almost hopelessly hampered by her constant attacks of depression." |
124267 | "Bertie's book [History of Western Philosophy] is having a great success here—large 1st edition sold out at once, and now reprinting." |
124268 | |
124269 | |
124270 | "It is still cold, but I am better and very warm in my little flat. The low gas pressure and economy of electricity is a trial, but nobody complains, and I don't really blame Shinwell, who was trying to keep up our export production." |
124271 | Alys approves of Gathorne-Hardy's reminiscences of Logan, although the book would be damaging to Logan's reputation: "I believe in the truth." |
124272 | Hugh Trevor-Roper is mentioned. |
124273 | |
124274 | |
124275 | "I am sending you a copy of Bertie's lecture on 'Philosophy and Politics', with Desmond's review of it. It expresses exactly what I feel about Bertie's great book, The History of Western Philosophy, that it lacks the strain of impartiality of a true philosopher, and is wanting in both profoundity and generosity. |
124276 | Re Harold Laski and his wife. Alys has read The Scared Men of the Kremlin: "deeply interesting and instructive". |
124277 | This letter is printed out on the same page as her letter of 31 October 1947. |
124278 | "We miss our plentiful supply of potatoes, but really get plenty to eat. Cousin John Strachey can stand up the Tory complaints very well." Dalton's slip. Cripps. |
124279 | "Edith Finch has finished her biography of Carey Thomas, and will send you a copy, I hope. It is well written, concise and interesting, and very fair, including Carey's faults in a most judicious way, and is having a great success." |
124280 | Perry thanks Alys for all that she contributed to his London visits. He saw Zilliacus, "the leading Labour M.P. rebel." |
124281 | "I am so glad you both like Edith Finch's book." She provides Edith's address, new place, Bryn Mawr, PA. |
124282 | |
124283 | Morgan Phillips, secretary of the Labour Party, did great good for the anti-Communist parties during his recent Italian visit. |
124284 | Alys had visit from Judith and her two pretty babies. |
124285 | "Yes, thank goodness, the Communists did not win in the Italian elections, and you can stay on at I Tatti." |
124286 | Re B. Webb's Our Partnership: "She praises Bertie and me in our early life. His later wives do not come into it!" |
124287 | Alys has "just been recording two short B.B.C. talks on the old-fashioned factory girls and revolted daughters of 60 years ago. They are for the Women's Hour, and are very short, but are fairly lively." |
124288 | Alys is in hospital for observation of her alimentary canal. |
124289 | Alys had a U.S. tax refund. |
124290 | |
124291 | Ursula Darwin refuses to live with Julian Trevelyan any more, to Robert Trevelyan's dismay. |
124292 | "[Bernard] Shaw [in a letter to Alys] is too flattering, as I never had any offers of marriage after Bertie left, but then I didn't want them as I always loved him and still do. I hear that he says the newspaper story of his Norwegian swim was much exaggerated." |
124293 | Berenson's letter about Alys's BBC talk was the 65th she received. Now she will do one on "The Early Fabians". |
124294 | Her BBC talk brought her many letters, reporters and photographers, and she mentions one in the Evening Standard. |
124295 | "Judith was here on Saturday for the share out of Lucy Donnelly's clothes, sent to me by Edith Finch, and she had just been to lunch with 'Peter', Bertie's wife, after not having seen her for years. After lunch, a reporter rang her up asking for news of Bertie, who was reported drowned in that terrible Norwegian plane crash, and the poor woman was nearly distracted. |
124296 | Hiram J. McLendon quotes part of BR's letter to him in his (McLendon's) typescript, "The Philosopher among Philosophers", RA1 710.052829, pp. 26-7: "I had written him, as I often have, about points in his philosophy, also, on this occasion, about techniques for handling a graduate seminar I was conducting at Berkeley, and had expressed the hope of returning to London, where he then was still living, to visit with him again, and had inquired about Wittgenstein's abrupt retirement. In response after replying to points of inquiry and advising me on seminar procedures, and welcoming my proposed return visit, he then abruptly said …" |
124297 | BR finds arrangements to be satisfactory and perhaps Dr. Schultz would have lunch with "us" on the 3 days concerned. |
124298 | BR will talk over the topics while Wyatt is staying with the Crawshay-Williamses. |
124299 | "No". |
124300 | "No". |